Apple MacBook Air with M1 review: incredibly fast performance with no fan noise, decent gaming performance, and a great keyboard and trackpad
and quad-thread—consumer-available processor on the planet, it certainly isn't missing it by much.” ... and this is the first gen non-pro level hardware.... 😳 Really not making it easy to hold off! https://twitter.com/... Rick Klau / @rklau : this computer is very, very fast. Went with the MacBook Air w/16 gigs of RAM. oh my. Luke Miani / @lukemiani : Guys Apple Silicon isn't that good !⃝ 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗶 𝗺 𝗶𝘀 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗽 𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗱 Benjamin Mayo / @bzamayo : I can't remember the last time reviews for an Apple product were so universally positive, especially considering these are machines that look the same as the previous-gen. Apple simply excelled themselves with the ARM transition. Rik Arends / @rikarends : This means there is no more ‘high end’ laptop/macbook except for maybe Ram. The M1 macbook air simply beats them by such a wide margin, it's done. Stefan Constantine / @whatthebit : Do you know how mad I am that Apple's new $999 laptop is faster than my less than one year old $3,300 MacBook Pro? https://twitter.com/... Rene Ritchie / @reneritchie : Also, after years and years of seeing the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and AirPods redefine expectations in their respective categories, it's really cool to see the Mac do it. Again. Again. (Again.) Feels like today has been a decade in the making and they just crushed it. https://twitter.com/... Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith : Apple makes this stuff look effortless, but you need only look at other platforms to see just how incredibly difficult it is to change your OS so dramatically and convince your developers to come along with you. Apple's power to affect evolution on its platforms is unparalleled Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : The press reviews are pretty clearly confirming Apple's claim: ARM + TSMC + Apple execution mean Apple is shipping a ‘PC’ chip that's dramatically ahead of Intel on almost any measure. Nilay Patel / @reckless : I purposefully bought Becky a maxed-out Core i7 MacBook Air a few months ago because she has to run one sad Windows app for work. It scored a 2867 in Cinebench with the fan blazing. The new Air silently scored... 6803. Just an astounding leap in performance and battery life. https://twitter.com/... Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith : If you took umbrage at Apple's graphs at the event, you haven't been paying attention; I'm not at all surprised that the cheapest, entry-level M1 Macs have performance to embarrass even top-end MBPs, because we've seen it in the iPad for years. Next, let's burn it all on 120Hz 😂 @dhh : Also, what a timing for the transition. While that chip team keeps killing it on iOS, they've hit the ceiling on what Apple seems to know what to do with all that power. Not so on laptops. Such a combined leap in performance + battery is epochal. @ow : This review has me *very* optimistic about how Apple's ARM-based M1 chips are going to shake up laptops in a big way https://www.theverge.com/... Rene Ritchie / @reneritchie : Basically, the only major regression on M1 Macs is heat generation. M1 Mac mini can't keep my coffee as warm, nor can M1 MacBook Pro work as a heat blanket, like the Intel versions can. If you want either of those things, alas, you have to stick with Intel. https://twitter.com/... Joshua Benton / @jbenton : New MacBook Air gets a 9.5/10 from @theverge https://www.theverge.com/...
EngadgetDevindra Hardawar
Context & Ripple Effects
Four days after Apple's fanless M1 MacBook Air debut promised up to 3.5x better CPU performance at $999, the first wave of reviews lands and largely confirms the claims: Engadget calls the performance incredibly fast with zero fan noise, and commentators note it may be the most universally praised Apple hardware launch in memory — remarkable given the chassis looks unchanged.
The catch shows up in the sibling machine: The Verge's MacBook Pro M1 review flags only two USB ports, a 16GB RAM ceiling, and a weak webcam, meaning the $999 Air sits uncomfortably close to its 'pro' sibling. Reviews four-plus years later — the M3 Air in 2024 and the M4 Air in 2025 — keep praising the same formula (fast, thin, great keyboard, excellent battery), evidence that this first-generation review set the template the line still follows.
First-order effects
Buyers get near-Pro performance at $999 in a fanless chassis, collapsing the traditional price-to-performance ladder inside Apple's own laptop lineup overnight.
Early adopters hitting the 16GB RAM ceiling — visible in both M1 reviews — face an unupgradeable machine, since Apple Silicon memory is soldered and capped.
Second-order effects
The MacBook Pro's differentiation shrinks to ports and thermal headroom rather than raw speed, pressuring Apple to re-segment the line around capabilities instead of chip class.
Windows laptop makers selling thin-and-lights against the Air must now answer for battery life and sustained silent performance, where fanless ARM designs hold the edge per the reviews.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds — and the 2024 and 2025 Air reviews suggest it does — Apple's control of its own silicon becomes a compounding moat: each generation inherits the same keyboard-and-battery formula while rivals depend on third-party chip roadmaps.
A 16GB-class ceiling on entry machines could harden into a structural upsell point, pushing memory-bound professional buyers toward pricier tiers as software demands grow — a genuine uncertainty worth watching across future generations.
