Macbook air m1 vs macbook pro 15 2018 vs mac mini 2018
Tags: laravel
Published: 2024-06-17 05:50:36

This is a comparison between these three computers, from de the viewpoint of a software developer working in real projects on everyday basis.

Stack: 
I work on Laravel projects mostly and some mobile apps in android and iOS sometimes, on those I haven't checked yet, I will update when test those.


Macbook air specs: 
Base model

Macbook pro 15 2018:
Base model

Mac mini: i5 with 512gb disk and 16gb ram

Programs I run every day at the same time:

1. Phpstorm
2. Nginx
3. Php-fpm
4. Mysql
5. Google Chrome with 20-40 tabs, and multiple profiles
6. Tableplus
7. [Ray](
8. Understand and fix bugs faster using Ray - Rayhttps://myray.app)
9. iTerm: with webpack watching for changes in the front end 
10. assets
11. iTerm: iddle
12. iTerm: ssh into something
13. Sublime Merge
14. Apple music or Youtube music
15. 
Subjetive review:

Everything feels more snappy, faster, the keyboard in a million times better, I haven't had a problem with compatibility issues in regards of the ARM migration, moreover if I didn't knew that its an m1 arm mac at the moment after two months of usage I wouldn't have noticed yet, the screen is smaller but is not a big deal, the brightness is 400 nit vs 500nit of the pro but I think that it is really less, because I can use it in the same places with direct sun light in some windows as the pro and I have not miss the pro brightness at all, is the portability, but the portability improvements oh god this machine its a lot lighter and I carry it all over the office, the house, with the 15 I mostly remained in the desktop because there was a factor of unconfortability to move the bigger 15 inch.

I work with 5 virtual desktops and scroll across them with trackpad, the air does this flawlessly in contrast to the pro that only can do it without jank/dropframes with the radeon graphics, with the intel it was sluggish, furthermore when I was running heavy cpu tasks I would jank/stutter even with the radeon gpu.

The bettery life in the pro was like 2 hour 40 minutes in heavy load to 3 and 50 minutes in normal development flow. The air is like 7-9 hours of dev work, the is no heavy load to the air in my current work flow anything that taxed the pro don't do it with the air, an example of heavy load for my in running the tests, a few seconds task, combined with some video in youtube multiple chrome tabs, phpstorm and maybe an ios simulator all all the same time, the pro could do that but the cpu was at 100% the fans at full blast, the temps high, in the same escenario in the air there is no stress in the cpu, nor in the temps, and obviously there is no fan in the air.

The mini has a performance very similar to the pro, almost identical, but it was less prone to overheating, it was noisy as well, and the scroll between desktops and was better than the intel in the pro but worst than the radeon.


The memory: this was my biggest fear, I was used to 16gb of ram, and for my workflow was good enough, the new air has half of that, in reality for my workflow I'm at the limit, I don't need more but I use all of the available memory all the time. The activity monitor have a memory presure monitor and when is red the performance degrades, I mean the scroll between desktops is choppy and navigating the code on intelliphense? is slow, even typing in the editor turns a little slow, using sublime text or vscode in combination con safari the memory presure is green always, but I like my two memory hogs, so I'm creck periodically if there are tabs that I'm no longer using and closing them. In summary 8gb in arm m1 ARE NOT equivalent to 16gb in x64, 8gb in arm = 8gb in x64, would I better with 16gb, of course, are 8gb enough for a professional developer, yes, but you have to manage your resources more closely than if you had 16, in any case Its better an m1 with 8gb of memory than a intel mac with 16gb for the gains in performance and efficiency in the processor and the GPU. 

One thing thats its impressive is the speed in which those new macs can change the resolution of the internal display or external monitor in comparison with the intel macs, I don't know what kind of optimizations they made to the OS in that action you can feel the difference between the two architectures.

Some performance not subjetive measurements: