Is anyone else blown away by how fast these M1 MacBooks are?

[BradMacPro]

Windows machines are still preferred for supporting a desktop computer or a high-end portable with a better discrete graphics sub-system than any Mac supports. Gamers want a high-end graphics system. Mac laptops did not have the hardware needed or at least optional. 27" iMacs used mobile graphics chips in most cases and integrated graphics in the 21.5" iMac for almost all options. The Mac Pro was too expensive compared to a Windows tower with a high end card. So even if you used a Mac in Boot Camp, the hardware was still poor compared to what was available for a Windows gamer. So with crappy graphics hardware on the Mac side almost always, the gamers used a fancy Windows machine for PC games. A serious gamer will probably also have a xbox and a playstation for those games as well. While the M1 based low-end machines may be marvelous to a Mac user, a gamer will say it shows promise. A M1X or M2, whatever they call the next iteration with a better GPU section, may finally sway a developer to work on a new cool game for the Mac. When a Mac can play at the level of a Windows desktop machine that has a NVIDIA RTX 3000 series graphics card to support the latest games, then we may finally see the Mac attract game developers and thus gamers. Ask anyone about VR goggles. No Macs as their graphics systems all suck compared to what is available to Windows users. Sure there are sucky integrated graphics low end laptops and all in ones that a gamer wouldn't look at. But there are some laptops with graphics chips better than the M1 and desktops with far better cards. For an integrated solution the M1 is great, but the gamers are looking for far more. They are also after faster than 60 Hz refresh rates. This needs a good graphics system that can keep up. Apple may go faster, but unless they support the 120 Hz ProMotion on a Mac, it won't interest a gamer. FYI, ProMotion is available on a iPad Pro, so it's conceivable that a future M1X/M2/M3 Mac can have it too. It uses a lot of power, so I can see a future iMac with a much higher power budget offer it. Of course they have a much higher resolution screen that needs more GPU to actually run, so a double refresh in the same time needs twice the horsepower.

 

[theSeb]

That is just weird at that should not be happing unless reddit is doing something totally off the wall gonzo. Is it with all browsers (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, etc) or just certain ones? I have a problem with Google's Public Data explorer on Safari (blank page) but it works fine through Chrome and Firefox.

It happens in safari with various script heavy websites on intel Macs too. I’ve seen that message on my Mac Pro quite a few times. Perhaps that message needs to be reworded, or the trigger for it should be set less aggressively.

 

[jijo0068]

I have an 2019 iMac at work but now with COVID I need to work from home so I had a 2019 Intel MacBook Air that I used for traveling. Started using it atHome instead and I was frustrated, it was so slow and it could barley run Teams, Zoom, Outlook and the occasional Excel work that is about what I do for work. Mostly meetings, it was so warm I could barley keep my hands on it after a couple of hours of Zoom. Battery lasted all but 1-2 hours. I also had a 16gb model. I gave up and bought a base model M1 MacBook Air. The difference is night and day. It is amazing how a computer can from one model to another can be so different. I work on it for 8+ hours a day and most times I do not need to charge it at all, for some reason a couple of times it has drained faster and if you use virtual backgrounds in Zoom it eats battery. Also the keyboard is so much better. I cannot be happier, I was so happy I bought a M1 MacBook Pro to use as my personal machine. I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

 

[Mimiron]

Yeah, I bought a Macbook Air for my mom, and it's blazing fast. I can't wait for desktops with M1 chips. I find Windows too unreliable at times, and I will switch to an iMac when it hits shelves.

 

[jclardy]

I do iOS development, so running Xcode, Figma, sketch, safari, iOS simulator all at the same time. The M1 Air is just as fast as my i9 2020 16" MacBook Pro in compilation time, but in terms of responsiveness it blows it out of the water.

But even more incredible to me is the battery life. I used to have to think about battery with the 16" - if I wasn't fully charged then I couldn't take it elsewhere (for ~3 hours) to do work. With the M1 I can easily go two days in some cases. It is mind blowing how it can have battery life, speed and produce essentially zero heat. The new MacBook Pro's are going to be insane.

