Macbook Air M1 Long term review (software developer perspective)

[darngooddesign]

...When did Apple first allow a non-Apple display?

1976

 

[Aggedor]

Not sure about Monterey, but at least on Mojave with my older 27" iMac you can tweak macOS's font rendering to play nice with non-Retina displays again. You just have to copy/paste some Terminal commands and relaunch Finder.

Even though I've been spoiled a little my 14" MBP's Retina display, I think macOS still looks great at 1440p once font rendering's fixed!

Yeah, that font smoothing tweak was disabled in more recent versions of macOS, unfortunately.

 

[jdb8167]

Yeah, that font smoothing tweak was disabled in more recent versions of macOS, unfortunately.

The defaults command line still works to adjust font smoothing the last time I checked. On a M1 MacBook Air.

 

[Aggedor]

The defaults command line still works to adjust font smoothing the last time I checked. On a M1 MacBook Air.

I don't think it does in Monterey. There are a few other threads about it on this forum.

 

[archi penko]

Memory is memory, who was ever saying anything different? Sure, in memory starved situations ARM Macs will perform better but you still need to evaluate your needs and buy accordingly.

A lot of early tech reviewers (which I read and watched early on at the time) were saying something different:

 

[Krevnik]

Is there any good source that explains *why* that's incorrect, and the actual technical reasons behind Li-Ion battery degradation in general? I've heard all sorts of conflicting things about battery health and best practices for years but have never encountered a good resource explaining the underlying technical reasons behind it all, so it's hard to filter out mythology from useful advice.

It’s not so much the guidance of keeping batteries between 20-80% for longest lifespan is wrong, it isn’t. Deep discharge is also bad for Lithium batteries. It’s just folks tend to assume that battery management is dumb. Considering Lithium battery use in laptops/etc is a couple decades old at this point, there’s a lot of “common knowledge” that’s been built up around that history that wasn’t necessarily wrong at the time. But things aren’t static.

At some point, many battery controllers started “lying” about battery level when low to avoid a deep discharge situation, for example. Apple’s been integrating better charging behaviors into iOS and macOS the last few years that holds charge at 80% for you while plugged in, but uses the same behavior prediction Siri uses to determine the best time to charge up to 100%. Apple’s also started discharging the battery a little automatically when a laptop spends too much time plugged in. But some of this is quite recent for macOS. AlDente predates a good chunk of this work, but as Apple integrates more of this type of management into the OS directly, AlDente is less a necessity. That and put simply, batteries can still last a good long time without micromanaging them.

Another example of common knowledge that gets misunderstood is “charge slowly for better battery health”. It’s not wrong advice, but generally it’s been about keeping the battery under a particular temperature, and at or under 1C. That 1C number is important, as going over it will harm the battery’s lifespan. Modern integrated charge controllers will monitor battery temp, so unless you are working with raw cells that’s not a major concern. That said, historically, chargers were a lot lower than 1C, and many still are. My e-bike charger is at around 1/4C. Fast charge on an iPhone is about 1C. Fast charge on the new MBPs is about 1C. So while slower charging is better, people tend to think that chargers are faster than they really are. It’s actually hard to wind up charging above 1C with consumer electronics

 

[Argus500]

I like that you listed FIRST and foremost on considerations is RAM, and I also agree with you.

I know most here are talking about display, but the RAM… with 8GB the memory pressure I see is not satisfactory.

Specifically for the use case of development and Running multiple VMs… I’m only running the most lightweight server installs and I know it need more. 8GB is pushing it. 16GB however would easily be enough for this.

I wish this had been more widely known in the beginning. It’s a whole slog to sell my current one to get a another one with more. The hassle & time… and the wait if the March event will make any difference.

A good rule is 2GiB RAM per core. Arm or x86.

 

[jdb8167]

I don't think it does in Monterey. There are a few other threads about it on this forum.

I might not have tried it i n Monterey. I’ll check when I get a chance.

 

[MrAverigeUser]

Apple uses custom interrupt handling scheme for most stuff. Those interrupts are extremely lightweight and rely on hardware banked registers, the overhead is close to zero. The overall picture of course is more complicated since there are likely multiple processors involved in display stuff. But Apples implementation is generally optimized for extremely low latency. Your experience with old low-end ARM CPUs doesn’t apply here.

