So it's been about eight months
since the M1 MacBook Air has been released.
And in this video,
I wanted to talk about some pros that I've found
over those months of using this machine.
And also a couple of cons as well,
because at the end of the day,
while this is a super awesome machine,
it does have a couple of flaws.
Now, there are hundreds of other videos out there
similar to this one
so I wanted to focus on a few key points in this video
that you may not have heard before.
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So the first pro of this machine
is something you guys are already familiar with,
but I don't think it's talked about enough
and that is the fanless design.
So the reason this is such a pro in my opinion
is you can put this thing literally anywhere.
So on top of a bed, sheets,
you know, a couch, on the ground, anywhere
because you don't have to worry
about the exhaust vents at the back
being able to suck in air.
So you really can use it anywhere.
And for someone who will often use this machine
just relaxing, lying in bed or on a couch,
that's such a game changer
compared to the previous generation MacBook Airs,
or even just a MacBook Pro,
including the M1 MacBook Pro,
because you need to leave room
and a bit of space at the back of the air to circulate.
Now the second pro to this feature
is of course it's completely silent.
So when you're doing Skype calls,
or even if you're just watching a video on YouTube,
the fan is never going to kick on,
and it's never going to cause background noise
or disrupt your viewing experience.
Now, there are other fanless laptops out there,
including one from Dell in the XPS lines,
but none of them really come close to the sheer performance
that you get in this particular model,
because honestly, most of them are Chromebooks
and they have very limited functionality.
So to have such a powerful machine,
as I've already talked about in previous videos
with no fan and be completely silent,
that is a massive achievement
and is a massive pro
that I really don't hear talked about that much.
Now, moving on to the second pro and that is swap memory.
And you guys might hear that and be a little bit confused
because there's been a lot of misinformation
floating around out there surrounding swap memory
and specifically the Apple Silicon Macs.
Now, if you guys aren't familiar with swap memory
and what it does,
essentially, if you max out your RAM
or you've used up all available RAM in your system,
your system is going to move some tasks and some processes
onto the internal SSD of your Mac.
And what that's going to do
is it's going to free up some RAM on your system
to keep your system performing smoothly.
Now, there are three things that constitute
such a successful swap memory experience on this machine.
That is the M1 SOC, the macOS operating system
and also the internal SSD.
Now starting with the M1 SOC,
I won't go into it in too much detail,
but it's just so tightly integrated and efficient
that the overall performance of your Mac
is just super fast to begin with.
Now moving on to macOS.
macOS has had some pretty big updates over the years,
including Big Sur, which was a massive one as well.
And that just means that the system is able to perform again
at a higher rate of performance
and it's also able to more intelligently
move between swap memory and RAM
to keep your machine performing very, very well.
Now, the last contributing factor to this triangle
is the internal SSD
or specifically the speed of the internal SSD.
So it's rated at around 2,800 megabits per second,
which is super, super fast.
Now it's still nowhere near as fast as RAM,
but having an internal SSD that fast
that your system is swapping to
means that you're barely going to notice a difference
between RAM and swap memory.
So in layman's terms, what does this mean?
Well, if you've got a base model Mac
and you're just doing typical tasks
like web browsing and emails,
you're probably not going to notice it,
but if you are the type of person to occasionally
really put this thing to the test
and you do some hardcore editing or some 3D modeling
or insane multitasking,
you probably won't even notice a difference
because the performance is going to be super, super fast.
Even if you're maxing out the memory
and using swap memory at the same time.
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Now, in addition to that last pro,
the next pro is very similar,
and that is just the sheer versatility of this machine.
So this is a base model M1 MacBook Air,
no upgrades, anything like that.
And for light work, it's awesome.
If you're just doing browsing or emails
your battery's going to last
anywhere between 12 to 14 hours.
It's going to stay nice and cool,
which is pretty much unheard of
for entry-level laptops out there
and including the previous generation Intel versions
of this particular machine.
But the other thing I want to talk about is
for a lot of people, this is their only machine.
They don't have a beefy Windows computer,
or a Mac pro for example, this is it.
So if they do need to do something that's really intensive,
like video editing or Photoshop manipulation,
3D modeling or coding for example,
this machine can still do that as well.
So I'm just very impressed with that,
especially because this essentially is
an entry-level device.
Now, moving on to some negatives with this machine,
honestly, guys, there aren't many,
but there are a couple that I do want to talk about.
Now, the first one is not exactly limited to Apple
or even the Apple Silicon Macs.
And that is that the SSD is soldered on to this device,
which means you cannot remove it or replace it.
Now on previous versions of the MacBook,
you could actually open it up
and take out the hard drive or the solid state drive
and replace it.
But in the last couple of years,
Apple has started shipping these things
with the SSD soldered on,
and the M1 MacBook Air and even the MacBook Pro
are no exceptions.
So why is this such a negative?
Well, no matter how much you look after this thing
at some stage in the future, it is going to fail.
The SSD is going to die,
and you're going to be left with a big paperweight.
Now, this is why I'm such a big advocate
of the right to repair.
Which means that if this was to fail,
you could probably go to a third-party repairer,
pay them 200 bucks and they may be able to repair it for you
because at this stage Apple won't.
They're going to make you buy a brand new laptop
or they're going to charge you hundreds
or potentially even thousands of dollars to repair the SSD
because they basically have to
rip the guts out of this thing
and fully replace everything just for an SSD.
Now, the other con, I want to talk about is again
a fairly general one,
and it's not exactly a fault of this machine,
but it's, there's a lot of hype and hysteria
and misinformation out there about this machine.
Basically making it out to be a super computer,
something that's going to just blaze through everything.
Guys, that is not the reality.
It is a very powerful and capable machine in its own right.
But for a lot of things out there, this is not a good idea.
So for example, editing over about 4k.
If you're doing simple 4k editing, it's fine,
but anything over that, this will start to struggle.
Likewise, when some relatively intensive 3D modeling
like Blender, for example, or After Effects,
and also some developers,
they have run into issues with that,
just being not quite powerful enough.
And I think the reason for this is
on the internet, this thing is typically branded as just a
super powerful, super capable device, which it is.
But I think that hype sometimes goes a little bit too far,
and sometimes it tricks people into buying this
when they should have realistically gone
for a more powerful device,
not necessarily an Apple one either,
maybe even an XPS from Dell or some kind of Windows laptop
with just more raw power.
And I just thought I'd touch on that point, because again,
it's not a fault of this machine.
It's just that there is a lot of hype and hysteria out there
with regards to the capability of this thing.
Now if there's one thing
you should take away from this video,
regardless of the pros and the cons.
This is Apple's very first Apple Silicon chip.
This is the absolute first generation
and it is the worst Apple Silicon chip
we're ever going to see.
All the other chips we see from now on
are going to be better than this one
by probably multiple factors.
And I'm not even talking about the M2 or the M1X chips
coming in the next year,
I'm really excited for the next four to five years
in the future
Because I think at that point,
Apple's going to refine the process,
they're going to have a lot of user data available
and some testing.
What not to do what to do.
And I think we're going to be seeing some
super, super powerful MacBooks in the next couple of years.
And that is really exciting to think about.
Anyway, guys, thanks for watching this video.
If you liked what I talked about,
and if you maybe want to add your own comment
down in the comment section below, please do so.
But apart from that, I'll catch you in the next one.