Last year I picked up a very expensive computer — a top of the line 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro upgraded to an i9, 1TB of storage, and 16GB of RAM. But I just couldn’t wait to see how these M1 chips actually perform, so I decided to pick up the base $999 MacBook Air to see how it would hold up side-by-side with my 16-inch behemoth. The results are incredible.
When these computers launched — and early reviews confirmed their performance blew everything else out of the water — I faced a bit of a predicament. Like many others, I’m coming from a 16-inch MacBook Pro, so there’s no obvious upgrade path. For now, Apple Silicon is only available in 13-inch models.
But I couldn’t help myself — I had to check these out at least, and if I’m not buying an outright replacement for my daily machine (yet), it just made the most sense to go with the cheapest notebook model. If nothing else, I’d get an idea of what Apple’s entry-level laptops are like and I could write this article.
I almost didn’t do it; if you’re anything like me you probably can’t help but cringe at the idea of spending over a thousand dollars on a computer with just 8GB of RAM. But I’m here to report that not only does this machine more stuff at once better than my 16-inch i9 MacBook Pro for normal everyday use, it’s significantly better. Everything makes it obvious that Apple spent serious time optimizing every corner of Big Sur for Apple Silicon — and perhaps equally so put its Intel machines on the back burner.
Read more at 9to5Mac.com