M1 MacBook Air – 2 Years Later! Ultimate Long-Term Review… DON'T BUY M2 MACBOOK AIR IN 2022
did Apple mess up and give us a better option than the M2 MacBook Air for less money last month I made a video about the M2 MacBook Air where I’ve covered everything there is to cover about that laptop but I left one thing out of the picture its position in the lineup and its rivalry with another very capable MacBook that may actually be a better deal where 90 of the people in this video I will tell you how you can spend 500 less and get a laptop that is even better in some cases so buckle
up and let’s start before I reveal to you this super duper cool laptop let’s rewind the clock and see what makes MacBooks great why do millions of people love them so much first date 2008 and first unibody MacBooks before that MacBooks were made out of plastic aluminum or titanium but they did not look premium at all then the 2008 MacBook Air and 2009 MacBook Pro reinvented the wheel and made MacBook sexy full aluminum enclosure with no seams glass screen and perfect keyboard okay the first item our super laptop should have is the design and build
quality in 2015 Apple made another Revolution Retina Display it was a substantial upgrade back in the day brightness contrast and resolution were
powerful and now you can think about a Macbook without thinking about power so is there a laptop that satisfies all those demands that is at the same time powerful modern looking well built and with a great screen yes there is one and what if I tell you that it also has great battery life supports the latest Mac OS can be repaired cheaply does all the work done effortlessly and costs only 700 what is this secret laptop are you ready the M1 MacBook Air yes the M1 MacBook Air in many ways is a better deal than
the M2 MacBook Air but why how can this laptop after two years still be a king well there are a few things that make it great first that design I know a lot of people like that boxier design of new Pro MacBooks and M2 MacBook Air but you just cannot beat the wedge wedge shade MacBook Air offers totally different Sensations and user experience this design goes all the way back to 2008 and like a good wine has aged perfectly now the M1 MacBook Air is seen as a modern classic refined and perfected its aluminum body
looks sleek and modern without showing its age that design is really really good all the seams are invisible the hinge is sturdy and opens with a pleasing resistance and the shape itself just screams light weight this wet shape tapered edges and slope and form make this MacBook feel almost like paper when you hold it and look at it you don’t think about that thicker part you are seeing only the thin Edge this visual trick makes it seem even Slimmer almost like a piece of paper for many of you this design will actually be better because
typing on the M1 air is slightly more comfortable so if you are a student and typing huge documents is your mundane routine there will be no better laptop for it than the M1 MacBook Air what about the screen the 13.3 inch display is definitely not a weak side of this MacBook bright colorful and super high resolution it is better than on any Windows laptop at the same price watching movies and YouTube on this screen is pure black s yes it doesn’t have promotion like MacBook Pros and it’s slightly dimmer than the M2 air screen but
it doesn’t have that Notch I know I have said many times that you’re getting used to the notch but even after two years I still notice it still bugs me sometimes just the idea of a notch on a laptop and coming back to the traditional notchless screen of this MacBook Air feels like putting on your favorite slippers and it supports P3 white color gamut which is a very nice thing to have for such a price this MacBook can become a great photo editing machine for button photographer is simply because of the screen perfectly calibrated by
default super sharp and impressively bright that’s all I have to say about the display of this MacBook now to the best part it’s performance may surprise you but the M1 inside is just as fast as it was the day I bought it my model here is the cheapest one with 8 core CPU 7 core GPU 8 gigs of ramen to 56 gigs of storage and leave me it just flies M1 is a very very powerful chip and delivers a stunning performance in a completely fanless design of course the Baseline M to MacBook Air has one
extra GPU core and faster Ram but don’t be fooled I have used both of them and the M1 air performs just as good the apps open instantly web browsing is smooth sailing if you think that M2 will give you much more performance it’s not true the M2 is definitely faster but only by 10 to 15 percent which is completely unnoticeable in real life that extra GPU core makes no difference in everyday use just like that prores media engine M1 is still a king fast Snappy and very reliable now you can’t overestimate the importance of good
performance especially when you’re dealing with large files when you have huge files to take care of it can be very handy to just compress them you know make them smaller modern compression software can turn heavy files into smaller ones without damage in the data or decreasing the quality of files personally I like to use wondershare any small for all my file compression needs watershare any small is a powerful tool for audio and video file compression and supports lossless compression of extensive data it is compatible with over a thousand different formats the parameters may be altered
including the compression type chosen file size and compression ratio data rate and preferred resolution it offers four key features audio from video extraction video compression video conversion and audio conversion you may easily convert your videos to almost any audio or video format the Baseline M1 MacBook Air has only 256 gigs of storage and if you’re doing any creative work the space gets filled up quickly with any small you can fix that compression is also useful if you are trying to send big videos via email upload them to social media or simply store too much music
