Any Changes That Apple Didn’t Share at Today’s M1 Event
Well, here we are. And yes, this is Craig Federighi of Apple, lovingly watching Apple’s big move towards using its own silicon – the M1 chip, the first system-on-a-chip for the Mac and the world’s first 5nm chip for a laptop or desktop.
Apple today unveiled its new M1 ARM chips in the new MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and Mac Mini. We’ve dug into the specs to find out what else is changing that Apple has n’t talked about, and there is a lot you need to know if or when you upgrade to a new computer. But first, let’s talk about the M1.
It’s a fast chip (Apple says)
According to Apple marketing, its M1 chips feature the fastest and most efficient CPU cores you can get your hands on. Dividing an octa-core chip into a quad-core, high-performance, and high-efficiency – which should sound familiar if you’ve ever watched iPhone or iPad product announcements – allows Apple to achieve significant performance and energy savings.
Apple says its new M1 chip can double the CPU and GPU performance of the leading Windows laptop chips (no name, of course) at just 10W, and it can peak performance on its processor. using one quarter of the power. As far as the GPU goes, it can be as high as one-third the power of the said mysterious Windows laptop.
Again, this is just Apple talk, but even if they improve the benchmarks a bit, it’s a reasonable conclusion to say that its M1 chip will offer better performance than any Intel chips you can buy across its various product families. And the dual focus on efficiency means you get a lot more battery life too.
Should you buy the Mac Apple M1 or wait for the second generation?
Summary:
- No price cuts for MacBooks
- Don’t buy an Intel MacBook
- No M1-based 16-inch MacBook Pro (for later)
Today it looked like Apple had inserted M1 chips into existing Mac models and hadn’t made much of an upgrade beyond that. There were no giant inventions of the MacBook Air , MacBook Pro, or Mac Mini . You still won’t find Face ID on his MacBook, for example, or a 1080p webcam. There are no grandiose inventions of what you can already get in his Intel-based laptops, except for the upgrade to the M1. This is a simple and straightforward bowel exchange. Strong and effective flair, but courage nonetheless.
Also, I’m a little surprised that Apple gives small savings to those who buy an M1-based Mac Mini, which gets a $ 100 price cut for the base version. Otherwise, Apple is promoting its M1-based MacBook Air and MacBook Pro at the same price as its former Intel-based MacBooks. Considering how much money Apple is undoubtedly saving by producing its own silicon, it is certainly using its margins instead of passing the savings on to impatient buyers.
Who would buy an Intel-based MacBook now? If you’re not afraid that running Windows 10 on an M1-based MacBook will be a huge problem, there’s really no reason to ever upgrade to such a significantly slower and less efficient system. While you can no longer buy an Intel-based MacBook Air from Apple, you can still order an Intel-based MacBook Pro, but they are all more expensive than Apple’s offerings (of course).
Another note: Apple today only announced the 13-inch M1-based MacBooks. If you’ve been waiting for an M1-based 16-inch MacBook Pro, you’ll have to wait for an off-cycle product announcement – likely a press release on a random day over the next few months – to grab one.
Today’s announcement was more like “Apple wants to release them before the holidays” than “Apple’s true silicon fusion with innovative design updates,” but it’s a business, folks.
MacBook Air with M1
How it differs from M1:
- No fan
- Display with the best color gamut
- Wi-Fi 6
The chart has all the highlights you need to know, but it doesn’t go deep into comparisons. Looking at the previous Intel-based MacBook Air, you now get an octa-core M1 chip instead of a quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, which promises “up to” six additional hours of battery life in addition to performance improvements (3.5x CPU and 5x faster graphics ).
I want to point out the fact that this MacBook Air comes without a fan, which is incredibly intriguing for those of us who don’t like our laptops sounding like a jet engine when we load 30 browser tabs. The SSD, while faster, has the same capacities as before: 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB. The 13.3-inch display is nearly identical, with the exception of new support for an extended color gamut of “wide color” or p3 instead of “Full Standard Color” or sRGB.
Otherwise, the M1-based MacBook Air has the same form factor, weight, webcam (balanced with some software enhancements, Apple claims) and speaker setup as the latest-generation MacBook Air. You get better wireless performance over Wifi 6 , upgrade from Wifi 5, but that also depends on the supported speeds of the router you’re using with your MacBook Air. You also get ThunderBolt 3 / USB 4, which theoretically allows you to connect some expensive external 6K display to your … ultraportable laptop.
The M1-based MacBook Air comes in two flavors that can be customized to add more memory and storage as needed. Pre-orders will start today and shipping will begin next week.
Mac Mini with M1
How it differs from M1:
- Falling prices
- Less maximum memory
- Can’t run three 4K displays at the same time
- Two Thunderbolt / USB ports instead of four
Mac Mini is alive! The second verse is the same as the first, although you can buy an older 2018 Mac Mini with an Intel processor right now if you like to be wrong. Otherwise, the Mac Mini M1 has all the features you’ll see above. Let’s take a look at a few highlights:
Interestingly, if you’re totally consumed with memory, you can only make the most of your Mac Mini with only 64GB of Intel-based RAM. Apple’s M1-based Mac Mini has a maximum size of 16GB. Since no one has played with either of them yet, I have no opinion on how this might affect people who want to do heavy creative work on their tiny desktops. I suspect the overall performance gain you will get from the M1 will greatly outweigh the amount of RAM you won’t have, but that’s just speculation.
Otherwise, you’ll get the same storage in Apple’s new Mac Mini as in the old Mac Mini: 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB. While you can run up to three 4K displays at the same time on an Intel Mac Mini, or one 5K display and one 4K display, the new Mac Mini only supports one 6K display and one 4K display. I know these are first world problems.
You get the same HDMI 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet and USB-A ports as before, but now you only get two ThunderBolt 3 / USB 4 ports instead of four Thunderbolt 3 / USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports. Welcome to the land of dongles.
As mentioned earlier, you’ll save $ 100 by ordering the M1 Mac Mini over the previous generation, and pre-orders for the two Mac Mini versions (which you can customize with more memory and storage) start today. Shipping will begin next week.
MacBook Pro with M1
How it differs from M1:
- Wi-Fi 6
- Two Thunderbolt / USB ports; can’t go to four
Here we go again. The M1 MacBook Pro’s differences should seem pretty familiar by now: more cores, faster performance, and better efficiency than the previous generation Intel MacBook Pro. Otherwise, you could fool your MacBook Pro with the same memory (up to 16GB) and storage (256GB, 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB). Your MacBook Pro’s display is exactly the same as before, as is its form factor and weight (mostly). A 720p webcam will still be great if Apple can’t do software miracles. Same speaker configuration and same keyboard, hopefully better than the previous butterfly model.
You get a slight boost to Wifi 6 in an M1-based MacBook Pro, and you get the same number of Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports as before – no boost except for the ever-confusing Thunderbolt and USB nomenclature that Apple uses. You do n’t have the option to pay more for the M1-based MacBook Pro that comes with more connections than the latest-generation Intel-based MacBook Pro.
As before, the MacBook Pro comes in two “versions,” although you can customize their storage and memory however you like. Pre-orders will start today and shipping will begin next week.