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What are you MOST impressed by, with your M1 Mac?

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bill-p

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Jul 23, 2011
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DaveOZ said:
This is what I'm wanting too. The Air M1 that I bought was just to "play" with and test. I will hand it on to my kids when a real M1 base MacBook Pro 16 comes out.
Click to expand...

Yeah, realistically speaking... I think it depends on use case a lot. Some people are justifiably excited about M1 even in comparison to their 16" MacBook, but personally, I think I push the machine a bit harder than most folks, and so I'm looking forward to a proper 16" MacBook with Apple Silicon chip that will completely blow me away in terms of performance.

M1 is competitive against the Core i9 in my old 16" at its best (no thermal throttling due to weird external monitor issue), which is already a good sign. If the next chip is a good grade above M1, plus can last up to 30 hours on battery (makes sense considering the 16" has almost 70% more battery capacity than 13") then I'll hit the purchase button as soon as it comes up on the store.
 
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bill-p

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Jul 23, 2011
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VitoBotta said:
I tried it with the Linux VM as shown by some recent guides, but for some reason the VM was unstable and crashed often so I couldn't actually working with it. For this reason I'm using a cheap VPS as a remote engine instead.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I had to make some small changes to the source code for my machine, then build it for myself. I'm not sure if it's config-dependent, but it's likely not very stable right now. Chief among stability issues is probably the NVMe driver.

But other than that, VM works reasonably well for me when I need it. I do still have my own cloud server to run most stuffs on, but it's nice to have a VM when I know I'll be without internet connection for a while.
 
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Kelly Jones

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Aug 16, 2007
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bill-p said:
Well, speed is okay. I'm used to the Core i9 in MacBook Pro 16" now so... this is somewhat just about the same as what I had before. <- meaning "I'm impressed, but probably not as much as many others". Some apps still feel like they are lagging a bit, but I'd fully expect them to perform better when they are compiled for arm64.

I do like how the machine runs very cool and quiet most of the time despite that level of computing performance.

Graphics... well, is a major step back compared to the 16" for me. I still feel like the 16" is 2-3x faster in most cases. Games that could run 2560 x 1440 @ 60fps almost max settings are now down to about 1440 x 900 medium settings with "almost" 60fps. Granted, though, both cooling and battery life are very impressive still when gaming. The 16" wouldn't last longer than 2 hours with the same game, whereas M1 Pro can probably do 5 - 6 hours. So... at least gaming on the go is now more feasible.

I do like how the community has moved fairly quickly to address the missing pieces of the puzzle. We now have full Linux VM (and Docker works!), plus more and more brew packages are fixed as daily, so my workflow is almost at a point where I can say that it's "on par" with how I had my Intel Mac set up, and I'm not missing much, if anything.

This probably also seems trivial, but... I'm actually most impressed with the responsiveness of the Touch Bar. It feels faster than it is on my 16" MacBook, and it can now keep up with my typing speed (I assign some special shortcut keys to Touch Bar).

I've got the Pro M1 16GB 1TB, by the way. I like the machine, but it's only making me very curious how the 16" with M1X will be. I do miss the extra graphics horsepower and the screen real estate.
Click to expand...
M1 Macbook Air 8/512 coming from a 2018 i9 w/32GB ram, 1TB ssd. The most noticeable positive difference is how cool and quiet it runs. My i9 would get so hot that it caused the glass sheet that protects the wood of my desk to crack. The next most noticeable thing is that everyday tasks and interactions are very, very fast, though not enormously faster than the i9. Compatibility with x86 apps via Rosetta is truly amazing. With respect to gaming, I don't game a lot, but Star Craft II runs better on the 2018 i9 likely due to the dedicated Radeon 560x. On the M1 when I set the resolution to 2560x1440 for my external monitor, the gameplay is not smooth when moving around the screen, even on medium or low settings. At 1920x1080 on medium settings, it runs perfectly. There is one odd bug with playing SC2 in full screen mode at 1920x1080. When I switch to back to the desktop, the desktop shrinks itself to 1920x1080. If I quit SC2, the problem goes away. It's an odd effect. In summary, the M1 Air is the nicest computer I've bought in a long, long time. As a general purpose computer, it's difficult to beat even in its base configuration. In the future I'd like to see an Air with smaller bezels, a better camera, and FaceID similar to my iPad Pro.
 
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EdT

EdT

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Mar 11, 2007
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bill-p said:
Well, speed is okay. I'm used to the Core i9 in MacBook Pro 16" now so... this is somewhat just about the same as what I had before. <- meaning "I'm impressed, but probably not as much as many others". Some apps still feel like they are lagging a bit, but I'd fully expect them to perform better when they are compiled for arm64.

I do like how the machine runs very cool and quiet most of the time despite that level of computing performance.

