Apple M1 Macbook Air 8GB

[Hanley]

I sold a 2013 MacBook Pro last week, 8 years old and it sold for £475.
My wife was using it but it wasn't great with her online Zoom meetings for Zumba so she kept nicking my 16inch MacBook Pro

Anyhow, I put £375 to it and picked up an M1 MacBook Air 8GB from the Apple Refurb store, cost £849.

Wow that thing flies, especially the stock apps, click Mail and it's instantly open and in your face, same with Safari, TV+, News, Music etc.
Even apps using Rosetta fly.

She was using it in bed last night, complimented on how quiet it was (as it has no fan) and the whole time she used it the base remained cold.
I was using it this morning to sort out family sharing for AppleOne and the battery had only gone down 5% even though she'd been browsing for nearly 2 hours last night.

I don't plan on using it for anything but she's extremely happy and I'm excited what Apple will release in the next 2 years with the M1 chip.

 

[LoneRider]

Big Apple fan here, and good deals to be had at the refurb store. I’m always impressed at the resale value used Mac’s have. I usually upgrade about every 4 years or so and have always been able to get 60% or better of what I paid back when I sell the old to buy new.

 

[Tim Mayo]

Sounds Great! My iMac is 6 years old now so I'm really hoping that they put that M1 chip or similar into some new iMacs sooner rather than later. That said, it's still quite nippy unless I start editing 4k video then it starts to show its age. There's an Apple event on the 20th so fingers crossed.

 

[Hanley]

Sounds Great! My iMac is 6 years old now so I'm really hoping that they put that M1 chip or similar into some new iMacs sooner rather than later. That said, it's still quite nippy unless I start editing 4k video then it starts to show its age. There's an Apple event on the 20th so fingers crossed.

I'm the same, my iMac is the 2017 27 inch 5K version, works great but I've noticed it struggles with the files from the R5.
Even my 16 inch MacBook Pro which has 8 core i9 with 64GB RAM seems to struggle with the R5 files.

I'm definitely keeping an eye on what Apple release this year, like you I'm hoping for an M1 iMac, hopefully redesigned with a smaller bezel all round

 

[MaraLee]

Another Apple fan here. I have a 2011 21.5" iMac, a 2011 13" Macbook Pro, a 2015 27" iMac, and just bought a 2021 13" Macbook Pro with M1. I still use them all, for different purposes. They all run great and have never given me any issues other than the older ones needing more RAM for photo processing.

I'd love to have an iMac with the M1, but I need the laptop for portability. I like being able to transfer photos on location when necessary. Maybe someday I'll splurge and have both.

 

[Hanley]

Another Apple fan here. I have a 2011 21.5" iMac, a 2011 13" Macbook Pro, a 2015 27" iMac, and just bought a 2021 13" Macbook Pro with M1. I still use them all, for different purposes. They all run great and have never given me any issues other than the older ones needing more RAM for photo processing.

I'd love to have an iMac with the M1, but I need the laptop for portability. I like being able to transfer photos on location when necessary. Maybe someday I'll splurge and have both.

How do you find the performance of the M1 MacBook Pro?

 

[MaraLee]

How do you find the performance of the M1 MacBook Pro?

It's excellent. The M1 chip, coupled with the SSD, is lightning fast, even in LR and PS. Where my 2015 iMac, even with 16gb of RAM would take minutes to perform a batch process, this MBP does it in the blink of an eye. It comes natively with 8gb of RAM, but I had it built from Apple with 16gb, because I know it would be fine for a while with the 8 but eventually I'll own an R5, too, and the larger file sizes will be harder to handle as my MBP ages, so I was trying to look ahead.

 

[Only RF]

Apple Canada wanted to give me $250 CND for a 2019 17inch iMac.