Apple’s new M1 Macs – the first Macs with Apple’s own chips in them – have started shipping, and users are finding that the company’s claims of speed and battery life were not exaggerated. Benchmarks have shown that single-core performance – which is the majority of what computers do – outstrips every available Mac, and multi-core performance is behind only the three fastest Mac models. Single-core performance using Rosetta emulation (which allows you to use apps compiled for Intel processors, not for the new Apple chips) also beats all Intel Macs. (If you want some technical details on why this system on a chip is so fast, read this article.)
But it’s not just about the speed; in most cases, we don’t need speed. Most of our computing involves using trivial tasks, such as browsing the web, writing and reading emails, and other non-processor intensive operations.
Battery life also outperforms other Apple laptops by up to 25%, meaning that the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro really have all-day battery life.
Specs and benchmarks aren’t everything. What is most important is real-world usage. Here’s an overview of my first week with a new MacBook Air.
Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.