Driving in Asphalt 9 was speedy, as it should be, whereas I could sometimes see stutters on the predecessor when playing heavier games like Gris or running more intensive apps like Premiere Pro. I feel like I can do a lot more with the M1. That's not the case anymore, for the most part. With the previous MacBook Air, I often felt like I hit a performance threshold that limited the work I was able to do.
The onus to update is on the developer, and it will take some time before most Mac apps are optimized for the M1.
(Update: Google has released a native Chrome app already and it's performing significantly better than the Rosetta version and is very similar to my Safari experience.) Scrolling through my library in the Steam PC gaming platform for the desktop, it was a lot laggier on the MacBook Air than on the older 16-inch MacBook Pro. I found it sometimes took longer to load pages and switch tabs-Chrome performed much better with 15 or so tabs, less than half of what Safari could handle. When using Google Chrome, I ran a similar amount of tabs to Safari.
It's clear some apps could use this optimization sooner than others. (A beta version of the Photoshop app is available now, and Adobe says a Lightroom beta arrives next month.) (I didn't add any effects or grading.) Adobe Lightroom's media library stuttered for a few seconds upon launch, but I edited and exported RAW files with the elegance and speed of a concert pianist.ĭevelopers like Adobe will eventually release new versions of their apps that make use of all the frameworks in the M1 chip, which will add more performance gains as well as new tricks that take advantage of the expanded machine-learning processors in Apple's chip. I had no trouble editing a simple 16-minute 4K video in Adobe Premiere Pro, and it only took eight minutes to export. These Rosetta apps run better than they did on the previous MacBook Air. The installation takes a few extra seconds, and the rest of the process is just business as usual.
You'll see a prompt to install Rosetta when you first try to download one of these apps. The good news is that apps made with Intel in mind can still launch perfectly fine thanks to Rosetta 2, a translation process that helps apps made for the old x86-architecture work on Apple silicon. I've yet to see a single stutter or pause from them. (I like pinned tabs, OK?)Īpps like Safari, which are engineered for the new M1 processor, are fast and snappy. It's buttery smooth, handling more than 30 tabs with ease. In real-world terms, the first place I noticed a drastic improvement was Safari.
In a Geekbench 5 CPU benchmark test, the new MacBook Air's single-core score (1,692) outperformed 2019's 16-inch MacBook Pro (1,207), and nearly matched it in multi-core performance (7,264 versus 7,536). The MacBook Air easily crushes its predecessor in performance. The M1 is no Mac evolution, it's a Mac revolution.ĭoes the lack of a fan matter? For most people, no. The thing's as powerful as many of the higher-end Intel-powered Macs, blowing past the speed limits of the higher-tier MacBook Air from earlier this year. Spend a day with the new MacBook Air and the improvements are immediately noticeable. By manufacturing its own silicon, Apple gains greater control of the hardware and software-the same control it enjoys on the iPhone and iPad, which also use Apple-designed chips. But this year, it began the process of rolling out laptop and desktop PCs with in-house chips. The new model is one of the first Macs to use an Apple-designed processor, the M1.Īpple has been building its computers using Intel chips since 2006. Inside however, the two machines couldn't be further apart.
It has the same recycled aluminum case, an identical (and great) Magic Keyboard and … only two damn USB-C ports-though these use the USB4 standard for speedier data transmission. On the surface, the new MacBook Air is identical to its older-by-eight-months twin. A surging pandemic hasn't stopped Apple from churning out devices-in fact, it feels like Apple's vying for the Most Products Launched in a Single Year award. Nearly eight months after testing a new MacBook Air, I'm reviewing another one (insert DJ Khaled meme here).