The problem, as I understand it, that displays are notoriously hard to do because they almost never follow the spec properly. There are tons of bugs and errata, and your display controller has to deal with all these crappy implementations. Other GPU makers have been dealing with this stuff for decades and have robust implementations, Apple is a newcomer here (it’s their first GPU to support third-party displays), so the initial implementation still had some issues.

There is a rumor that even the most basic M2 processor will have some more GPU cores than the M1 ... perhaps apple has already realized that the M1 processor is sort of underperforming for a certain percentage of user cases that are important enough to care about this problem ?

cheers

 

[darngooddesign]

There is a rumor that even the most basic M2 processor will have some more GPU cores than the M1 ... perhaps apple has already realized that the M1 processor is sort of underperforming for a certain percentage of user cases that are important enough to care about this problem ?

cheers

Yes. The regular M1 is underperforming for people who needed an M1-Pro/Max, but only had the M1 available for purchase. Now that the more powerful computers are available there is no reason to turn the M2 into an M2-Pro. when there is already going to be an M2-Pro.

 

[gradi]

Very heavy work load comparisons. Can't imagine anyone loading down their computer this much, but it shows what the limits are.

M1 Macs 8GB vs 16GB RAM - Multitasking STRESS Test

16GB vs 32GB RAM M1 Pro MacBook - Multitasking RAM TEST

In this video, we run various benchmarks like video editing, photo editing, programming, and much more between the 16GB RAM M1 Pro MacBook Pro and the 32GB RAM M1 Pro MacBook Pro!

We run all of these tests to find out if it's actually worth spending the extra $400 on the 32GB of RAM or NOT!

 

[sartorius]

I use my M1 Max with two Dell U2720Q 4k monitors with a CalDigit TS3 dock.

Works perfectly, 4k@60 on both, zero lag, and I even game (WoW) on one of the monitors and get the monitor maximum 60fps on high settings while having the other monitors still cranking at 4k/retina.

I think your experience depends on monitor + dock.

 

[leman]

There is a rumor that even the most basic M2 processor will have some more GPU cores than the M1 ... perhaps apple has already realized that the M1 processor is sort of underperforming for a certain percentage of user cases that are important enough to care about this problem ?

M1 is significantly faster than any other mobile system in its class… its a consumer platform after all. For more demanding workloads Apple has the prosumer Pro/Max series. Anyway, M2 will certainly bring generational improvements, probably 20-25%. The top M2 config should be roughly comparable with RTX 3050, at least the lower TDP variants.

 

[oz_rkie]

M1 is significantly faster than any other mobile system in its class… its a consumer platform after all. For more demanding workloads Apple has the prosumer Pro/Max series. Anyway, M2 will certainly bring generational improvements, probably 20-25%. The top M2 config should be roughly comparable with RTX 3050, at least the lower TDP variants.

You are right to an extent but not completely. You need to specify if you mean price class or power consumption class. Yes, by power consumption the M1 is significantly faster than any other mobile system in that TDP class.

By price, not so much, which is made trickier by the fact that you can't just go any buy an m1 cpu, you have to buy the macbook air. You can easily buy a competing laptop at both the air 7core gpu and 8core gpu price points that will compete or beat the macbook air in both cpu and gpu performance. They won't be nearly as efficient, or well built and will likely run out of battery much faster though.

The above will also apply to the pro/max categories.

 

[leman]

You are right to an extent but not completely. You need to specify if you mean price class or power consumption class. Yes, by power consumption the M1 is significantly faster than any other mobile system in that TDP class.

By price, not so much, which is made trickier by the fact that you can't just go any buy an m1 cpu, you have to buy the macbook air. You can easily buy a competing laptop at both the air 7core gpu and 8core gpu price points that will compete or beat the macbook air in both cpu and gpu performance. They won't be nearly as efficient, or well built and will likely run out of battery much faster though.

The above will also apply to the pro/max categories.

I mean product class. It’s designed for the ultraportable business all-round laptop segment. Other computers from that segment include Dell XPS 13, Surface Laptop, Lenovo Carbon X etc.

 

[oz_rkie]

I mean product class. It’s designed for the ultraportable business all-round laptop segment. Other computers from that segment include Dell XPS 13, Surface Laptop, Lenovo Carbon X etc.

Ok, yeah fair point. You would be hard pressed to find a better performing laptop than the m1 air in that category at least for the moment.

 

[chengengaun]

Battery - As mentioned, both my airs are plugged in and lid closed pretty much 24x7. One of them that gets a lot more use than the other now has its battery condition showing as 92% while the other relatively lesser used is still at 100%. As, I've not had an apple laptop before these, I don't know how this compares but I feel there is no issue here.

There had been plenty of discussions above about AlDente and I won't go too much into it, other than to say I do personally use it but think it is less important than I imagined. One thing about battery condition/capacity is that it might become inaccurate over time if the Mac is plugged in all or most of the time; it will be good to cycle the battery to calibrate the displayed measurement.

Having used the 14" MBP for three months, I presume the lower average operating temperature of the system has some beneficial effects on battery health. The i9 16" ran so hot that the battery temperature stayed high practically all the time the Mac was on; usually above 35 deg C (95 deg F). The battery capacity degraded rather quickly. It did not help that I used 100% CPU utilisation a fair amount of the time.

Meanwhile, the 14" temperature is usually very low and the fans don't turn on when doing light tasks. The battery temperature rarely exceeds 35 deg C. I presume it is similar for M1 MBA (except that it doesn't have a fan). So far the battery retains 99% of capacity after 3 months, which seems much better than the i9 16" (I think about 95/96%).

 

[alien3dx]

A lot of early tech reviewers (which I read and watched early on at the time) were saying something different:

View attachment 1965357

My 16 GB ram macbook 2011 ain't fast enough like 2017 , but less crash when my imac 2017 got 8 GB ram. My macbook m1 arm 8 GB also sometime crash . RAM is RAM .. When it need it used the space not use the space till unwanted need put into second memory in disk drive(swap) or anything. The main point developer need to optimize memory usage not to used all ram as it is.(developer here)

 

[ch1ptune]

Excellent post. I’m curious - are the issues only related to clamshell mode? I’ve used my M1 MBA with several different external displays (mirrored and extended desktop) with no issues at all.

 

[imp3rator]

I use my M1 Air almost one year only in clamshell mode and no issues at all with USB to hdmi HUB to QHD Philips monitors or USB-C cable to 4k/60 400HDR - LG Monitor 27UP850 with PD and usb hub ... USB-C monitor is better because has a faster (instant) wakeup

 

[macmac30]

Hey guys, I just thought I'd post a semi-detailed long term review of the M1 macbook air from a software developer perspective, in case it might help others make a purchase decision. I have 2 m1 macbook airs, one is a 256gb ssd 8gb unified memory version and the other is a 512gb ssd 16gb unified memory version. Both have the 7core gpu, since I have no use for gpu cores in my use cases. I bought these fairly close to the release date, I think a couple weeks after. I've been using these laptops daily for well over a year now. These are my first apple laptops by the way. I've primarily used only windows and linux OSes in the past although I have used various other apple products like ipad and iphones.

TLDR: Good laptop with a very efficient chip but with major deal-breaking external display issues. Possibly avoid purchase. My personal summary for these laptops is that, while they are good laptops, the external display issues are complete deal breakers for my current setup. If I had known about these issues before my purchases, I would definitely not buy. Additionally, I would not buy the 8gb unified memory version for software development use cases. Also, for those that might be asking why not the macbook pro, well I bought the airs very close to the initial release, so the airs were the only choice back then.

My use case
I am a full stack developer and my main use case comprises of using mainly these programs - VScode, iTerm, Fork (git client), nodejs, npm and pnpm, docker desktop for mac, slack, microsoft teams, postman and a lot of browser tabs. I do have rosetta 2 installed but surprisingly mostly everything now has native arm builds.

My setup
I use both the airs in closed lid clamshell mode most of the time (90%+), connected to external display. I originally had them connected to my main ultrawide, an LG 38gl950b (this is a very high end gaming monitor that I also use with my windows gaming desktop) but due to the major problems I've had with the m1 macbooks on this display (more on this later), I am now using a Benq EW3270u which is a 32" 4k monitor that I had bought a while ago for my playstation. It has a usb-c connection that does dsiplay as well as charge the macbook. Thing to note is that the macbooks still have display issues even with the Benq but to a much lesser extent.

