Apple MacBook Air 2020 M1 Entry Review: Apple M1 CPU humbles Intel and AMD

[M.a]

Sigh. Yet another site that makes apples and oranges comparisons: the 7 or 8 core M1 against the 2 cores for the Intel Core i3 or 4 cores for the Intel Core i5 and i7.

A side note: for all intends and purposes, M1 is a quad-core CPU. Four of it's cores are low-performance cores that are mainly there to run low-priority tasks like backups of email fetching with lower impact on battery. Also, Apple CPUs don't have SMT, while Intel and AMD do. You could basically view at the M1 as a quad-core CPU with SMT as the effect from the low-power Apple cores is comparable to that of Hyperthreading for Intel. In this sense, M1 should be compared to other quad-core designs, and it is not really surprising that it loses out to AMD Renoir with twice as many cores and at double the power consumption. 

[M.a]

Finally this test draws a more realistic picture of the M1, and while the results under emulation are indeed impressive, I don't think they are as impressive as people try to make them. The M1 eats up 25-30W, so basically half of its battery, under heavy load. That's irrelevant for the typical tasks of a sub notebook, however, if we translate those numbers to the 16" form factor and the rumoured double amount of CPU/GPU cores, we'll end up with more or less the same performance for graphically intensive tasks like CAD/game development as its predecessor, while having marginally more battery life (at roughly 50W that should translate to 2 hours battery life).

You are partially correct — Apple seems to target the same combined TDP as with it's earlier designs. The 16" model will probably have the combined TDP of 60Watts. If you run it at full power, no, you won't get any good battery life. The mixed battery life will still improve immensely, as very few workloads will put these laptops at it's peak power consumption continuously (except maybe gaming). I have spent a couple of weeks with my M1 machine, and it can compile code and run simulations all day long — most of the time faster than my i9-based 16". I expect the upcoming 16" to have similar real-world battery time, but it's CPU performance will most likely rival that of desktop workstations.

[acousticbiker]

Thanks for this review! I was particularly interested in your mention of the M1 MacBook Air's compatibility with the Philips 329P9H monitor. I have the same setup and have no way to control monitor brightness - in Control Center, Display Preferences, or even the monitor's own OSD. Are you able to control brightness of the Philips monitor?

[Klaus Hinum]

.... M1 MacBook Air's compatibility with the Philips 329P9H monitor. I have the same setup and have no way to control monitor brightness - in Control Center, Display Preferences, or even the monitor's own OSD. Are you able to control brightness of the Philips monitor?

Thanks for the feedback, just checked with my setup here and also can't change the brightness. Asked our contact at Philips for help, lets see if there is a solution. I run the monitor on auto brightness, so did not notice the missing option.

[Klaus Hinum]

Update, can change brightness on the Philips 329P9H using the Air and a MBP16, had the automatic brightness activated and with it activated you cant manually change brightness.

[Jai]

To clarify, does the slight flickering at 60 hz occur at all brightness levels or only above 50%?

Have you seen this on any other Macbooks or laptops in this class?

Any idea what's causing it (software, hardware, etc.)?

[Santi Gallo]

The display backlight flickers at 118000 Hz (Likely utilizing PWM) Flickering detected at a brightness setting of 49 % (155 cd/m²) and below. There should be no flickering or PWM above this brightness setting.

The frequency of 118000 Hz is quite high, so most users sensitive to PWM should not notice any flickering.

Flickering occurs even at high brightness setting and may have an effect on the user during everyday use.

A contradiction?

[Klaus Hinum]

Update: added ICC profile (calibrated with the SpyderX as X-Rite software is still not ready for M1 Macs) and also tested the screen with the calibrated profile (noticeably better). Furthermore, we tested the USB-C ports with a Icy Box USB-C 3.2 Gen 2x2 enclosure (with a 2TB Transcend drive that can hit up to 3500/2700 MB/s). We clearly see lower numbers as with the MBP16 (but that's also limited by 10Gbits).

[Aufar]

I am still confused about the USB ports.
Which ones of these does it support when directly connected to its ports:
USB 3.2 Gen1x2 (10 Gbps)
USB 3.2 Gen2x1 (10 Gbps)
USB4 Gen2x1 (10Gbps)

[Klaus Hinum]

Small update, tested a Samsung X5 Thunderbolt SSD on the M1 and compared it to our MBP16 2019 i9. The read speeds are comparable, but the write speed is slower on the MacBook Air M1 (see screenshots in the review).
Regarding the USB ports, both should be identical and support USB 4 Gen2x1 / Thunderbolt 3.

[chris nocrapple]

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[Christian L]

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