high speed lossless compression is supported along with the ability to preview the result before saving it to the desk it is a vital tool for a batch compression of multimedia data in various formats the Sleek dark interface welcomes you and and explains three easy actions you must complete to compress your files adding or dragging the files to the main window determining the output size and beginning the compression that’s how easy it is and to learn more about any small just click the link in the description now back to discussing our MacBook when it comes to
battery life both laptops are equally great M1 is still very power efficient and MacBook Air with M1 can easily last 10 to 15 hours of binge watching YouTube browsing the web and texting via iMessage even under heavy loads these two chips perform identically seven to eight hours under heavy workload is very very respectable number so if you think that cheaper older laptop is worse in every way you’re fundamentally not right there’s only one thing you may notice that M1 air does worse is the FaceTime camera M1 air has a 720p camera while M2 air has
1080p camera the difference is noticeable especially when you are on video calls but the M1 error is perfectly fine for studying casual calls with friends and so on when it comes to Ports and connectivity both the M1 and M2 MacBook Air have this same Arrangement two Thunderbolt free ports that support usb4 and USB 3.1 Gen 2 speeds both devices are capable of supporting Just One external display however M2 has an extra magsafe charging port which frees up one type c it doesn’t really matter because you need a dongle anyway and almost every dongle now comes
with a type c powerful port for charging so technically you won’t have any difficulties with M1 or M2 both laptops also support the same Wi-Fi 6 wireless standard and Bluetooth 5.0 if it matters to you but you are not here to hear about similarities you want to know where this older cheaper laptop is better if we talk performance again the M1 Macbook will actually crush the M2 air in some tasks for example file transfer every workflow that requires loading files from the SSD or writing on it will be two times faster on one yes because
of that memory chip layout two 128 chips are faster than 1 to 56 gig yes the difference can be seen only in a selected number of cases which involve file transfers but it’s there it doesn’t mean that M to air is unusable no 99 of the time these laptops will perform identically but in that one percent that one time you really need a faster SSD the M1 will be a winner and the second thing that M1 air does better is throttling and thermal performance if you watch any disassembly video you will see that M1 actually
has a smaller heat set M2 doesn’t have that thus hits up more it’s no secret that M2 after a few min minutes go as high as 105 degrees centigrade in heavy tasks M1 will maintain its performance longer not by much but longer these 5 minutes the M1 can win in heavy tasks before throttling can translate to half an hour of waiting time on M2 if you are planning on doing bursty tasks up to 5 minutes both laptops will be identical but if you go over that time M1 will perform better and finish faster what amazes
me even today is just how well the M1 holds up it pushes through everything a casual user can throw at it without breaking a sweat M1 even with a 7 core GPU still leaves a huge Headroom for personal growth you can start learning coding on this thing and you’ll have no problems with it video editing easy it’s hard to count how many videos our team has edited on this M1 air 3D modeling not a problem music production done you can do all that and still have some power have to spare most people underestimate what a
difference a good set of speakers makes M1 air has speakers aimed at the viewer and M2 air has them hidden near the hinge this makes sound from M to air not significantly better M1 is slightly louder however M2 has more bass so if you are planning on watching movies without headphones the M1 will perform almost the same if not better the M1 MacBook Air was already a capable machine for everyday Computing productivity and even video editing now it’s just a lot of a computer for only 700 you can pick it up a refurbished one on
Amazon right now for seven hundred dollars yes 700. I will remind you that Apple sells M2 air for 1200 even refurbished ones are still 400 bucks more expensive than this M1 air for half the price of this M1 air you’re not getting much a newer design new screen and improved FaceTime camera and that’s it for only 700 dollars you are getting an immensely powerful laptop with a great screen amazing battery life and classic design usually it’s easy to recommend the new model over the old one but in this case the M2 MacBook Air feels more
like a completely new model rather than a replacement of the old one and since the original M1 MacBook Air can be bought at a significant lower price the answer to the question of which you should buy may not seem so simple I think that for any student casual user or teacher there is no better laptop than M1 air gives you so much and still leaves Headroom for growth that’s why I think that it’s a better deal than M to air those still holding on to an Intel based MacBook Air may want to consider upgrading as
Apple touts a 15x increase in power over the older Intel models however those who already have an M1 air probably don’t need to upgrade unless you really want the magsafe connector and if you want to get a new design you are welcome to pay extra if you want the best laptop money can buy then the M1 MacBook Air is a no-brainer foreign