Pros

1. Fast chip - No surprises here. The arm chips are pretty snappy. Before this, I used to use my main PC which is an i9 9900k based desktop and in most normal use cases the m1 airs seem to be cruising along no issues and I cannot notice any major differences compared to my experience on the i9 9900k desktop. I use javascript/typescript and esbuild along with dotnet core for the most part. Your mileage may vary if you use other more heavy compilers.
2. Efficient - While the desktop chip obviously has higher raw performance, the m1 arm chips definitely do not hold you back and impressively at a fraction of the power. While the efficiency is unmatched currently by any other chips, I must point out that there are other mobile chips that will beat out the m1s (even the pro and max) for code compile performance pretty handily, especially the new alder lake chips. Obviously at a much higher power draw but whether that additional power draw is an issue or not is for you to decide. For my personal use case, our incremental dev builds using esbuild are fast enough already that a higher power CPU would not make a great deal of a difference in terms of local developer experience and our proper full builds with testing etc. are done on a cloud based CI system anyway so a quiet no fan macbook m1 air is a pretty good device for this type of use case.
3. Build quality - As mentioned, these are my first apple laptops and I find that the build quality is extremely high. I don't think these are the best looking laptops, subjective I know but I feel something like an almost no bezel dell xps or even the lenovo carbon x1 designs look better but there is no denying that the apple build quality lives up to the hype.
4. Display - The built in display I feel is great, no complains here. Bezels are a bit large but as noted in my use case, I have the laptops closed 90%+ of the time anyway so this is not an area where I can comment further.

Considerations

1. RAM (unified memory) - This is not a knock on the m1 air which is why I am putting this under the 'Considerations' category. When I originally bought my first m1, I bought the 8gb version mainly based on the initial reviews that were saying the new unified memory architecture made it so that the 8gb version did a lot more than other traditional memory based devices could. Sadly, this is not strictly true. While, I do think that the 8gb version does go pretty far, there is still a point where you will start struggling. Again, I am not holding this against the m1, just noting it here to say that you should buy more RAM if you feel your use case will require it. And for programming, I can safely say that you will. For me, with multiple VScode windows open, lots of browser tabs (I've tried both the native Safari and chrome/edge), a few terminal windows, the 8gb version can quickly get to a point where its just downright unusable. Sluggish, the rainbow mouse wheel etc. Just not usable essentially. The 16gb version is fine, so far I've never seen it become sluggish under heavy use even with tons of programs and browser tabs running. So, if your use case demands it, go for the 16gb version.
2. Battery - As mentioned, both my airs are plugged in and lid closed pretty much 24x7. One of them that gets a lot more use than the other now has its battery condition showing as 92% while the other relatively lesser used is still at 100%. As, I've not had an apple laptop before these, I don't know how this compares but I feel there is no issue here.

The Problem

This is where the entire experience just goes south for me atleast (many others also have documented the same issues). The m1 chips seem to have some very serious issues with many external displays (from various manufacturers and various different models). The issues vary from major flickering, vertical lines/bands on the screen, serious ghosting, display signal limited to YPBPR instead of full RGB and temporary image retention/burn-in issues etc. There are various forum posts all over the internet, even detailed threads here like

M1 Air ghosting, flickering with external display

Going to post my issue here to document what happens with my setup. I have this same issue of vertical lines appearing and the screen flickering. Apparently it happens randomly, and luckily only just three or four times per month. Today it happened when I visited the Slack website using Safari...

forums.macrumors.com

M1 Air ghosting, flickering with external display

So I just hooked up my old 2005FPW Dell monitor and here's what I get. Is this impossible on my new M1 Mac Pro? I'm connected with a new ZMUIPNG Hub with an HDMI adaptor going into a VGA cable to this old monitor. I'd rather not replace it, if it can be made to work. I'd call Apple but that...

forums.macrumors.com

M1 Air ghosting, flickering with external display

Also been experiencing this intermittent vertical lines issue and some left images. Macbook Pro M1, the monitor is a 27"1080p 144Hz IPS from Acer VG0 line.

