[JohnR]

This is not a fanboy post Please keep responses objective.

However, I do have to say that with the M1 processor Apple have solved the issues that plagued their laptops in recent years, assuming that is that you can live with the lack of memory/storage upgradability, limited number of ports, and the inability to run virtual machines, Boot Camp, 32-bit applications, or more than one external screen. Little heat, no fan noise (literally none because there is no fan), and I'm even starting to get used to Big Sur (with some tweaks). The keyboard is nowhere near as good as people say it is but it's OK, it's usable.

I wouldn't buy a Windows laptop that doesn't have an 11th gen processor in it right now. A mid-range E14 ThinkPad from Lenovo was only slightly less cost than the Apple but double the RAM and drive (and expandable), and the 11th gen Intel CPU (i7) is a really good performer. However the famed Thinkpad keyboard was a letdown because it was loose and clacked in some places and I'm now going through the slow painful process of returning it to Lenovo. It did a reasonable job of keeping heat under control but when the fan did spin up it had a high-pitched whine. Apart from those two issues it would have been a really great deal.

I'm pretty OS-agnostic these days, using macOS, Windows and Linux fairly regularly and I think getting productive on any of them is mostly a matter of a learning curve. The size of internal storage is no longer an issue for me as I use Resilio Sync to keep a working repository on the mobile devices (inc laptops) and larger archive-style repositories on an always-on desktop or server.

[TomS]

John,

Thanks much for the comparison. I have a couple year old MacBook 12 i5 which is my daily driver for browsing, Roon, etc and the keyboard is horrid. It made me want to finally ditch Apple altogether. I also have a recent Lenovo X1 Carbon which is a bigger brighter screen, far better keyboard, but trades weight and heat, plus I don't love Windows due to interop challenges with all of our Apple devices and services.

- So the newer M1 keyboard is still compromised, thought they had addressed that?
- Are there common apps that you've found didn't port over to M1 cleanly or are not available?
- Are the RAM requirements not comparable from M1 to Intel, perhaps M1 needs somewhat less?

Tom

[jtwrace]

This is really good info, thanks.  I keep wondering when the best time to replace my mid 2012 MBAir is. 


BTW - Do you use Resillo Sync across all devices including a NAS?  Which plan do you use?  It would certainly be nice to have access to all files regardless of OS and device then have my central computer backup to the NAS. 

[Scott F.]

Hi John,

I too am curious about Resilio Sync. My company uses OneDrive and it seems to work well. Sometimes a bit slow but overall a decent service.

I've thought about using OneDrive for personal storage but I'm pretty hesitant. It isn't the cost, my worries with any of the cloud storage services is data mining. When you think about it, they have everything on you that could possibly be either compromised or mined to build a profile then sold to a third party.

That said, I've got a makeshift server NAS with 48TB of storage. I'm doing a RAID 1 for simplicity, to back up personal docs and music. One of the NAS drives is dedicated to my security system, 7 cameras. I like the idea of offsite backup just in case. I really like that Resilio segregates devices in case one dies. Makes it really easy to do a restore. And I really like access to files on any device you own including mobile devices. Super convenient. Their price is super cheap too for the service provided.

What are your thoughts on offsite storage and data mining?

[JohnR]

I discovered that the M1 Air performs poorly with external USB drives. My speed drop is much worse than I see reported online. Not an issue so much for me anymore but could be a deal breaker for some. 

- So the newer M1 keyboard is still compromised, thought they had addressed that?

Partly I think. I never got a butterfly keyboard but the new scissor keyboard is not as good as the old one (i.e. 2015), to me anyway. It feels flatter and there's a sort of bonging noise from the deck (not as bad as that might sound, not sure how to describe it...) that makes the whole thing feel a bit less solid to me. In use it's not that much of a problem, I can type on it OK but I wouldn't say I like it as a keyboard. It's subjective/personal of course but if you're used to a Thinkpad you may find it not that great.
 

- Are there common apps that you've found didn't port over to M1 cleanly or are not available?

Not yet although I'm just going through the migration/setup process as I find I need things. As mentioned no virtualization so Fusion, Parallels, Virtualbox and vagrant are out. Homebrew needs you to start Terminal in Rosetta for commands to work reliably. Other than that, it's been seamless so far.

- Are the RAM requirements not comparable from M1 to Intel, perhaps M1 needs somewhat less?

