Nick, It’s primarily for work, but whilst at home I mostly use my superb MacMini (18 months old) with two 27”screens. My 2008 MacPro sits serenely in the background on my desk totally ignored for over a year.
I have no complaints at all (except T3) regarding the MacBook Air (M1) it’s fast, I like the Touch ID key to login, also the backlight keyboard so I can use it in the evenings on my lap. I haven’t, and probably won’t, be using it for video (prefer MacMini for using Screenflow) so don’t really need it for super speed. The two Thunderbolt 3 ports are a bit of a pain ‘cos it means buying expensive adaptors to plug all my old peripherals in, such as memory sticks and remote mics for recording meetings. I could use the inbuilt mics but in my experience they distractingly record my tapping on keys as I record what is said. The screen is one of the best I’ve seen. I didn’t like the idea of buying a defective M1 (with 7 cores) so went for the 8 core version. 8GB of ram seems fine, in fact as good or better than my MacMini which has 32GB. Haevn’t tried external monitors yet as I don’t have the right adaptors, it works well with my Apple TV box. So, by no means am I using it to it’s full extent, but am very happy with it. I’ve had it almost a week and haven’t needed to charge the battery yet! A thought for everyone. The new Apple M1 chip is the slowest ‘M’ class chip that Apple will ever make! Paul > On 3 Dec 2020, at 14:11, nick_public1 via Sussex Mac User Group > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Paul, > Interesting. Thank you. Have you yet come to any conclusions regarding the > improvement of the M1 MBA over your previous one? Chalk & cheese? Similar to > what you were hoping/expecting? > I have a 2017 MBA and have been wondering, being tempted, what the new M1 > MBAs are really like, > Cheers, Nick > >> On 3 Dec 2020, at 10:41, 'Paul R Owen' via Sussex Mac User Group >> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> >> This may be useful to someone. >> >> The difference between Thunderbolt 3 ports on M1 macs and earlier models. >> >> Story (with image of device) available here: >> https://tidbits.com/2020/12/02/thunderbolt-improvements-in-the-m1-based-macs/ >> >> <https://tidbits.com/2020/12/02/thunderbolt-improvements-in-the-m1-based-macs/> >> >> >> Thunderbolt Improvements in the M1-Based Macs >> <https://mailer.tidbits.com/l/hXWTpT6FK9WfKlm763R28R763w/yZ892ZsGUBUWzKULfHpf25Xg/VRPGF6w8MQteyAJn8O3hqg> >> Over at the OWC Rocket Yard blog, SoftRAID developer Tim Standing shares a >> welcome discovery about Apple’s new M1-based Macs >> <https://mailer.tidbits.com/l/hXWTpT6FK9WfKlm763R28R763w/fm5MrsjoTTQDVmHDOphKKQ/VRPGF6w8MQteyAJn8O3hqg>. >> Although the new Macs have only two Thunderbolt ports, compared to four on >> the Intel-based 13-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini, Standing discovered that >> each port has its own Thunderbolt bus. By comparison, each pair of >> Thunderbolt ports on the Intel-based Macs share a bus, meaning that they >> also share bandwidth. If you plug two fast drives into ports that share a >> bus, performance suffers. Standing also notes that the M1-based Macs support >> Thunderbolt 4, which differs from Apple’s implementation of Thunderbolt 3 in >> only one fundamental way: it offers support for Thunderbolt hubs that let >> you add more ports. >> >> So yes, the M1-based Macs may have only two Thunderbolt ports, but they’ll >> both provide full bandwidth and allow users to add more ports through a hub. >> And as you might suspect, OWC has a Thunderbolt Hub >> <https://mailer.tidbits.com/l/hXWTpT6FK9WfKlm763R28R763w/uts7637R2aiofzZ3G9ZlL5Lg/VRPGF6w8MQteyAJn8O3hqg> >> shipping soon for $149. >> <https://mailer.tidbits.com/l/hXWTpT6FK9WfKlm763R28R763w/6WSqemSv4ErndIHRK30r4Q/VRPGF6w8MQteyAJn8O3hqg> >> >> Paul Owen >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Sussex Mac User Group" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>. >> To view this discussion on the web, visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/smug/D213186A-1830-4007-9F77-8699B64DD311%40mac.com >> >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/smug/D213186A-1830-4007-9F77-8699B64DD311%40mac.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Sussex Mac User Group" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>. > To view this discussion on the web, visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/smug/48B478C5-8C5C-46AE-971D-2F94EBCE1DE2%40mac.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/smug/48B478C5-8C5C-46AE-971D-2F94EBCE1DE2%40mac.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sussex Mac User Group" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/smug/90073156-18AA-44F5-8C5A-F4BECC2E2CD7%40mac.com.