forums.macrumors.com

M1 Air ghosting, flickering with external display

My M1 MacBook Air has a serious problem with external displays. Pinging the brains here in case there are any ideas more convenient than sending back to Apple. Connecting directly via a known-good USB-C to DisplayPort cable, my Dell U2713HM (1) flickers, (2) shows vertical lines, and (3) mixes...

forums.macrumors.com

Flickering vertical lines on M1 Mac Mini

I recently purchased an Intel Mac Mini (running 10.15.7), but after seeing all the positive reviews of the M1 quickly decided to go with the M1 instead. I just received my M1 (running 11.1) a couple days ago and I have noticed that there are very noticeable flickering vertical lines all over the...

forums.macrumors.com

M1 Mac External Display - Fuzzy Fonts & Colors - YPBPR vs RGB

Hi All! Long time windows users transitioning to Mac. Old setup was a Dell Latitude hooked up to a Dell Ultrasharp U2415, one at home, and the other at work (laptop carried to and fro). Bought a M1 Macbook Air, and am absolutely thrilled with the performance, and with the fluidity of the...

forums.macrumors.com

Unfortunately for me, I've experienced pretty much all of these issues with my main monitor the LG 38GL950B. Major flickering, vertical lines, image retention, no RGB signal, the whole 9 yards. I've been using this monitor for nearly 2 years (and still do) with my i9 9900k/rtx gpu windows gaming PC running flawlessly with full RGB signal with no issues but as soon as I bring the m1 into the equation, its just a dealbreaker. I've tried numerous things like using the caldigit TS3 dock to connect to the monitor, use various expensive 4k/8k hdmi cables, various fixes and workaround, various display setting combinations, initially even sent back the macbook m1 (in its 30 day period) and bought a new one with the exact same issue. The issue has been present from day 1 and still is even with the lastest macos version which seems to suggest to me that this is a hardware level issue. Apple obviously is completely silent on the issue. Maybe it does not affect a large enough % of users to make it worthwhile for them to fix.

I've since switched to using the m1 macbooks with a Benq EW3270u. This monitor fairs a bit better than my LG. There still are some minor temporary vertical lines and some temporary flickering but for the most part the experience is issue free, lets say 95% of the time which makes it useable.

I don't know what the exact issue is and it is possible that these monitors are also not completely blameless. Maybe they are doing something incorrectly which along with the m1s issues combine to cause these problems, no idea. But the fact is that I've been using both these monitors well before I bought the m1s and have had 0 issues using these with my windows machine or my playstations. The only machine that results in issues on both these monitors is both the m1 macbooks and other users experiencing this issue also have the m1 chip as the only common thread.

Bottomline: These laptops are overall great and if you know that you have a known good external monitor to use with these, then I can recommend it as a good laptop to buy. However, if you are not sure that you have a known good monitor to use, then its quite possible that it will become a monitor lottery issue. For me personally, the experience has been less than ideal and crucially, I feel that Apple's complete silence is a bit of a bummer. In any case, I will be waiting a bit longer to see if these issues are fixed with the m2 chips. If they are not, I will be selling my m1 airs to buy a non apple device. However, if these issues do get properly resolved with the m2 chips, then it is quite likely that I will purchase the m2 based chips.

Let me know if you have any questions and I will try my best to answer.

I upgraded from a 2019 16" MBP with i7 to a 16" MBP M1 Pro. I use it 99%+ in clamshell mode. I have a Samsung 49" G9 curved monitor (love it). I had zero problems with the Intel MBP connecting to the monitor with USB C. With the MBP M1 Pro, the monitor was basically unusable with USB C. Initially, I had to unplug the USB C cable from the MBP and replug it to get it to wake up. Once awake, I would get annoying flickering when I would scroll certain parts of certain pages in Safari. I would set the Display to 120hz in Display / System Preferences but it seemed to always jump back to 60hz when I would check. I had to resort to using HDMI and that worked well but was slower. It would wake up when I clicked my mouse or tapped the spacebar and no flickers. Fast forward to the latest MacOS 12.3 betas and I'm back to using a USB C cable with no problems waking up and no problems with flickers. I have also been religiously updating the firmware on this G9 monitor (fw 1015.2 currently). You may be thinking that these monitor firmware updates are solving the problem. They may be helping but they only come every 2-3 months and in between that timeframe, I am updating to the latest MacOS betas weekly and seeing improvements in using USB C vs HDMI. So, your mileage my vary, but my setup is pretty reliable now (thank God - that was a long road that my spouse would not put up with!!!)

