Poll: *** The official 2020 MacBook Air/13" MacBook Pro thread (it has the M1 chip and everything!) ***

[chef-borjan]

Another quick note. I have been sat in bed for maybe just over an hour or so, filling out an online webpage application form (text entry really)..

The MBA's battery has dropped from 100% to.... 96%.

Why would Apple have lied about the battery life numbers?

 

[LiE]

New machines will be doing some background indexing.

 

[HACO]

New machines will be doing some background indexing.

I think @chef-borjan was joking, as 4% for an hour of use means 25 hours of battery life, better than Apple's battery life claims.

 

[chef-borjan]

New machines will be doing some background indexing.

Ah, I'm not having a dig here at Apple, instead to those that said their numbers were going to be inflated!

Even at 4% an hour, that's 25 hours of power.

And honestly I think it was a bit more than an hour but didn't set a timer or anything (although I have the display a bit dimmed so as not to tire out the old eyeballs).

 

[Rilot]

That's some serious GPU performance I'm seeing in the reviews. Makes the 4700U in my HP Envy look positively pedestrian.

 

[LiE]

Ah, I'm not having a dig here at Apple, instead to those that said their numbers were going to be inflated!

Even at 4% an hour, that's 25 hours of power.

And honestly I think it was a bit more than an hour but didn't set a timer or anything (although I have the display a bit dimmed so as not to tire out the old eyeballs).

Fair enough

 

[HACO]

Satisfying video about how fast the Macbook Air goes through opening the default apps on macOS:

You can see from the dock that the apps are completely closed at the start.

 

[Spit]

I have been on my Air for the last 2 hours playing and installing and battery has gone down to 92%.

 

[Spit]

Well I am pretty astounded to be honest. I have just had a play on WoW but still on patch 9.01 unfortunately running on Intel code.

This thing just does not slow down, graphics setting 10 with shadows on high at 1440x900 resolution, solid 60fps in Icecrown.

I can also move between apps with no lag using mission control.

 

[HACO]

Well I am pretty astounded to be honest. I have just had a play on WoW but still on patch 9.01 unfortunately running on Intel code.

This thing just does not slow down, graphics setting 10 with shadows on high at 1440x900 resolution, solid 60fps in Icecrown.

I can also move between apps with no lag using mission control.

Anandtech also saw close to no slowdown running games and GPU benchmarks through Rosetta. WoW is probably GPU bound, so native or Rosetta, M1 can handle it. GPU stuff are done in metal either way.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

I’ve now had a chance to have a look at all of the reviews and am I the only one struggling to justify why the 13” pro exists?

I get why they have out the M1 in it, the Air would have wrecked a quad core intel chip equipped pro. I’m just struggling why you would buy one over the Air.

The pro has better sustained performance over a very long period but realistically anyone who is doing ‘proper work’ and hitting the machine hard for long periods on a regular basis is going to want more power than the M1 can offer and will be looking at the 16” whenever that is released.

For everyone else the Pro offers nothing over the Air other than battery life at the expense of being a bit fatter. Touch bar is take it or leave it for me.

 

[HACO]

I’ve now had a chance to have a look at all of the reviews and am I the only one struggling to justify why the 13” pro exists?

I get why they have out the M1 in it, the Air would have wrecked a quad core intel chip equipped pro. I’m just struggling why you would buy one over the Air.

The pro has better sustained performance over a very long period but realistically anyone who is doing ‘proper work’ and hitting the machine hard for long periods on a regular basis is going to want more power than the M1 can offer and will be looking at the 16” whenever that is released.

For everyone else the Pro offers nothing over the Air other than battery life at the expense of being a bit fatter. Touch bar is take it or leave it for me.

I generally agree, most people should just get the Air. I think the MBP is marketing more than anything, letting everyone know that they mean business, and these chips can sustain performance in a normal laptop form factor.

A few years ago when Apple released their lowest-end 13-inch MBP, they actually said that it's just a more powerful Air.

 

[Throrik]

I think the comparison to the baseline Pro and MBA has been slightly dubious in the last few years anyway. They'll likely converge some of their models again at some point. A lot of people want the Pro because they see themselves as a 'Pro User' when they're not.

 

[squerble]

I'd actually guess a lot of people wanted the Pro to make up the shortfall of performance due to how low the Intel chips were clocked in the Air, to avoid thermal throttling etc. That seems to really not be an issue with the new Air - yes it throttles, but only after sustained loads whereas the iAir were pretty quick.

 

[Matrix]

I'd suggest posting here -> https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/apple-silicon-arm-macs.227/

Thank you I'll take a look .

 

[Rilot]

The screen is a fair bit brighter in the MBP though isn't it?

 

[Feek]

The screen is a fair bit brighter in the MBP though isn't it?

The MacBook Air is 400 nits (same as the previous model) compared to the MacBook Pro which is 500 nits (same as the previous model).

The new ones both have Wide colour (P3) whereas the old Air was just Full standard colour (sRGB)

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Screen brightness/quality is really only something enthusiasts tend to look at though.

Most normal people who buy these things wouldn’t even know there might even be a difference, what 400 vs 500 even means other than assume bigger is better or tell the difference when they are looking at it.

The screen on my wife’s older MacBook Air is sub standard, especially for how much it cost. She says it’s perfectly fine where as it would annoy the hell out of me.

 

[Feek]

The screen on my wife’s older MacBook Air is sub standard, especially for how much it cost. She says it’s perfectly fine where as it would annoy the hell out of me.

When I bought my first Apple laptop back in 2009 (ish), I spent a lot of time comparing models and the screen on the Air was much worse than the MBP and that really was the deciding factor.

The 2016 MB I'm typing this on is 327 nits so the new Air will be an improvement for me but I'll probably never even notice as it's very rare for the brightness to be at maximum.

 

[LiE]

My Air is at max brightness right now in my office and it's more than enough, lovely and bright. If I worked with the sun beaming into my office all day, maybe I'd need more.