I haven't paid much attention to that yet. Since I'm not running VMs I don't need RAM as much anymore.

[JohnR]

This is really good info, thanks.  I keep wondering when the best time to replace my mid 2012 MBAir is. 

One thing is for sure when you do it will be a completely different experience! Rumours are that the M1 Macbook Pro will be obsolete already this year so I'd probably hold on that one. I think however the "low end" M1 Air is a nice deal now. Obscure bugs are getting reported though so if you're not in a hurry it doesn't hurt to wait. Actually I may have just run into one, I can't connect to the M1 with remote desktop from a Catalina machine... hm...

BTW - Do you use Resillo Sync across all devices including a NAS?  Which plan do you use?  It would certainly be nice to have access to all files regardless of OS and device then have my central computer backup to the NAS.

What are your thoughts on offsite storage and data mining?

I use Resilio Sync only on my local network. I paid once for Sync Home Pro (I think it's called) and that's been it, no plan. By default it will sync your devices across the WAN but you can turn that off. (I think/hope). Windows is not as seamless as Mac and Linux - pops up some file lock warnings and has issues with some characters in file names - but it works. The "trick" is to have at least one system with all files on a single file system, so you can move files between repositories.

I don't have a NAS any more, I'm working on a distributed file system slowly but that's a different thing. I see you can install Res Sync on NAS (https://help.resilio.com/hc/en-us/categories/200923136-Use-Sync-on-NAS) but I'd have to leave you to investigate yourselves

I think the thing with Resilio Sync is to start with something small and see how it works out. I'd advise keep it simple, I don't use "selective sync" any more, wasn't worth the trouble. Hence my system of having small "current" repositories and larger "archive" respositories. You still need a backup.

I should mentioned there are alternatives, e.g. open-source SyncThing.

[Update] BTW Resilio Sync does use up a bit of CPU power so maybe check into that before deciding to sync a lot of files on a low-power NAS.

[JohnR]

- Are the RAM requirements not comparable from M1 to Intel, perhaps M1 needs somewhat less?

On this one, apparently the M1 uses a lot of swap (using the SSD as virtual memory). It must do a good job of it as no-one seems to have noticed other than some hand-wringing about wearing out the SSD. But, I don't think it's worth worrying about, as most likely something else will wear out first. Of course this does depend on your usage, again maybe these are not "pro" machines for reasons such as this, for me it's not worth the wait or esp. cost to get more RAM or storage. For a machine that needs to be hammered, the scales tip in favor of L/Wintel (IMO).

Another reason BTW to prefer removable storage is so you can take it out and/or put it into another machine to do a secure erase when you eventually sell or dispose of the machine. With these you have to make absolutely sure you don't put anything important on it before you turn on bitlocker oops filevault.

[TomS]

Thanks John, all great advice 

[RonN5]

I have a three year "loaded up" imac and a 10year old Asus running windows 7.  The Asus died so I thought I'd go to Best Buy and check out the M chip machines vs the new Windows machines with the 11th generation chips.  Granted, you don't have the option to try the programs you might use at home every day but the overall feel and speed seemed very similar with one exception...office programs opened more quickly on the windows machines.

To really get a nicely equipped 13" Macbook, the price was going to be over $2k...a similar windows machine was half the price.  I really expected given how great my Imac has been that I'd buy an M chip machine.  But, the price and the newness of the M chip pushed me toward another windows machine.   

Ultimately, I bought this machine on Amazon for $900....HP Pavilion 15 Laptop, 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1165G7 Processor, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD Storage, Full HD IPS Micro-Edge Display, Windows 10 Pro.

The speed is as close to instantaneous as you might hope for...remember the days when boot up was 3+ minutes.  The feel and function for the past month have been great, so no disappointments there.  The screen is rated at 270 nits which is plenty bright for indoor, but may not be bright enough for outdoor.  Also, a somewhat weird thing...sometimes, even after being powered off (and unplugged), the battery will discharge 5-10% overnight as though it really didn't power all the way down.

[JLM]

Am a computer dunce.  After 8 years of iMac, 6 years of MacBook Air, and 4 years of iPhone ownership the glitches (most due to my ignorance) were piling up and I was struggling.  Note that I keep all of their operating systems up to date.  The nearby Apple store would only take appointments and those via an app, which loading apps was one of my glitches.  Bummed out but found a help telephone number and found relief.  The very nice gal stayed on the phone with me for a total of 5 hours over two days and has solved all the problems I could think of.  Where else can you find that kind of service on products that are way past their warrantees?  Am an Apple fan for life!