 

[MauiPa]

I mentioned an out of synch color profile earlier, and you rightly mentioned that would "probably" not cause issues as mentioned on the display. But my point, perhaps not said clearly, was that the display seems not in the same synch with the M1. Is the firmware up to date? are there settings that can be made on monitor (actually I had to change a few to get it to display correctly). This sounds like the same issue to me, it sounds more like settings on the display

 

[oz_rkie]

I mentioned an out of synch color profile earlier, and you rightly mentioned that would "probably" not cause issues as mentioned on the display. But my point, perhaps not said clearly, was that the display seems not in the same synch with the M1. Is the firmware up to date? are there settings that can be made on monitor (actually I had to change a few to get it to display correctly). This sounds like the same issue to me, it sounds more like settings on the display

How would it be settings on the display? This is a display that works flawlessly with every other device plugged into it, including Apple's own past intel based macbooks and a 2014 intel based mac mini.

And I apologise in advance but I don't quite understand what 'the display not being in sync with the m1 means' ? If there is some secret sauce setting that somehow the m1 chips need that no other device needs, then Apple should make this known explicitly so that end users don't have to guess around and play monitor lottery.

 

[mr_roboto]

A good rule is 2GiB RAM per core. Arm or x86.

That is a terrible rule. It is extremely rare for RAM needs to be determined by how many CPU cores the computer has.

The good rule is to buy as much RAM as you need for the applications you run. (And, for some applications, the data files you work on, as RAM use can vary based on data file size.)

 

[mr_roboto]

The graphics compatibility issues Apple is facing with the M1 are very likely related to the display controller they choose to integrate. The architecture is that the GPU needs to feed framebuffer data to the controller, but the controller is responsible for the DisplayPort handshake and transmission. Pair that with Apple's heavily reliance on GPU compositing for UI, and the CPU really is just used for configuring the display controller (selecting video modes/etc), not feeding it any data.

The display controller is called DCP (exact acronym expansion unknown), and each DCP contains a single ASC coprocessor core (an Apple custom microcontroller design codenamed "Chinook" which apparently implements 64-bit Arm v8, just like the main CPUs). The DCP's coprocessor runs a firmware blob distributed with each macOS release. This firmware is essentially the bottom half of the macOS display driver, offloading many low level tasks from the main CPU.

In principle many of these problems with specific displays should be addressable with DCP firmware updates. There's a ton of finicky little details to get right when handshaking with random monitors that each have random firmware and silicon revisions, many of which are buggy and require workarounds. This is the advantage enjoyed by traditional PC graphics vendors like ATI/AMD, Nvidia, and even Intel - they've got decades of institutional experience and bug/quirk databases guiding the engineers who do the equivalent stuff at the bottom of their display controller tech stacks.

Okay, I see. Well, I have my fingers crossed that when the new Mac Mini and Macbook Air finally come out that Apple (in the top 4 richest companies in the world - 2021 revenue $366b, profit $163b) can somehow find the money and employees (154k employees) to fix the problems. Especially since being such a big, high profile, wildly successful company they can easily hire away any talent they need. We aren't talking about a garage operation anymore.

With this kind of interoperability stuff, it's often not about how much money you can throw at the problem. It's just time. It's essentially impossible to acquire and test an example of every single monitor (and every single hardware and firmware revision of each monitor) which a user might try to plug in, so it takes time to collect user bug reports, work out what's going on, try to fix the problems, and ship fixes.

My complaint with Apple is that they do a really bad job of communicating with users about not just this specific issue, but bugs in general. A public bug database where people could see at least some of the comments made by their engineers would do wonders - it would let us know whether they're aware of a given problem, what they're able to do to fix it, and when and in what form relief will come. One of the bad legacies of Steve Jobs is that under his guidance Apple became super obsessed with secrecy. They don't want to do anything which might tip people off to future plans, and public bug databases are one of the ways for such information to leak, so Apple does far less of that kind of thing than other companies.