MacBook Air M1
Light as Air in more ways than one
Introducing Apple’s M1 chip
Apple has never made its own CPU for the Mac—until now. The M1 chipset is a first for the company and the MacBook Air M1 is one of the first devices to get it. M1 is an ARM-based system on a chip (SoC) looking to usher in a new era for Macs that realize a new level of performance and power-efficiency.
M1 is a complex piece of silicon. It uses the ARM architecture the iPad and iPhone already run on and adds more power to it by combining different processing components together. Transistors that once operated independently, like the GPU, security and memory chips, can now run more efficiently together. Doing that doubles efficiency to the point of increasing battery power.
The ARM-based chipset moves the MacBook Air closer to the iPad and iPhone, part of which would include natively running iOS or iPadOS apps. Previous MacBook Air laptops ran on Intel processors that use the same x86 architecture that Windows PCs have also used for a long time.
How the MacBook Air M1 will work with other Macs
ARM and x86 are different, so they can’t speak the same language in technical terms. Apple built a protocol called Rosetta 2 to bridge the two together as a compatibility layer. It can automatically convert an x86 application from an Intel-based MacBook Pro over to the newest ARM-based laptop when you install it.
This is a stepping stone to give developers time to create ARM-based versions of their apps and games so they can benefit from the full power efficiency of the new M1 chip. The MacBook Air was built to take advantage of every functional benefit afforded to it, and that includes all the trappings of the latest hardware and software.
Still thin and light
Weighing just 2.8 pounds, the MacBook Air is still the lightest Apple laptop available. And at a mere 0.16-inches at its smallest point, it’s also the thinnest of all Macs you can find. That kind of portability is helped further by the slimmer bezels that squeeze in a 13.3-inch Retina display (2560 x 1600) into a smaller frame.
The Magic Keyboard includes backlighting and a Touch ID sensor to add some biometric security. Your fingers will slide around with ease on the Force Touch trackpad, letting you navigate and get things done through multi-touch gestures.
Internal storage starts at 256GB, or you can opt for 512GB or higher. There are two USB-C Thunderbolt ports with transfer speeds of up to 40Gbps, or 10Gbps when connecting a drive running on USB 3.1. The MacBook Air M1 also has Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 on board, bringing the latest wireless protocols to Apple’s thinnest laptop.
Dolby Atmos support also comes with the stereo speakers to get the best surround-like audio from the new Air every time you play compatible content. Plug in your favourite headphones through the 3.5mm headphone jack, or wirelessly pair a set of Bluetooth headphones to listen in privacy at your leisure.
Extending battery life further
The MacBook Air has long been among the best Apple laptops for battery life, and that trend continues with the latest innovations coming from the M1 chip. You can expect up to 18 hours of video playback on a full battery, leaving plenty of time to binge-watch a show. It’s up to 15 hours if you’re purely talking about web browsing. These are the best rates the new Air manages based on the built-in efficiencies associated with ARM applications. Apple has already transitioned its own desktop applications to reflect the change, and because of that, they need less battery power to run.
The MacBook Air M1 also comes with macOS Big Sur preloaded. The latest version of Apple’s desktop operating system was developed with the M1 chip in mind, and the combination makes for smoother performance for every task. Additional power management capabilities help the cause by helping the battery only expend the power necessary for each task, saving time and extra power all at once.