[JohnR]

To really get a nicely equipped 13" Macbook, the price was going to be over $2k...

HP Pavilion 15 Laptop, .., 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD Storage,...

Hi, I'm not sure what you were looking at but I think a fairer comparison would be the Air with same memory and storage which is $1449. However as I'm saying (perhaps not very well ) if you can engineer a way to not need the storage internally the 8/256 Air is $999 (*1). I think the "low end" units are where the value is.

With that said, the solution is not external USB drives. My USB-C drive which gives me ~850 MB/sec on an Intel Mac just scored 190MB/sec on the M1 Air. It's abysmal. Apple fans will probably say oh you have to get the OWC TB hub and a TB drive. But that's more freaking accessories which may or may not be reliable / work as expected.

My take on this computer is that it's like Apple drew a box and said "we're designing this for people who fit in here, like it or lump it." Not that this is new for Apple but it feels very strong with this one. If your usage fits, this is great. Fast, stays cool (*2). My desktop is completely silent now (*3), a luxury I haven't had in years! OK I had to remove a screen, but still, it's worth it. The rest of my approach to fitting into that box I outline above (Resilio Sync). Perhaps not the box Apple thought of but it's like the M1 is a zooid in my computer colony

Other ways to fit into the box are to a. not be a demanding user or b. be a so-called "pro" who pays the steep storage upcharges because you think you have to. I've been down the latter path and it's just not worth it. There's more to a laptop - the screen is easily scratched, the keys on the keyboards wear out, they do get dropped (oops) etc. Better to figure out how to make effective use of the cheapest one and replace it more often.

Not to be negative! I bought the original Air back in 2008 (with a hard drive lol), and since had two 11" Airs. However after 2015, they just weren't worth buying, either because the screen wasn't upgraded to Retina or the CPU was anemic. Now, the Air is back! Well, it is a completely different machine, but it's the spirit...


(*1) I haven't found a negative yet with the 8GB of RAM. Heaps of reviewers on YouTube with an opinion and very few of them have any clue at all! It's pathetic YouTube.

(*2) I did notice temps climbing earlier today, to 55 which is hot for this machine. Turns out Notes was using up a core. Seems to be a more and more common occurrence with some Apple process running rogue, which of course is going to chew through your battery. Safari cloud sync, md worker, something called deleted - it's a bit surprising. BTW I haven't run it all the way down but I project 8-9 hours on a charge. Maybe I'm a "power user" (literally, hah) but I think this is realistic use.

(*3) Noise on my desktop? It's because of Apple's crap design decision in its 15 and 16-inch laptops that makes the dGPU switch on full power when you connect an external screen. Instant jump in heat output and subsequently fan noise, even if you're not doing a darn thing. The Thinkpad was different - the dGPU is used only for some of the work, I forget the specifics but I think the dGPU was doing 3D rendering and the iGPU everything else. The dGPU was kinda hot itself but that was all the time, there was no difference (that I noticed) in heat output whether an external screen was connected or not.

[toocool4]

I have to admit I started going off Apple when they removed all the ports and now that I will not be able to run Windows, that is a deal breaker.

My MacBook Pro has just died, so I guess next laptop will have to be Windows machine and I’ll have to run Hackintosh or an older MacBook pro which still has all the ports built in.

At the moment I am using a work MacBook Pro with that terrible touch strip.

[JohnR]

I haven't said much about the 11th gen apart from my initial post, but I notice that the 11th gen NUCs are available.

https://nucblog.net/2021/02/panther-canyon-i7-nuc-review-nuc11pahi7/

Supposedly that "Performance" version is only for Asia-Pacific but they can be obtained elsewhere from some importers. Rest of world is supposed to get the "Pro" version. Who knows. At any rate the reviewed one there fixes the disaster that was the 10th gen NUCs. Per the review fan noise can still be a bit obnoxious.

[JohnR]

I keep wondering when the best time to replace my mid 2012 MBAir is. 

Just ran into this, could be useful - https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#mac (scroll down)

[jtwrace]

Just ran into this, could be useful - https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#mac (scroll down)

Thanks