Graphics... well, is a major step back compared to the 16" for me. I still feel like the 16" is 2-3x faster in most cases. Games that could run 2560 x 1440 @ 60fps almost max settings are now down to about 1440 x 900 medium settings with "almost" 60fps. Granted, though, both cooling and battery life are very impressive still when gaming. The 16" wouldn't last longer than 2 hours with the same game, whereas M1 Pro can probably do 5 - 6 hours. So... at least gaming on the go is now more feasible.

I do like how the community has moved fairly quickly to address the missing pieces of the puzzle. We now have full Linux VM (and Docker works!), plus more and more brew packages are fixed as daily, so my workflow is almost at a point where I can say that it's "on par" with how I had my Intel Mac set up, and I'm not missing much, if anything.

This probably also seems trivial, but... I'm actually most impressed with the responsiveness of the Touch Bar. It feels faster than it is on my 16" MacBook, and it can now keep up with my typing speed (I assign some special shortcut keys to Touch Bar).

I've got the Pro M1 16GB 1TB, by the way. I like the machine, but it's only making me very curious how the 16" with M1X will be. I do miss the extra graphics horsepower and the screen real estate.
Click to expand...


Concerning the Touch Bar, I am surprised that you like how it works. I’ve never owned a Mac that has a Touch Bar, but I’ve seen lots of negative comments about it everywhere. I doubt that I will soon own a Mac that has one, unless the IMac that they release ends up having one. That’s at least next summer and probably even longer because I’d like to stay with at least a 27 inch screen.

I use an iPad Air for browsing/media watching, but I have replaced both mine (2 years ago) and my wife’s (right before the new M1’s were announced/released) and I don’t think that I will replace them for a couple more years. If I had known then what I know now I would have bought a Mac Air for my wife instead.
 
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littlepud

littlepud

macrumors 6502
Sep 16, 2012
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Everything about the M1 MBA is perfect: wide-colour display, insane performance on par with a 16" Intel MBP, no Touch Bar, compact size and weight, all-day battery life, and fanless too.
 
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cakeloverpro

macrumors member
Dec 2, 2020
43
43
M1 MBA 16gb/ 1TB Gold.

How memory effecient & ssd is ...

It can swap all the m1 macbook's memory to SSD 3.2x per second on 16gb, 6.4 on 8gb of Ram... that opens open switching from safari with 100 tabs to Xcode, by the time It shows on the screen. This is the missed.

Graphics? no more thunking memory between video and main memory, no duplication or 1 gb of ram blocked off aka intel 620. Metal has had YEARS of refinement on the iPad/iPhone. 8 Core GPU is sync with the metal API itself.. there is no directX to AMD api call translation. That translation costs on X86.

CPU background tasks are tossed to the small cores.. decoding is tossed to a specific instruction set that apple has api direct to. Metal
 
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bill-p

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Jul 23, 2011
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EdT said:
Concerning the Touch Bar, I am surprised that you like how it works. I’ve never owned a Mac that has a Touch Bar, but I’ve seen lots of negative comments about it everywhere. I doubt that I will soon own a Mac that has one, unless the IMac that they release ends up having one. That’s at least next summer and probably even longer because I’d like to stay with at least a 27 inch screen.
Click to expand...

Well, I have come to like the Touch Bar more since I can now customize it to...

1. Display the current language of the keyboard. So I have added a language switcher key that tells you which input method is in use right now. That's pretty useful in case I forget which layout it is I am on.

2. Display battery percentage and time so I can work in full screen and not have to show the menu bar at all. It saves a lot on screen real estate considering the 13" MacBook Pro doesn't really have a lot of screen space to begin with.

3. I realized I didn't end up using the top row much anyways except for brightness/volume/media controls. But on that note... the new M1 MacBook Air actually does not have keyboard backlight control on the top row, and instead, you now have to go to the new control center to adjust keyboard backlight. That's... mildly annoying to me. I like to work at night, so I want to be able to fine tune the keyboard backlight differently depending on ambient lighting.

4. Brightness and volume sliders on the Touch Bar are far more granular, precise, and faster than physical keys to me. This is one area where I actually want to have a touch interface over physical keys.
 
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The Cockney Rebel

The Cockney Rebel

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bill-p said:
Well, I have come to like the Touch Bar more since I can now customize it to...

1. Display the current language of the keyboard. So I have added a language switcher key that tells you which input method is in use right now. That's pretty useful in case I forget which layout it is I am on.

2. Display battery percentage and time so I can work in full screen and not have to show the menu bar at all. It saves a lot on screen real estate considering the 13" MacBook Pro doesn't really have a lot of screen space to begin with.

3. I realized I didn't end up using the top row much anyways except for brightness/volume/media controls. But on that note... the new M1 MacBook Air actually does not have keyboard backlight control on the top row, and instead, you now have to go to the new control center to adjust keyboard backlight. That's... mildly annoying to me. I like to work at night, so I want to be able to fine tune the keyboard backlight differently depending on ambient lighting.

