Same, its giving me tingles.
Poll: *** The official 2020 MacBook Air/13" MacBook Pro thread (it has the M1 chip and everything!) ***
- Thread starter Feek
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Same, its giving me tingles.
Soldato
I feel gutted. only just purchased my 2020 Pro in Sept. if I'd have known about these I'd have waited.
Your 2020 pro is still an awesome machine but did you not do any research at all before purchasing it? 2mins on Google would have told you Apple are releasing kit.
To follow the same trend, more articles and comments I read about these new macbooks makes me want one. I will put the PC in the loft, ssh to it for work stuff and jobs a good un.
Soldato
I did. but it appears my google search is poor
Apple themselves announced it in June so its been no secret.
Associate
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Bah, they tried to take payment for my 16GB MBP last night but my bank flagged the transaction. Maybe another day of delay, who can say.
oh well... it’s better that the fraud checks happen than don’t!
The base MBA should be arriving still next week.
Going to see if I can put that through it’s paces and determine if the fanless performance penalty is something I will mind with my own use cases.
Plus, I am really curious to see what level of gaming is possible both with the MBA and the MBP. Would be good on trips to be able to play some games in a hotel room or something.
oh well... it’s better that the fraud checks happen than don’t!
The base MBA should be arriving still next week.
Going to see if I can put that through it’s paces and determine if the fanless performance penalty is something I will mind with my own use cases.
Plus, I am really curious to see what level of gaming is possible both with the MBA and the MBP. Would be good on trips to be able to play some games in a hotel room or something.
I'm hopeful Apple is going to pay/buy some studios in the next few years to take Mac gaming seriously, especially when they release chips with bigger and better GPUs, matching the PS5/Xbox SX performance (which can happen within 2 years). At that point an Apple gaming console (unified games on console, iOS and Macs) seems inevitable.
Associate
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The only thing I’m actually playing right now is Hades on my Switch and Apex Legends on my PC.
I tried Apple Arcade briefly at the beginning but couldn’t find anything compelling. I think you get 3 months free with qualifying purchases (also Apple TV+?) which I think these laptops are eligible for? So I will give it another spin.
But yeah, hopeful for more gaming to get more and more established. That being said, most of the stuff coming out from the big industry names doesn’t excite me so let’s see. So I don’t need the latest and greatest graphics, give me good gameplay. In that sense, there is no reason the M1 can’t provide that, but needs the right games available.
I tried Apple Arcade briefly at the beginning but couldn’t find anything compelling. I think you get 3 months free with qualifying purchases (also Apple TV+?) which I think these laptops are eligible for? So I will give it another spin.
But yeah, hopeful for more gaming to get more and more established. That being said, most of the stuff coming out from the big industry names doesn’t excite me so let’s see. So I don’t need the latest and greatest graphics, give me good gameplay. In that sense, there is no reason the M1 can’t provide that, but needs the right games available.
Caporegime
There are some good reasons not to be getting the new ARM macs if you need them for professional work that can't be done on another machine you have. Its first gen, might have issues with either bugs or reliability. Software bugs. Can only power a single display etc
I got a 16" macbook pro about 2.5 months ago and none of the new macbooks will replace this. When they release a 16" version with 4 usb-c ports, a beefier processor, 32GB+ ram and its been shown to be reliable I will probably get one.
They look like lovely machines (the new ARM macs) but the old intel ones will be fine for years to come.
I got a 16" macbook pro about 2.5 months ago and none of the new macbooks will replace this. When they release a 16" version with 4 usb-c ports, a beefier processor, 32GB+ ram and its been shown to be reliable I will probably get one.
They look like lovely machines (the new ARM macs) but the old intel ones will be fine for years to come.
That's very important, even though we're seeing news about all these professional software getting native ARM versions, they are very likely still not well-optimised and might have reliability issues. Being multi-arch is a lot easier these days compared to 15 years ago with PowerPC to Intel transition, but there are still challenges.
We are in a transition period after all!
Soldato
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Would love a MacBook Pro 16 without Intel.
Caporegime
Should hopefully get the reviews today. There’s going to be a lot of info to unpack.
The reviews will go something like this:
Battery life is amazing
General performance is good
Some niche workloads are slow
Some Rosetta Apps are buggy
GPU is slow compared to something discrete but faster than the old intel integrated.
Could be cheaper
Youtubers who are into Apple think it’s the best thing since sliced bread.
Most ‘normal’ people who just shop and go on Facebook etc. will only notice the battery life improvements.
Battery life is amazing
General performance is good
Some niche workloads are slow
Some Rosetta Apps are buggy
GPU is slow compared to something discrete but faster than the old intel integrated.
Could be cheaper
Youtubers who are into Apple think it’s the best thing since sliced bread.
Most ‘normal’ people who just shop and go on Facebook etc. will only notice the battery life improvements.
Caporegime
Personally I’m interested in how well the air handles the heat, the difference between 7 and 8 GPU cores, what gaming performance is like and how well Lightroom CC runs.
Soldato
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It surprised me the only difference being the 1 extra GPU core. You can only assume the active cooling on the pro prevents throttling.
Pretty much. I don't care about these YouTuber reviews which will likely drop first. I want a proper benchmarking of the M1 on both the Air and Pro.
The higher end Air also gets the 8-core CPU.
Even Apple admitted that the fan on the Pro "unleashes the M1", effectively confirming that the only difference is thermal throttling.
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I think a lot of 'normal' people are going to love the fact you can't hear a fan, battery life lasts forever and it runs very snappily. Me included.
Edit: and on a related note, my base MBA looks like its turning up tomorrow!
Will set it up and put it through its paces, but I will also get a 16GB MBP a week later. I'm half tempted to run benchmarks between the two but I might as well just let the pros do it 
Edit: and on a related note, my base MBA looks like its turning up tomorrow!
Will set it up and put it through its paces, but I will also get a 16GB MBP a week later. I'm half tempted to run benchmarks between the two but I might as well just let the pros do it
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Soldato
What we don't know, however, is the clock speed and TDP.
It's likely the case that the M1 in the Air cannot sustain the same clock speed as the Pro.
What we do know, though, is that Apple are typically happy with a thermal design temperature target of ~95 degrees C, and I wouldn't expect any difference here with the Air.
Yeah. A lot of people often dismiss burst performance as though it doesn't matter, and it doesn't if you're gaming or video converting. It just shows how snappy your device is at doing normal stuff, which is often what most people care about anyway.