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I’m impressed by my wife’s m1 air. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 month ago by neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/apple_enthusiast@lemmy.world

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My wife and I went on a short trip where I had to work. I normally use a windows desktop, but couldn’t bring that.

I used her base m1 air, and was blown away by how well it handled my work. Not just that, but it used significantly less ram and cpu power.

On windows my cpu usage is higher and my ram usage normally over 8gb. On here air, I was hitting around 6gb ram usage and the cpu was maybe around 15-20%

I am still in a little disbelieve that her laptop handed my work so much better than my desktop i7-8700 or laptop i5-11th gen intel handles it.

I’m totally picking up a MacBook this fall.

Now just need to decide between the air and pro, the air is probably fine, but I like the dedicated hdmi port as I will use it with a monitor a lot. Not sure if a usb-c hub will suffice.

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[–] FlatFootFox@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

USB-C docks/dongles generally aren’t that big a deal if that’s your only deciding factor. They work fine without any weird hiccups or behavior.

If you’re buying used, it’s worth noting that the earlier M1, M2, and M3 non-Pro/Max chips had some limitations with external monitors. The M1 and M2 MacBook Air only supported one external monitor alongside the Mac’s built in screen. The M3 Air could do two external monitors with the lid closed, or one external monitor and the built in. The M4 Air can do two external monitors and the built in display at the same time. The Pro and Max chips could always do two external monitors and the built in display starting from the earliest M1 Pro.

The big difference between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro is that the Pro has a built in fan. The Air will passively cool itself and might have to throttle your workload until the laptop cools down. The Pro can kick on the fan to help run heavy workloads longer. In practice it’s actually difficult to get a MacBook Pro to kick on its fan. Anything short of virtual machines or large video rendering can usually be done without the laptop getting so hot it would need to kick the fan on or throttle things. If you’re somewhat price conscious and aren’t pushing the machine’s limits, the Air’s definitely worth a look.