MacBook Air M1 Gold Review

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Let’s review the new MacBook Air M1 (Buy on Amazon) from Apple.

Apple MacBook Air M1 Gold Review

Here it is… the MacBook Air M1 in Gold. This is a 13" size – and it’s nice! Read on to find out more…

Apple brings an entirely another level of Mac with its MacBook Air M1, its first-ever chip designed specifically for Mac. It is stuffed with an extraordinary 16 billion transistors, which combine the CPU, GPU, Neural Engine, I/O, and many more onto a single little chip. Four performance cores and four efficiency cores are linked to deal with demanding multithreaded duties, resulting in a quantum leap in execution at a portion of the power — and a vital increase to battery life.

Here are some of the styles we are going to look at:

MacBook Air M1 – Video Review on our YouTube Channel

Why read when you can watch? Check out this video from our YouTube channel:

Here we compare physical dimensions to a 2019 MacBook Pro 13″:

How does it perform? Find out more about this amazing notebook computer in our MacBook Air M1 Performance Review.

MacBook Air M1 – Overview

8-Core CPU
The 8-core CPU in M1 is the best-performing and world’s fastest CPU core Apple has ever built to date. M1 has four of them bringing together their efforts for an extensive boost in performance. It also has four efficiency cores that produce an exceptional performance for daily duties applying just a tenth of the power. These e‑cores are the most productive place to run lightweight tasks, allowing the performance cores to deal with the most difficult workloads.

Apple MacBook Air M1 Gold Review

Apple MacBook Air M1 Gold Review

8-Core GPU
M1 highlights the world’s quickest integrated graphics in a personal computer. That makes the MacBook Air M1 up to 5x faster graphics performance compared with the past generation. It has an unimaginable graphic performance that can playback various full‑quality 4K video streams without losing a frame.

18 Hours of Battery Life
Apple claims that this device can get 18 hours of video playback and 15 hours of wireless web.

Apple MacBook Air M1 Gold Review - Apple Silicon

Apple MacBook Air M1 Gold Review (30)

Machine Learning
The power of a full stack of ML technologies makes it up to 9x faster. Apps on MacBook Air can use machine learning to improve photos like a pro automatically, make smart tools such as magic wands and audio filters more exact at auto‑detection, and so much more.

Security
The M1 chip and macOS Big Sur help maintain your system and your data guarded with its advanced security and privacy features above anything in its class. It has an activation lock that safeguards your Mac if it’s ever lost, stolen, or misplaced and can increase your possibilities of recovering it.

Touch ID
Locking and unlocking your Macbook Air is all in the power of your fingerprint. Shopping online with Apple Pay is made easy with Touch ID, as it fills in your shipping and billing information without exposing your card details.

Apple MacBook Air M1 Gold Review - Keyboard

Good news – the keyboard on the MacBook Air M1 is excellent. It integrates TouchID for secure but easy sign in.

Apple MacBook Air M1 Gold Review - TouchID

The Keyboard is great – and includes TouchID.

Other Specifications:
Screen: 13.3in LCD (2560×1600; 227 ppi) True Tone
Storage: 256GB, 512GB, both configurable to 1TB or 2TB SSD
Operating system: macOS 11 Big Sur
Dimensions: 212.4 x 304.1 x 16.1mm
Weight: 1.29kg
Camera: 720p FaceTime HD camera
Connectivity: wifi 6, Bluetooth 5, 2x USB 4 (USB-C)/Thunderbolt 3, headphones

Apple MacBook Air M1 Gold Review - Ports

If there’s anything to complain about with the MacBook Air M1 – it’s that it only has two USB-C ports on the left hand side. The ability to add accessories without a dongle is not present.

Apple 2020 MacBook Air Laptop M1 Chip, 13” Retina Display, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD Storage, Backlit Keyboard, FaceTime HD Camera, Touch ID. Works with iPhone/iPad; Silver
  • All-Day Battery Life – Go longer than ever with up to 18 hours of battery life.
  • Powerful Performance – Take on everything from professional-quality editing to action-packed gaming with ease. The Apple M1 chip with an 8-core CPU delivers up to 3.5x faster performance than the previous generation while using way less power.
  • Superfast Memory – 8GB of unified memory makes your entire system speedy and responsive. That way it can support tasks like memory-hogging multitab browsing and opening a huge graphic file quickly and easily.
  • Stunning Display – With a 13.3 inch Retina display, images come alive with new levels of realism. Text is sharp and clear, and colors are more vibrant.
  • Why Mac – Easy to learn. Easy to set up. Astoundingly powerful. Intuitive. Packed with apps to use right out of the box. Mac is designed to let you work, play, and create like never before.

MacBook Air M1 Versus MacBook Pro 13″

Here’s a few shots comparing the MacBook Air 13″ to last year’s MacBook Pro 13″.

The MacBook Pro is not the latest model with the M1 – it has an Intel processor.

Apple MacBook Air M1 Gold Review - Size Comparison

As you can see – the dimensions are roughly the same.

The real difference between the two is the thickness, the MacBook Air tapers down to a very thin edge, as shown here.

Apple MacBook Air M1 Gold Review (33)

The MacBook Air tapers down to a very thin edge – and it’s quite lightweight as a consequence.

There’s no fan in the MacBook Air – that means you get silence at all times. (Although this means you may be thermally limited when performing processor-intensive work.)

Apple MacBook Air M1 Gold Review - Back to Back

Apple MacBook Air M1 Gold Versus Apple MacBook Pro 13″

MacBook Air M1 Review – In Summary

That’s our review of the new MacBook Air M1 (Buy on Amazon) from Apple.

MacBook Air M1 is revolutionary as it grants a meaningful development with better battery life and productively faster operation. With its M1 processor, users are given a runway to do more with their laptops, from editing videos to graphics-rich gaming in an improved experience.

Apple MacBook Air M1 Gold Review - Headphone Jack

There is an good old fashioned headphone jack on the MacBook Air M1.

Photo Credits

Some product photos on this page are property of Apple.

Apple MacBook Air M1 Gold Review - Trackpad

The trackpads are similar in size – and both are excellent – of course.

Affiliate Disclaimer

We are an affiliate of various sellers of this product. If you buy items after clicking the links in this article, we receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps us to bring you in-depth information and content on these great products.

Apple MacBook Air M1 Gold Review - 30 watt charger

Here’s another thing we like about this slim, streamlined computer – the 30W charger (included) does not take up a lot of space when you travel.

Last update on 2024-06-26 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API