Thoughts About Using the M1 MacBook Air

When you buy a computer, there are certainly a range of things that matter. For most people, the best way to measure its value is its ability to do the things they need it to do, with the fewest number of compromises. Every device, after all, is about compromises.

You can, for example, get a lightweight laptop that is easy to take with you, but it probably won’t be the most powerful option available. If all you do is email, use a web browser, or occasionally watch videos, that’s probably fine. On the other hand, if your needs go beyond that, you might opt for something powerful, knowing it means it will likely be heavier or that it likely won’t last the entire day on battery power.

Either way, you’re choosing where you’re willing to compromise.

The funny thing about the M1 MacBook Air is that it doesn’t feel like a compromise. It’s still the same lightweight ultrabook it’s always been, only it’s now also the fastest laptop you’ll likely have ever used. Oh, and the battery lasts a very long time.

My point isn’t that the M1 MacBook Air doesn’t have trade-offs, it does. It can only be configured to 16GB of “Unified Memory,” which is shared between CPU and GPU tasks. It also only has two USB 4/Thunderbolt ports, though I legitimately can’t remember the last time I used more than two ports on my 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro. That this machine only has two doesn’t feel like a compromise, especially considering what you can do with them.

That’s an important distinction. The computer you use should feel like it’s capable of doing what you want it to do. That it can’t do other things—things that you don’t need it to do—is irrelevant. You didn’t buy it to do those things, so they aren’t compromises.

I use my laptop for writing, online research, editing photos and video, and—like everyone else right now—for Zoom meetings. For every one of those things, this M1 MacBook Air is significantly faster. It loads apps faster, it handles images and video files smoother, and it does it all while using far less battery than any laptop I’ve used before.

Even using apps that aren’t natively compiled for the M1 works transparently. Other than a one-time dialogue box asking if you want to install Rosetta 2 (which takes almost no time at all), the process is seamless. There’s a very real chance that if you fall in this category, you won’t even know you’re still running x86 apps.

If you use Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop, for example, it will take slightly longer to load the first time, but after that, you’ll just use it the way you always have. In fact, it’ll probably run better depending on how old the Mac you’re currently using is.

In every other way, it’s a MacBook Air, only better. It has the same keyboard and trackpad, which were already best-in-class. It has the same TouchID. It actually has a better Retina display with the addition of P3 color gamut.

Well, there is one other way it’s different, and it’s hard to believe I almost didn’t mention it. Perhaps that’s because it’s easy to forget. The MacBook Air manages to be the most capable laptop I’ve ever used, and it doesn’t have a fan. It edits 4K video, and it doesn’t have a fan. It can bounce an hour-long podcast ridiculously fast, without a fan. I can open browser tabs until I can’t think of anything else to search for online, and I’ll never hear the fan kick on, because, there is no fan.

Others, like John Gruber, have mentioned that they never heard the fan on the M1 MacBook Pro either. It’s impressive that the M1 rarely needs a fan in that device, or, if it is using a fan, that it somehow manages to be ultra-quiet. Even more impressive is that the MacBook Air doesn’t even have one.

Whether it’s impressive to you that the Air doesn’t need a fan, consider that when using it, it absolutely feels impressive. And that intangible feeling matters. It’s what makes a computer or device enjoyable to use.

In the case of the M1 MacBook Air, it most definitely is enjoyable to use. By the way, I’ve been working on it now for almost half a day (since about 6:20 a.m.) without it being plugged in and it’s still at around 70% battery. Nothing about that feels like a compromise. It feels like what a device like this should be. Finally, with the MacBook Air, it is.