M1 Mac air is good buy?

Any laptop can be a "good buy" if it meets your needs.

You can find lots of M1 Macbook reviews on youtube, and for the most part, they've all been pretty positive.
Ultimately, it really depends on what you need it for. If I were buying one now I'd lean towards the M1 (great performance overall), unless I needed a machine with an intel chip.

Apple is having an event tomorrow, April 20th — see I'd wait to see what they announce.
If you can wait until August/September they usually have a back to school promo where you might get a better deal. As they tend to offer things like AirPods or AppleCare discounts with your purchase.

I'd also check to see if any of the programs you want to run have an m1 version (or if there is a planned updates).

Absolutely love my M1 MacBook Air! It's actually my primary computer now.

I had a 15 / 16" Macbook Pro before - Now I have the M1 - I do miss the bigger screen.

My main machine? Intel laptop (that no matter what i do always have the annoying fan on at low speed). Reason it being my main machine? Ports! I connect two external monitors, all my USB / USBc connected etc. I can disconnect and just take it instantly. Memory card reader is a big one too. Also, everything works! Macbook the new M1 chip doesn't support everything (my firewall isn't supported new MAC OS,- now I don't want to spend money on another). Parallels (windows boot) isn't supported.
As long as you stay in mac eco system, you are good.

They say macbook bringing back ports - but they will never bring in PC type ports.

Not to steal this thread but I have a question....

I've heard mixed pieces about the SSDs in these M1 machines being not very reliable? Has that been fixed, sounded like it was software oriented.

Does anyone know if programs used on devices like the cricut machine work on the m1? I heard some program incompatibilities.

Wife's rocking an old 2014 MB Air and while it does the job I don't want to wait for it to die to buy a new one.

DarkMasterMX wrote: ↑ Not to steal this thread but I have a question....

I've heard mixed pieces about the SSDs in these M1 machines being not very reliable? Has that been fixed, sounded like it was software oriented.

Does anyone know if programs used on devices like the cricut machine work on the m1? I heard some program incompatibilities.

Wife's rocking an old 2014 MB Air and while it does the job I don't want to wait for it to die to buy a new one.

? The M1 has no reliability issues with its SSDs. There was fear mongering over the number of swaps on machines with 8 GB of RAM, but the reality is they're right in line with the SSD's expected lifetime (~15 years). Program incompatibilities might exist for old x86 binaries, but I've yet to encounter any issues with software that does not have a native M1 version. Rosetta 2 is seamless and the performance is fantastic, even through the emulation layer.

pz771114 wrote: ↑ I have heard tons of positive reviews, so tempting to get one,

any knows? thanks

I mean, it depends on what you define as good. They're the most power efficient laptops available right, by a large margin, and as fast as the 35 TDP chips from AMD and Intel. Having said that, Boot Camp is no longer a thing with the M1s, so if you must run some Windows software, your only choice is Virtual Emulation. Whether that makes it a "bad buy" or "good buy" depends entirely on your use case.

Devhux wrote: ↑ Absolutely love my M1 MacBook Air! It's actually my primary computer now.

Same. I had a 2010 Macbook Pro that was on its last legs. I bought a refurb M1 Macbook Air for like $300 off and this thing FLIES. I'm playing Diablo 3 on max resolution with no issues. Love it.

unshavenyak wrote: ↑ ? The M1 has no reliability issues with its SSDs. There was fear mongering over the number of swaps on machines with 8 GB of RAM, but the reality is they're right in line with the SSD's expected lifetime (~15 years). Program incompatibilities might exist for old x86 binaries, but I've yet to encounter any issues with software that does not have a native M1 version. Rosetta 2 is seamless and the performance is fantastic, even through the emulation layer.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252489922

Was this issue, kinda reported all over the place but I haven't dug in enough to see if there was a solid answer other than "the third party tool might be reporting the results not completely accurately".

DarkMasterMX wrote: ↑ https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252489922

Was this issue, kinda reported all over the place but I haven't dug in enough to see if there was a solid answer other than "the third party tool might be reporting the results not completely accurately".

I already addressed that. At the reported swap rates, the drive will last ~15 years. That's up to you if you think that's "excessive wear" (it's not for a SSD).

One of the guys in our office is a super Apple fan, updates all his gear regularly. He bought the M1, returned it a week later after a frustrating amount of time spent on the phone with Apple support. Not sure what all the problems were, but among other things the non-x86 chip can't run Windows apps under Parallels desktop natively, needs a new x86 emulation layer that's only available so far in a new beta version of Parallels that's not ready for prime time. Sounds like the M1 needs a few months at least to settle before it would be safe to buy one.

How's web development work on it? Got the ASUS Zenbook S Ultra Slim UX393JA last week but still looking at the M1. I was reading stuff on it and there seems to be a lot of workarounds for some work and I kind of don't want to deal with that.

Scote64 wrote: ↑ One of the guys in our office is a super Apple fan, updates all his gear regularly. He bought the M1, returned it a week later after a frustrating amount of time spent on the phone with Apple support. Not sure what all the problems were, but among other things the non-x86 chip can't run Windows apps under Parallels desktop natively, needs a new x86 emulation layer that's only available so far in a new beta version of Parallels that's not ready for prime time. Sounds like the M1 needs a few months at least to settle before it would be safe to buy one.

It was well known ahead of time that Parallels wouldn't work. In fact, they said that themselves.

Depends what you do. Now that the iPad Pro has the same M1 chip, might be a good alternative as well.

DarkMasterMX wrote: ↑ https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252489922

Was this issue, kinda reported all over the place but I haven't dug in enough to see if there was a solid answer other than "the third party tool might be reporting the results not completely accurately".

Update

Apple resolved M1 Mac SSD wear reporting issue in macOS 11.4
https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/06 ... s-114-beta

Scote64 wrote: ↑ One of the guys in our office is a super Apple fan, updates all his gear regularly. He bought the M1, returned it a week later after a frustrating amount of time spent on the phone with Apple support. Not sure what all the problems were, but among other things the non-x86 chip can't run Windows apps under Parallels desktop natively, needs a new x86 emulation layer that's only available so far in a new beta version of Parallels that's not ready for prime time. Sounds like the M1 needs a few months at least to settle before it would be safe to buy one.

If he expects M1 MACs to support Windows apps 100% then he didn't do his research. Intel translation on M1/MacOS is primarily for existing MAC x86/64 software to run as a "stopgap"; Apple expects developers to recompile their programs to native code. It was never meant to fully emulate an Intel CPU to run Windows.