Mac airbook review pro#
I welcome alternative views in the comments, as always, but my use of the Touch Bar on the 16” MacBook Pro extended as far as adjusting the volume and screen brightness and, occasionally, as a quick way to access Ulysses Markdown shortcuts. The second is that it is totally pointless. The first is that Apple is rumoured to be discontinuing the Touch Bar on future MacBooks. If you’re trying to decide between the M1 MacBook Pro and Air, I can, hands-down, tell you not to use the Touch Bar as a differentiating factor. That’s both impressive and a bit of a shame when you consider the significant strides the iPad has made recently in terms of becoming a genuine laptop replacement. In my world, the MacBook Air has completely cannibalised the iPad when it comes to productivity. Now, my big iPad Pro has been largely replaced by an iPad Air, whose role is almost solely one of consumption with the odd bit of note-taking thrown in for good measure. Often, that includes the editing process for the feature image, too (I use Lightroom for this task, and it runs fantastically on the Air).īefore December, my blogs would always start life on the iPad, complete with Magic Keyboard. The fault for this lies squarely with the M1 MacBook Air because it has completely replaced my 12.9” iPad Pro as my main writing device.Įvery blog I’ve published since December has been written on the M1 MacBook Air. The iPad has been relegatedĪpple are rumoured to announce a new iPad Pro soon, but I couldn’t be less interested.
Mac airbook review mac#
If I’d spent more money on this laptop, it would have been an absolute waste, and there’s something quite refreshing about owning the base spec version of a Mac – particularly when you’re someone like me who has upgraded to wallet-destroying levels in the past. I don’t need 16GB of RAM, and I don’t need any more internal storage than 256GB. And, while I have indeed specced up the Mac mini a little, the MacBook Air I’m writing this article on is the cheapest you can buy. That’s quite a bitter pill to swallow – trust me. Fast-forward less than two years, and it has been replaced by two machines whose combined price is still about £1,000 less than the 16” MacBook Pro.
I was one of those people until I got my hands on this M1 MacBook Air.Ī case in point: I specced up my 16” MacBook Pro in 2019 to be the most powerful laptop I could afford. People are often afraid of buying base-spec Apple Macs. So, if you fancy that base-spec M1 MacBook Air but you’re concerned about having one less graphics core than your mate, don’t be. Both machines can edit 4K video identically and undertake any graphics-related task without any trouble whatsoever.Ĭall it a price bracketing trick on Apple’s behalf or the fact that they need to sell off the M1s which end up with 7-cores of graphics performance as a result of manufacturing processes in real-world usage, it doesn’t make any difference whatsoever. I also have an M1 Mac mini and that has the 8-core GPU version of the M1 (and 16GB of RAM, versus my MacBook Air’s 8GB). The Air’s keyboard feels great, the screen has improved color reproduction, and the whole package feels generally excellent.Let’s get that 7-core GPU thing out of the way It would be nice to have more than two USB-C ports for connecting monitors and accessories, but that’s more of an issue with the M1-powered 13-inch Pro than it is here. The Air was already the most popular laptop in the world, so it’s not much of a surprise that Apple wouldn’t change up the overall feel. Designĭespite all the internal upgrades, the new MBA looks and feels exactly like its older sibling. Right now, iOS apps on the Mac are kind of a mess, so don’t get too excited about it just yet.
Mac airbook review software#
Also, companies can keep their iPhone apps out of the Mac App Store, which means some of the software you want-yes, that includes Instagram-isn’t available.
They’re built with a touch interface in mind, which doesn’t always translate well to a mouse and keyboard. I can’t see myself using iPhone apps on the Mac all that often. So, if you want to load up the iPhone version of Among Us and try to murder your friends in adorable ways, you can do so. Lastly, you can now run iPhone apps directly on an M1 Mac by downloading them directly from the macOS App Store.