As the first Macs containing Apple Silicon processors began arriving to customers today, reviewers have shared their first impressions of the new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini. In particular, reviewers praised the M1 chip's ability to deliver excellent performance, thermals, and battery life.

apple m1 macs trio feature

MacBook Air

The Verge's Dieter Bohn remarked that "The MacBook Air with the M1 chip is the most impressive laptop I've used in years."

Forbes's David Phelan described the experience as similar to "every time you switch to a new iPhone with the latest processor - everything seems preposterously fast and responsive."

Bohn noted how well the ‌M1‌ performs, even when using demanding "pro" apps or using multiple apps at a time:

The MacBook Air performs like a pro-level laptop. It never groans under multiple apps. (I've run well over a dozen at a time.) It handles intensive apps like Photoshop and even video editing apps like Adobe Premiere without complaint. It has never made me think twice about loading up another browser tab or 10 — even in Chrome.

Phelan also noticed a considerable improvement in speed when starting-up the ‌MacBook Air‌:

One small thing is the way the computer is instant-on, something we're used to from phones and tablets but not so much from computers. This works brilliantly. In fact, I'm mostly just waiting for the Apple Watch or Touch ID to unlock it if I've been away from the laptop for long enough for it to lock.

Bohn found that the ‌MacBook Air‌ appeared to have very good thermals, despite having a passive cooling system with no fan.

The other differences are all on the inside. There's no fan anymore, for one thing, just an aluminum heat spreader. But even when pushing this machine to its absolute limit, I never felt it get more than a little warm.

Bohn said that while the ‌M1‌ in the ‌MacBook Air‌ did deliver much better battery life, it was not as good as Apple claimed, and did not perform as well as the new MacBook Pro.

I'm getting between eight and 10 hours of real, sustained work depending on how hard I am pushing it. That's not quite 50 percent better than the last MacBook Air, but it's very close... the Pro is consistently getting a couple more hours on a charge

The area most criticized by reviewers was the ‌MacBook Air‌'s camera, which Bohn said was barely improved:

Unfortunately, that similarity extends to the webcam, which is still 720p resolution and still terrible. Apple has tried to borrow some of its real-time image processing from the iPhone to try to spruce up the image — and I do find that it does a better job evenly lighting my face — but mostly what I notice is that it looks bad (only now it's a more processed version of bad).

MacBook Pro

TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino said that "the ‌M1‌ ‌MacBook Pro‌ runs smoothly, launching apps so quickly that they're often open before your cursor leaves your dock... Every click is more responsive. Every interaction is immediate." Much like Phelan, he described it as feeling "like an iOS device in all the best ways."

The Verge's Nilay Patel discussed the better thermal design of the ‌MacBook Pro‌, since it uses an active cooling system with a fan. However, Patel did not notice much of an improvement over the ‌MacBook Air‌:

The Pro seems to have a better, more effective thermal design than the Air overall: we ran our standard 4K export test in Adobe Premiere Pro several times, and the fan never came on, but export times stayed flat...

It's actually hard to get the fan to turn on in general. Things that instantly light up the fan on an Intel-based 16-inch MacBook Pro, like Google Meet in Chrome, barely register on the M1 MacBook Pro. Unless you are routinely pushing heavy sustained workloads on your laptop, the performance difference between the Air and Pro is really not noticeable.

Patel said that he "easily" got "10 hours on a charge and had to really push things to drain the battery in eight hours". Moreover, much like the ‌MacBook Air‌, Patel chastised the camera:

We really considered giving these machines 10 out of 10 review scores, but this camera is bad enough to keep that from happening, especially on a pro laptop that costs more than the Air.

Mac mini

The Verge's Chris Welch indicated that ‌M1‌ chip in the Mac mini was able to perform better due to its improved thermal design:

And since Apple doesn’t have to account for the tight confines of a laptop enclosure with the Mac mini, the M1 chip can hit the very best speeds it’s capable of and sustain them without throttling. Heck, I never even heard the fan spin up during repeated 30-minute Cinebench tests or when transcoding several 4K Blu-ray rips back to back. The mini has stayed silent no matter how hard I work it.

PCMag's John Burek had a similar experience, commenting:

In the course of testing, one big thing we noticed: Through all these benchmarks, pressing the CPU and GPU to their presumptive limits, the Mac mini was whisper quiet... It didn't rev up noticeably at even the peak of a Handbrake conversion grind, or after a series of six consecutive GPU game benchmarks. And the chassis stays remarkably cool throughout. There was no point in external thermal testing because the chassis was barely warm to the touch, anywhere on the surface, even at peak activity.

Burek found that the ‌Mac mini‌ performed better than the ‌MacBook Air‌ and ‌MacBook Pro‌, but not by a wide margin:

The Mac mini, with its more liberal cooling scheme and extra GPU core, outpaced them both, but all three are in the same rough ballpark.

Yet Welch was disappointed that, in spite of the fact that it is more power-efficient, the ‌M1‌ chip does not yield a reduction in power usage:

Battery life isn't a factor on the Mac mini, of course, and the M1 mini uses the same 150W power supply as the Intel model, so if there are power efficiency gains, they're not obvious.