4. Brightness and volume sliders on the Touch Bar are far more granular, precise, and faster than physical keys to me. This is one area where I actually want to have a touch interface over physical keys.
Click to expand...
The Touch Bar is one of the things I’m really looking forward to playing around with, when I get my MBP.

And it can always be set to mirror a standard physical function row.

I think I’m going to love it.
 
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deeddawg

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Jun 14, 2010
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EdT said:
Concerning the Touch Bar, I am surprised that you like how it works. I’ve never owned a Mac that has a Touch Bar, but I’ve seen lots of negative comments about it everywhere.
Click to expand...
Folks who dislike touchbar are much more vocal about it than are those who don't dislike it.

There's also a bit of an echo chamber effect as shown in you being surprised someone likes how it works - you already perceive it negatively without ever owning a mac with touchbar.

My two biggest gripes with it (from my 2018 MBP15) were that the ESC key was gone (virtualized) and that I didn't have the various hotkeys immediately accessible as they are on the non-TB systems. The latter created a discontinuous experience since I have those on my Apple Magic Keyboard which I use in clamshell mode.

With the newer touchbar versions, there's a physical ESC key - and I discovered the setting to have the touchbar provide the "expanded control strip" - restoring the functionality. Thus my gripes were solved and I'm no longer anti-touchbar.

Touch Bar Shot 2020-12-07 at 9.42.20 PM.png
 
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The Cockney Rebel

The Cockney Rebel

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deeddawg said:
Folks who dislike touchbar are much more vocal about it than are those who don't dislike it.

There's also a bit of an echo chamber effect as shown in you being surprised someone likes how it works - you already perceive it negatively without ever owning a mac with touchbar.

My two biggest gripes with it (from my 2018 MBP15) were that the ESC key was gone (virtualized) and that I didn't have the various hotkeys immediately accessible as they are on the non-TB systems. The latter created a discontinuous experience since I have those on my Apple Magic Keyboard which I use in clamshell mode.

With the newer touchbar versions, there's a physical ESC key - and I discovered the setting to have the touchbar provide the "expanded control strip" - restoring the functionality. Thus my gripes were solved and I'm no longer anti-touchbar.

View attachment 1690728
Click to expand...
I'm really looking forward to getting to grips with the Touch Bar.

Never had a Mac with one before, but I'm intrigued.
 
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MBHockey

MBHockey

macrumors 601
Oct 4, 2003
4,055
303
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The London Fella said:
The Touch Bar is one of the things I’m really looking forward to playing around with, when I get my MBP.

And it can always be set to mirror a standard physical function row.

I think I’m going to love it.
Click to expand...

I hope you do. I didn't. I had a 2018 MBP and never took to the touch bar. even making it just a regular function row, i found it to be glitchy and difficult to use (no tactile feedback, often froze up).

Hopefully they will perform better on M1 Macs. One of the reasons i went with the M1 MBA over MBP was for the lack of touch bar.

I wouldn't say i'm 'anti-touch bar'. i'd LOVE for it to work better. Hopefully future iterations do because i do think it's here to stay.
 
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zedsdead

macrumors 68040
Jun 20, 2007
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Outside of the battery life & heat management on the laptops, any of the new systems are just so INCREDIBLY fluid. Not sure if its the high single core performance, unified memory or what, but I've never used a Mac so responsive.

I returned the MacBook Air simply because I need 4 ports and such, but I am keeping the Mini right now and finally got rid of my 2012 iMac (I will definitely update to the new iMac once it gets redesigned immediately). Going back to my 2018 top spec MacBook Pro 4 port is now a sluggish experience.

It's insane how good the Apple silicon really is. Can't wait for the redesigns, FaceID hopefully (and cellular) etc...
 
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ipponrg

macrumors 68020
Oct 15, 2008
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deeddawg said:
With the newer touchbar versions, there's a physical ESC key - and I discovered the setting to have the touchbar provide the "expanded control strip" - restoring the functionality. Thus my gripes were solved and I'm no longer anti-touchbar.
Click to expand...

I think the people that gripe such as myself use the function keys and touch type. Having the Touch Bar is counter productive to touch typing.
 
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deeddawg

macrumors G5
Jun 14, 2010
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MBHockey said:
I hope you do. I didn't. I had a 2018 MBP and never took to the touch bar. even making it just a regular function row, i found it to be glitchy and difficult to use (no tactile feedback, often froze up).

Hopefully they will perform better on M1 Macs. One of the reasons i went with the M1 MBA over MBP was for the lack of touch bar.
Click to expand...

Owned a 2018 MBP15 and hated that touchbar implementation. It well and truly sucked.

Now own an M1 MBP and don't dislike this touchbar implementation. Starting to like it a little. :)
 
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