What starts as startling soon becomes ordinary and expected. Performance increases quickly become the ‘new normal.’ They tend to fade into the background. The differences are less pronounced for individual tasks that require less computing power, but the aggregate impact has still been significant for both computers, especially the MacBook Air. However, living with both of these Macs for as long as I have has given me a much greater appreciation for the impact that the M1 has on ordinary, day-to-day tasks. There are plenty of CPU-intensive tasks that are faster than before, which I expected would be the case. What’s been far more notable, remarkable in fact, is the performance of the new MacBook Air and Mac mini.īenchmarks don’t do these Macs justice. In the ten weeks or so since then, I’ve used both almost exclusively for a wide variety of tasks, and although both computers are somewhat limited by their lack of ports, that has been less of an issue than I anticipated.
I purchased an M1 MacBook Air to replace my aging 2016 MacBook Pro, and not long after, Apple sent me an M1 Mac mini to try. It’s been just over two months since the first M1 Macs were delivered to customers.