He was also downcast about the ‌Mac mini‌'s loss of two Thunderbolt 3 ports:

Apple has gone from four USB-C / Thunderbolt 3 ports to just two — plus the pair of USB-A ports that are still present. Technically, the USB-C ports are more advanced (USB 4), and you can daisy-chain Thunderbolt devices to your heart's content. But there's nothing more convenient than built-in ports, and looking at this objectively, it's a downgrade for the mini's expandability.

Burek downplayed the loss of the two additional Thunderbolt 3 ports on the ‌Mac mini‌, however:

Is fewer Thunderbolt ports than before a major issue? For most casual users, not really. We'd be hard-pressed to drum up four Thunderbolt 3 peripherals in PC Labs at one time, never mind on our individual desks. If you’re using an HDMI-connected monitor, you have two Thunderbolt/USB-C ports to play with. Also, some Thunderbolt 3-compatible peripherals support daisy chaining, so you aren't necessarily going to feel the pinch if you have more than two devices, depending on what they are.

Welch rebuked the ‌Mac mini‌'s internal speaker, saying that "it's the kind of speaker you'll never, ever want to use."

It's tinny, hollow, and just plain bad; even the macOS Big Sur startup chime sounds embarrassing compared to my thunderous 16-inch MacBook Pro. Considering the speaker advancements Apple has made with its laptops, I wish it would put in some more effort here.

More Reviews

MacBook Air

MacBook Pro

Mac mini

For early unboxings and first impressions, check out our summary, which compiles over a dozen of the latest videos reviews.

‌The ‌‌‌MacBook Air‌, ‌MacBook Pro‌, and ‌Mac mini‌ with ‌Apple Silicon‌ are now available for order and in-store pickup.

Related Roundups: MacBook Air, Mac mini
Tag: Reviews
Related Forums: MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac mini

Top Rated Comments

macizcool Avatar
61 months ago
As a life-long Mac user, I feel like I’m dreaming right now. This is all so exciting, and I can’t wait for the Pro machines to get these processors.

I remember how exciting the Intel switch was in 2006, and this is so much better!
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)
neuropsychguy Avatar
61 months ago

Yet Welch was disappointed that, in spite of the fact that it is more power-efficient, the M1 chip does not yield a reduction in power usage:

"Battery life isn't a factor on the ‌Mac mini‌, of course, and the M1 mini uses the same 150W power supply as the Intel model, so if there are power efficiency gains, they're not obvious."
What does the size of a power supply have to do with efficiency? How many of us have PSUs that can provide much more power than the computer uses? Anandtech covers the power draw (the Mac Mini peaks at about 31 W of power draw):


Starting off with an idle Mac mini in its default state while sitting idle when powered on, while connected via HDMI to a 2560p144 monitor, Wi-Fi 6 and a mouse and keyboard, we’re seeing total device power at 4.2W. Given that we’re measuring AC power into the device which can be quite inefficient at low loads, this makes quite a lot of sense and represents an excellent figure.

This idle figure also serves as a baseline for following measurements where we calculate “active power”, meaning our usual methodology of taking total power measured and subtracting the idle power.

During average single-threaded workloads on the 3.2GHz Firestorm cores, such as GCC code compilation, we’re seeing device power go up to 10.5W with active power at around 6.3W. The active power figure is very much in line with what we would expect from a higher-clocked Firestorm core, and is extremely promising for Apple and the M1.

In workloads which are more DRAM heavy and thus incur a larger power penalty on the LPDDR4X-class 128-bit 16GB of DRAM on the Mac mini, we’re seeing active power go up to 10.5W. Already with these figures the new M1 is might impressive and showcases less than a third of the power of a high-end Intel mobile CPU.

In multi-threaded scenarios, power highly depends on the workload. In memory-heavy workloads where the CPU utilisation isn’t as high, we’re seeing 18W active power, going up to around 22W in average workloads, and peaking around 27W in compute heavy workloads. These figures are generally what you’d like to compare to “TDPs” of other platforms, although again to get an apples-to-apples comparison you’d need to further subtract some of the overhead as measured on the Mac mini here – my best guess would be a 20 to 24W range.

Finally, on the part of the GPU, we’re seeing a lower power consumption figure of 17.3W in GFXBench Aztec High. This would contain a larger amount of DRAM power, so the power consumption of Apple’s GPU is definitely extremely low-power, and far less than the peak power that the CPUs can draw.
The 2018 Mac Mini draws >65W under full load (based on this post ('https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-mini-2018-power-consumptions.2153977/post-28155751')). The M1 Mac Mini maxed at about 31W in the Anandtech test (based on a chart) with lower 20s more typical under full load. The new Mini uses <55% power with much better performance than the previous generation. This is amazing!
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
neuropsychguy Avatar
61 months ago

Linus
Snazzy
Max

I can wait for real reviews.
I hope that's sarcasm. Check out Anandtech's review if you want a real (albeit initial) review.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BvizioN Avatar
61 months ago
Hardly surprising. Apple Silicone on Macs is a Leapfrog!
Btw... is there any possibility of spinning this into a negative news? I ask, because I have noticed lot of talent around here.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
iChan Avatar
61 months ago
Instant on ?
Battery life ?
Touchbar-less ?
Speed ?
Dedicated emoji key ?
Fanless ?

Camera ?
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
adamw Avatar
61 months ago
Looking forward to receiving my M1 Mac Mini today!
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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