Oh yeah, and as an external monitor user - it is night and day. Absolutely seamless plugging this in at my desk. My 16" takes a good 5-10 seconds to swap displays.

 

[PHMA]

I am impressed by the speed.
But I am not at all impressed about all sorts of issues of my MBP M1. Bluetooth connection problems, USB-C connections with attached hardware not working as it should, and all sorts of other problems.

Horrible, didn't have these problems with my previous MBP 15 i7.

 

[playtech1]

The M1 MacBook Air is the kind of laptop you can wholeheartedly recommend to friends and family, in a way that has not been the case (for me at least) since the 2014 Air and 2015 MacBook Pros were replaced.

It performs very well in just about any situation, is cool to the touch and silent, great speakers, decent keyboard without any wackiness, excellent screen, excellent battery life.

The laptop it reminds me of is the revision of the pre-retina MacBook Air from the early 2010s, which by the standards of the day also excelled in these categories.

 

[Maximara]

It happens in safari with various script heavy websites on intel Macs too. I’ve seen that message on my Mac Pro quite a few times. Perhaps that message needs to be reworded, or the trigger for it should be set less aggressively.

Does it happen with other browsers or just Safari? To be fair to Safari there has always been this write to the browser rather then the spec mentality and that may be the issue. Safari may be going the HTML guidelines while these sites are writing to Chrome.

 

[mi7chy]

Its reddit. Other users confirmed it on their macs as well.

It's Safari and not Reddit. I browse Reddit even on 4GB devices with Chrome and it's fine.

 

[Ursadorable]

I think most people are very impressed. It just highlights how far behind Intel processors are.

Fixed that for you.

 

[atomwork]

The reviews are pretty good so far. Anyone here doing 3D rendering with GPU or AfterEffects work that can lend feedback towards those professionals working with apple? What's the experience like? I know the M1 doesn't even come to close to the RTX 2080TI or 3090. I don't like to work with windows 10 that much, but have to if I need to render with GPUs

 

[theSeb]

Does it happen with other browsers or just Safari? To be fair to Safari there has always been this write to the browser rather then the spec mentality and that may be the issue. Safari may be going the HTML guidelines while these sites are writing to Chrome.

I can't say if it happens with other browsers because I've stopped using them on the Mac a few years ago.

Chrome consumes resources on both Windows and MacOS at an alarming rate and uses far more CPU than its competitors so I gave it the boot. I use Safari on the Mac and Edge and Firefox on Windows.

 

[jonnysods]

Something that I didn't quite understand was certain application load times. For example the Affinity Photo/Designer suite had their apps updated for AS, however it takes ages for the app to open - between 10-15 seconds easily. On my intel Mac it takes about 3 seconds. Just struck me as odd.

Now for everything else - thing was a freaking rocket.

 

[Leon88]

I upgraded from a 2017 15" MBP (Core i7 2.9 GHz) to the 13" M1 MBP. From a performance standpoint, the M1 beats my old 15" in every way. The thing that still amazes me to this day is it outperforms the 15" while staying cool and silent. I haven't had a task that actually made the fan run audible yet. Even better, I only need to charge it every 3-4 days! It actually takes some effort to drain the battery past 50%.

I do have my complaints though. The 2 USB-C ports on the M1 is a clear downgrade from the 15" but I guess that's a given since these M1's are considered "low-tier" in Apple's MacBook roadmap. It still baffles me that Apple didn't place a USB-C port on each side of the MacBook. That would at least solve some cable management limitations. The webcam is still an abysmal 720p and it shows during video calls. Either way, they aren't critical flaws and I'm sure things are only looking upwards from here on.

 

[nph]

I picked up a M1 MBP with 8GB RAM in early December for work. Was doing some rather heavy video editing so I decided to return it for a 16GB model in early January. I just received the new computer and back at it again. Using Adobe Premier Beta and so far so good. I currently have four windows open and as I export large video files I am typing this reply and listening to music and remoting into my Mac Pro in another room.

So did you see a big difference with 16 vs 8 Gig in your daily tasks? Curious since i have 8 gig version but at the same time rarely exports large video files.

