The M1 is faster than any other laptop chip, rivalling the most high-powered desktop chips, while being very power-efficient.Īpple’s cheapest and lowest-power laptop can now do things hitherto reserved for only large, high-performance machines, and with multi work-day battery life to boot. The smaller the scale, the more energy-efficient it can be.Ĭombined, it creates a once-in-a-generation performance and battery-life leap. The M1 is also the first desktop chip to be made at the 5nm scale, where most are made at the 10 or 14nm scale. All eight cores can run simultaneously for maximum performance, but the chip is designed to be as power-efficient as possible. The M1 has four high-performance CPU cores that handle the demanding stuff such as crunching data and editing photos, while four high-efficiency CPU cores handle lightweight tasks such as sending emails. In the cheapest MacBook Air (as tested) it has an eight-core processor (CPU) and a seven-core graphics processor (GPU), with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, but an eight-core GPU option is available. The new M1 replaces the Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 of its predecessor. The inside of the Air is almost exactly the same as its predecessor too, apart from one very important part: the processor or, more accurately, the system-on-a-chip (SoC), which combines processor, graphics and RAM all in one package.

The MacBook Air only has two USB-C/Thunderbolt ports, which means you’ll need an expansion dock if used with a monitor, otherwise both ports will be occupied with power and monitor cables. Giant leap in performance and battery life Processor: Apple M1 with seven or eight-core GPUĬonnectivity: wifi 6, Bluetooth 5, 2x USB 4 (USB-C)/Thunderbolt 3, headphones The 720p webcam is slightly better, too, but is still poor compared with those on iPads, iPhones and some rival laptops, which is a real shame.Īll in all, the physical design and operation of the MacBook Air is almost perfect for a standard consumer laptop, with rivals only beating it with slightly thinner bezels around the screen. The 13.3in screen supports the wider DCI-P3 colour space – a feature hitherto reserved for the more expensive MacBook Pro.

The new MacBook Air has the same Touch ID fingerprint sensor/power button, Apple’s good new keyboard and its large, best-in-class trackpad as the previous version.

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