Simple Yet So Powerful
By: Paul Alvarez
Tags: Technology, Apple, MacBook, Review, Gadgets

I was always a fan of the butterfly keyboard on the 2015 MacBook and all MacBooks that were equipped with it after. I never had the unreliability issues and know if I did I would have a different opinion, but the feeling when typing on those keyboard, to me, was very satisfying.

Recently, I used a 2014 MacBook Pro 13-inch and could reminisce on the keyboard before the butterfly design and though it had more travel I didn’t like how it felt less stable. Each key was a little more wobbly and didn’t have the same tactile feeling that I got from the butterfly version.

Apple has since gone back to a scissor switch design on all of its MacBooks and I will admit I was a little hesitant on how they would be. I really did like the stability of the butterfly but knew I was lucky that I did not run into any issues with sticky keys or keys not working at all.

After getting the opportunity to review the 16-inch MacBook Pro, when it came out, with the new Magic Keyboard I was thrilled. Apple could bring back the travel but simultaneously make the keyboard feel more solid and tactile. The new scissor switches feel perfect with the better travel but Apple also took some new things it learned from the butterfly design to make them feel more stable as you type.

Close up of M1 Air’s new function keys.

With the new MacBook Air, you also get new function keys at the top with a one for Spotlight search, Dictation and Do not Disturb replacing the keyboard brightness and Launchpad keys. I will say that I use Command + Space to trigger Spotlight so having a dedicated function key for me is a waste.

I also don’t have any plans on using Do Not Disturb or Dictation so losing those keys for Keyboard Brightness is also a loss. This isn’t a huge problem since I hardly use the function row anyway and I really do like that Apple added the ability to quickly get to Emoji’s from the Function key now.

One last thing on the keyboard, even though this isn’t really a key on the keyboard, Touch ID is fantastic. It has been awhile since I have used a MacBook again and love that so many more apps are starting to use Touch ID. 1Password, for instance, has been huge, not having to type in my long password in Safari anymore to use the extension is really awesome.

Performance and Battery

Because this a M1 I felt it was important to go a little more detail when it came to performance. I am in no way a hardcore power user. I do like to dabble in Xcode sometimes but even then I am not compiling a ton of code.

The most I do on my machines that does require some performance is photo editing. I have Affinity Photo but many times when I am trying to get some photos ready for a post I use the Photo’s app to quickly edit them.

Once thing I have noticed when using Photos on my old 2018 MacBook Pro 13-inch was the very slow performance in Photos. I had a quad-core i5 Processor with 8 GB of RAM and many times I would be sitting with the rainbow beach ball spinning after just clicking the Edit button on a photo.

On this MacBook Air I don’t think I have seen the rainbow beach ball once. Nothing has felt slow, not even browsing the web. Ulysses has always been a champ, so I never really feel like I need much to get that app running but everything else I do on this MacBook Air feels snappy.

I was concerned about getting an 8 GB variant over the 16 GB but decided to run my own test to see if this was a huge concern or not. I opened up Chrome, the new M1 supported version, and played about 10 YouTube videos all in 4K concurrently while keeping other tabs open with random websites.

I then started to do other things on the MacBook Air like; open a bunch of apps, download a bunch more apps from the App Store, listen to music, write in Ulysses, and edit a few photos.

The real test, though, was to see if any of the Chrome tabs were going to refresh when I opened them and unsurprisingly none did. Neither the ones playing the 4K videos, which they all still were, or any of the other websites that I had running as well. Everything was available for me once I clicked the tab, sitting in memory.

This is in no way scientific and in no way representative to a number of other people who use computers. But for me, this was a good test on what I use my computer for. I like to have many tabs open when I am researching something and sometimes have music or videos playing in the background while doing other things.

If I was compiling a ton of code, rendering 4K videos, or dealing with multiple gigantic files simultaneously I would probably lean more towards the 16 GB. But for me, I think saving the $200 was worth it.

I couldn’t resist the urge of comparing the Intel MacBook Air and M1 MacBook Air since I had both at the same time for a while and all I can say is:

Wow! I am glad I went with the M1!

Intel Air on the left and M1 Air on the right.

Just like my own test on RAM, benchmarks also don’t tell you the full story but it can provide a baseline on what each can do, after running benchmarks on both these machines it is incredible that the M1 MacBook Air can hit these numbers.

Intel Air on the left and M1 Air on the right both using Intel version of GeekBench.

Even when using the Intel version of GeekBench, using Rosetta 2, on the M1 it outperformed the i5 Intel MacBook Air. It is fantastic to see Apple’s hard work on creating chips for the iPhone and iPad all these years has paid off for their MacBooks.