The trend: Apple's in-house M-series silicon is turning custom chip design into a durable hardware talent moat, one fanless generation at a time.
You asked for it, and here it is: I benchmarked my 2014 11-inch MacBook Air (which has a respectable-for-the-time Core i7 processor) against the new M1 MacBook Air and the results are...hilarious? https://twitter.com/...
According to an early @markgurman report, one of the other configurations in the running for early Apple Silicon Macs is a twelve-core model, 8p+4e. You'd imagine it might be a config intended for iMacs & 16" MBPs. Knowing what we know about M1, how much faster will that be?
We came extremely close to giving the new MacBook Air a 10 out of 10 review score. It is very, very good. @backlon review: https://www.theverge.com/...
@reneritchie @reckless Yes after I posted this tweet I read @backlon's MacBook Air review. 38 frames per second for tomb raider through Rosetta 2? That is absolutely crazy
For the sake of the nation, it's time for Intel to acknowledge that it lost and concede the race to Apple so that the transition can continue without delay. https://www.theverge.com/...
The extent to which Apple's chip team keeps doing victory laps around the rest of the industry is as astounding as it is baffling. How Qualcomm, AMD, and Intel could all falter this badly is 🤯. What's the secret sauce? A ring of patents? Inscrutable genius? https://twitter.com/..…
Remember: “your AAA games will run great. Buttery smoothe.” Reality: “I had little luck in installing and running Mac-compatible games from Steam, and the Steam app itself ran poorly under Rosetta.” https://www.cnet.com/...
One real trend with these systems is that people will want to view their specs in traditional ways and Apple is just going to refuse. Clock speed? What's that? Broader issue: when do trad specs matter and when do they not, with devices like these. We'll have to figure it out. htt…
The stages of grief will play out this week: 1. There's no way M1 can be better than x86! 2. It's not fair... 3. But you need x86 because... 4. Oh, this is a problem 5. Wow, the future is awesome! The iPhone moment has happened. Folks will now see why I pushed Arm all the time.
I get that most are in the here and now when buying a new laptop. M1 Macs are much better w/ same shell as old Macs (minus one port). Still, reviews based on that are like faulting a Tesla over EV range anxiety. M1 represents a huge paradigm shift. https://www.theverge.com/...
ICYMI: My M1 MacBook Pro review, from benchmarks and whether you'll notice any power boost to how it uses old Intel programs and those big battery promises. Alternative headline: one woman's eternal battle against too many tabs. https://amp.heraldsun.com.au/ ... via @theheraldsun
“If Apple's M1 isn't the fastest single-thread—and quad-thread—consumer-available processor on the planet, it certainly isn't missing it by much.” ... and this is the first gen non-pro level hardware.... 😳 Really not making it easy to hold off! https://twitter.com/...
Add a touchscreen, two more ports, dGPU and eGPU support, fix the webcam, and a Mac might be my next laptop. The 2021 16-inch MacBook Pro, perhaps? https://twitter.com/...
The reviews of Apple's M1 laptops are unbelievable. Is there a precedent to a new generation bearing the previous one's performance by a factor of 2-3x, *and* its battery life by one of 2? https://twitter.com/...
Also, after years and years of seeing the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and AirPods redefine expectations in their respective categories, it's really cool to see the Mac do it. Again. Again. (Again.) Feels like today has been a decade in the making and they just crushed it. https://…
16GB max RAM will be a bigger deal than before, b/c people are going to have iOS apps running alongside other RAM heavy desktop apps like Chrome. That's never entered into the equation before, and if it makes even just 1GB of difference, it's a big deal https://www.techmeme.com/.…
The press reviews are pretty clearly confirming Apple's claim: ARM + TSMC + Apple execution mean Apple is shipping a ‘PC’ chip that's dramatically ahead of Intel on almost any measure.
I purposefully bought Becky a maxed-out Core i7 MacBook Air a few months ago because she has to run one sad Windows app for work. It scored a 2867 in Cinebench with the fan blazing. The new Air silently scored... 6803. Just an astounding leap in performance and battery life. http…
If you took umbrage at Apple's graphs at the event, you haven't been paying attention; I'm not at all surprised that the cheapest, entry-level M1 Macs have performance to embarrass even top-end MBPs, because we've seen it in the iPad for years. Next, let's burn it all on 120Hz 😂
Also, what a timing for the transition. While that chip team keeps killing it on iOS, they've hit the ceiling on what Apple seems to know what to do with all that power. Not so on laptops. Such a combined leap in performance + battery is epochal.
Basically, the only major regression on M1 Macs is heat generation. M1 Mac mini can't keep my coffee as warm, nor can M1 MacBook Pro work as a heat blanket, like the Intel versions can. If you want either of those things, alas, you have to stick with Intel. https://twitter.com/..…
“Basically, the $5000 iMac Pro I bought three years ago has been humbled by a $999 MacBook Air and a $699 Mac mini. This is real life. This is where we are now.” @jsnell https://sixcolors.com/...