 

[BootLoxes]

Something that I didn't quite understand was certain application load times. For example the Affinity Photo/Designer suite had their apps updated for AS, however it takes ages for the app to open - between 10-15 seconds easily. On my intel Mac it takes about 3 seconds. Just struck me as odd.

Now for everything else - thing was a freaking rocket.

This is strange for me too. I noticed that there is quite a delay before the launch. It runs great, but I have been using pixelmator pro more lately just because it launches faster

 

[Isaiah408]

This purchase was a no-brainer for me. The M1 is fast and everything works for me e.g. Bluetooth, etc. I am also loving the small form factor coming from a 15".

 

[culo77]

I am not blown away by the speeds.

I am coming from a mid-2009 15in macbook pro. yes 2009. With a patched version of Mojave, upgraded ssd, and only 4gb of ram. It is a strong and still fast computer. For my use the M1 Air is really not that much faster, nothing for me to be blown away about.

Now what I am exceptionally blown away about is the Battery life, and the fact that it never heats up and I have no fans spinning like a jet engine taking off. Besides these everything else has been "Meh".

 

[panjandrum]

I came from Commodore Amiga 1200 (AGA) which never really took off, we hardly got new software or hardware. Apple not tricking me with this M1 crap. I want to see Pc game and software developers, start porting the wares over to this new tech. M1 been out for awhile. Bethesda hasnt updated Fallout shelter and Blades to run on macs. Alot companies havent came over to m1.

Ultimately if the platform won't run what you need or want it to run it's worthless to you, no matter how well-designed it otherwise is. There won't be an M chip in my next VR Rig, because that absolutely, positively, has to be a full Windows rig. Nothing else will work. Even if Apple builds chips twice as fast, it just won't matter.

But my point really was just that I keep seeing people "blown away" by the performance (they really mean responsiveness most of the time), and yes, it is absolutely fantastic. But my guess is that the only reason these people are "blown away" by it is because they've only used Macs and (non-custom-built) Windows machines. As someone who used other, extremely responsive, platforms in the past, I'm very happy to finally see a Mac that's 'fast enough' that I never feel like I'm waiting on it. Responsiveness and ultimate 'power' aren't necessarily the same thing. Think of lumbering diesel Hummer vs. Lotus Elise. Which is more powerful? Which is faster? Give me the Lotus any day. That's they way I like my computers to respond also: how fast they react to ME and allow me to get my work done (responsiveness) is more important than ultimate power. I can export a long iMovie when I go to sleep, so I don't usually care if it takes 60 minutes or 120 minutes to do so. But if the computer is responsive enough that it saved me 15 minutes of work while I put the project together? Now *that* is important. The M1s, so far, are *finally* giving me the experience on the Mac that I want when it comes to responsiveness. No other Mac, no matter how 'powerful' ever has.

It still remains to be seen if Apple can maintain competitiveness against AMD (and Intel? Will they bounce back?) into the future. AMD just announced a new laptop chip that's supposedly very, very good. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. Keeping my fingers crossed that Apple can stay competitive and that their chips force AMD and Intel to really up the game.

 

[roncron]

How great is the M1 MBA? So great I can't think of any meaningful ways it could improve.

Smaller bezels, 2 more usb c ports on the other side

But, yeah, im with you, it is amazing, even the base model

 

[Johnny907]

Not really. I do appreciate the lack of heat build up though.

 

[hr10]

Anyone finds Safari isnt very smooth when scrolling? Is this an issue w/ Big Sur or M1 macs?

 

[roncron]

Anyone finds Safari isnt very smooth when scrolling? Is this an issue w/ Big Sur or M1 macs?

Perfectly smooth on my M1 MBA. But I’ve seen other reports of this issue over on the BS RC3 forum and it seems more like a BS thing than an M1 thing.

 

[wpalomine]

MBA is fast, but more impressed by the silence, temps, battery life... and price The total package is quite formidable.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I am impressed by the speed.
But I am not at all impressed about all sorts of issues of my MBP M1. Bluetooth connection problems, USB-C connections with attached hardware not working as it should, and all sorts of other problems.

Horrible, didn't have these problems with my previous MBP 15 i7.

There might be some hardware issues with your M1. I have had none of those issues. Not one. Can you return it and try another?