Questions on performance of M1 Macs for some everyday tasks

[il_teo77]

I am seriously thinking of replacing my almost obsolete mid-2014 MBP (Big Sur latest version) with a new Apple Silicon Mac. I probably won't jump on M1 Macs but wait for the next CPU/GPU or beefed up version of the Silicon.
I have read a ton of reviews, almost all of them focused on browsing and/or video converting. None of them very helpful to me. So I wonder if there's some M1 owners here who have the time to answer some of my questions, based on my user profile. I am aware that my questions are mostly due to the age of my Mac and a new Intel model would perform substantially better anyway. Yet, I would like to know specifically how a 1M performs.

- Does the M1 apply changes to videos in Photos (such as the magic wand filter) smoother and faster? (my MBP fans spin like crazy when doing this simple operation on a 30" clip)

- Does search for files improve?

- Does MS Word and MS Excel perform OK? Better? Worse?

- Does Mail, especially search in Mail, perform fast?

- Does TimeMachine work fast? Does it slow down the Mac while doing backup?


Are there other everyday tasks where you see the Mac perform better which you would like to point out? Thank you.

 

[Spindel]

1 Does the M1 apply changes to videos in Photos (such as the magic wand filter) smoother and faster? (my MBP fans spin like crazy when doing this simple operation on a 30" clip)

2 Does search for files improve?

3 Does MS Word and MS Excel perform OK? Better? Worse?

4 Does Mail, especially search in Mail, perform fast?

5 Does TimeMachine work fast? Does it slow down the Mac while doing backup?


6 Are there other everyday tasks where you see the Mac perform better which you would like to point out? Thank you.

I've numbered your questions and answer to the corresponding number.

1: I can't answer this since that's not what I do on my computer. I have a M1 Mini and so far I have never heard the fan spin up, no matter what I have done on it in my usual work flow.

2: Haven't tried it, but to me the spotlight searches I do feel identical to my 2013 27" iMac (meaning it has always been fast)

3: If I didn't know it was under rosetta I wouldn't think of it being translated. First app start takes a while but after that it runs like on any computer I've used (meaning Teams and OneDrive still eat ram etc). But if you compare to iWorks you really notice the difference, mainly in startup times.

4: As with number 2 I notice no difference for myself, with that said I never had problems with it being slow in the first place.

5: Yes, TM is noticably faster for me, I back up to a NAS so I'm bottle necked by my 1 gbps network when it comes to speed, usually I never reached the theoretical limit before and still don't, but TM is noticeably faster. But I suspect this is more of a Big Sur feature than an M1 feature.


6: Over all responsiveness of the system is hard to describe, you almost have to work on a M1 computer for a couple of hours to get what I mean.

 

[ADonmall]

- Does MS Word and MS Excel perform OK? Better? Worse?

Excel is definitely quicker for formulas and larger files, I had a VBA script which took over 2 minutes to run on my 2015 MBP, it took less than 30 seconds on M1 mini. Performance much better.

 

[Spindel]

Excel is definitely quicker for formulas and larger files, I had a VBA script which took over 2 minutes to run on my 2015 MBP, it took less than 30 seconds on M1 mini. Performance much better.

Yeah I can add to this, should have said it in my first post.

I have a monster excel file that I "benchmarked" the M1 with, on my old iMac it took 7 minutes to preform the operation on the M1 it took 2 min.

 

[il_teo77]

Hi there to you all. THANK YOU A LOT for the clarifications. Not so much for removing the last hurdles to a not so cheap purchase... But I guess it truly came the time to pension my mid-2014 MBP. Because mundane tasks, which I perform a lot and daily, seem to dramatically improve under M1. Also... Battery life on my MBP is "not bad for its age" but far from what I would like. Again. THANK YOU.