- What's up, guys? Saf here on SuperSaf TV.
And we've finally got the M1-powered MacBook Air
in the house.
Very excited to check this out.
I've seen lots of coverage and attention
on the MacBook Pro 13-inch powered by M1,
but the MacBook Air is Apple's most popular
and best-selling laptops, so I think this is one
that a lot of people will be interested in.
Let's go ahead and get it unboxed,
see what's the same and also what's different
thanks to the M1.
So the packaging is pretty much exactly the same.
We've got that classic MacBook Air side profile,
which is showing how thin it is.
And this is completely sealed,
so we'll go ahead and get rid of the plastic.
Give it a bit of a shake.
(box rattling)
There we go.
So I have the Space Gray version here,
but it is also available in a silver as well as gold.
And inside the box, as well as the MacBook Air,
you do get a USB Type-C to USB Type-C cable,
some paperwork with some Apple stickers,
as well as a charger.
So a charger is included in the box, don't worry.
And here it is. This is so, so light.
1.29 kgs, of course, that's why it's called the MacBook Air.
Now, physically, this is exactly the same as the MacBook Air
that was released earlier in the year,
so it is made with 100% recycled aluminum.
We also have the 13.3 inch Retina display.
This is an LED-backlit display,
400 nits of peak brightness
and around a 227 PPI pixel density.
It's actually a really good and sharp display.
We've got the new Magic Keyboard with the scissor mechanism,
so we've got around a one millimeter of travel.
And we also have the same large track pad.
What is different?
Well, what's different is on the inside.
This is of course powered by Apple's brand new M1 chip.
And this is actually a big, big change. Why is that?
Well, if you think about the iPhones, you may already know
that they are powered by Apple's own chips,
so we've got things like the A12, A13, A14.
And what makes iPhones special
is that because Apple creates both of these things,
you don't need to have crazy specs to get great performance
because everything is very well optimized.
Now bringing their new chips to the MacBook line
means a few things.
Firstly, you get much better performance.
Apple have claimed up to 3.5 times faster CPU speeds,
and up to 5 times faster GPU speeds,
but also much better power efficiencies.
Now, of course, I've only had this for a brief time so far,
but from everything that we're seeing right now,
the claims do seem to be living up.
We've got much better battery life on the MacBook Air
as well as much better performance
compared to previous generations.
Then when it comes to performance of apps,
apps that have been optimized
for the M1 will be working best
such as Final Cut Pro, for example.
You will be getting absolutely great performance
here on the MacBook Air.
But one thing that I was a little bit concerned about
were apps that have not being optimized
because they are kind of being ported over.
And as far as I've seen,
most of them actually work as expected,
actually better than they used to do.
I'm somebody who uses Adobe Photoshop a lot,
and in my brief testing, it has worked absolutely fine.
Now, of course there might be a few bugs
and things that do pop up,
which is the reason why a lot of people kind of say
that if you are thinking about getting a new MacBook Air
and you do rely on particular apps
which haven't been fully optimized yet on the MacBook Air
and the MacBook Pro,
then it might be worth waiting a little bit.
But generally speaking,
everything that we have seen has worked really well.
Now another thing that comes with the M1
is the ability to run iOS apps directly on your MacBook.
I've briefly tested this out.
There are not many apps available,
not the ones that I use any way.
I was hoping to have, say, for example, Instagram on here,
which I could then upload to directly,
instead of taking photos in my camera,
editing them on my MacBook
and then having to AirDrop drop them back on to my iPhone
to be able to upload them.
This is currently not here.
I'm not sure if it's going to be coming at a later point.
Apart from that, this is essentially the same.
Otherwise, we've got a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack
on the right.
On the left-hand side,
we have two USB Type-C Thunderbolt 3 ports.
We do have TouchID here at the top built-in
with stereo speakers.
But one thing that I am definitely disappointed about
is the 720p FaceTime camera.
Now this has been improved
compared to the previous generation MacBook Air,
so we do have a new image signal processor,
which comes with the M1,
so essentially what that means is that the feed coming in
from the camera is going to be handled better by the chip,
and it's going to give you better quality webcam footage.
However, it is still not great.
I wish the Apple did go with 1080p
like they've gone with on the new iMacs.
Right, now, what about pricing and configurations?
Well, the base model does come
with 8 gigabytes of unified RAM,
256 gigabytes of SSD storage,
and this starts at the same price
as the previous generation MacBook Air started at,
so around 1,000 pounds.
You can get it cheaper if you go through Education.
And if you do want the absolute top spec
with 16 gigabytes of RAM and 2 terabytes of storage,
that is for around 2,050 pounds.
Right, so who is the new MacBook Air for?
Well, it's actually become a lot more easy
to recommend this now, thanks to the M1 chip.
But at this point, the MacBook Air
with the M1 chip and its performance
is actually going to be fine for most people
even if you are doing some more intensive tasks.
Now, of course, this is not going to be
as good as the 13-inch MacBook Pro
because that does have fans;
the MacBook Air is a fanless design.
And although this makes it very, very silent,
it just means it's not going to be able
to keep those high levels of performance
for the longer periods of time
that the 13-inch MacBook Pro will be able to,
thanks to those fans and keeping things cooler.
But generally speaking,
if you are thinking of getting the new MacBook Air,
maybe you want one for school university,
then I can easily recommend this new MacBook Air.
And I think this is going to be very, very popular.
What do you guys think of the new MacBook Air?
Are you going to be picking one up?
Do let me know down in the comments below.
I hope you enjoyed this video and found it useful.
If you did, then do hit that thumbs up button for me.
Thanks for watching, this Saf on SuperSaf TV,
and I'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)