Celebrations and Caveats of the M1 Mac
I truly believe the Macbook Air 2020 is probably one of the only two good things that happened in 2020 (the other being the pixel4a). I purchased a 512gb Memory, 8gig RAM, 8 GPU core M1 Air as a replacement to my Windows HP Pavilion (was facing a lot of hardware issues) . First off, let me start by saying what I like about my Macbook Air:
- It is insanely efficient (battery, processor, memory and OS wise).
- M1 processor was the reason I pivoted from a dedicated GPU device ( my HP Pavilion) to this beast.
- The ergonomics are top class ( it’s lightweight, it’s compact, and it’s also comfortable while using).
- You get a one year subscription to Apple TV (which is actually pretty decent).
- The inbuilt softwares are pretty good ! (GarageBand, iMovies, Apple alternative to the Microsoft Office)
- Git and Clang are preinstalled (Windows users will know the pain, Linux users have the right not to tell me which distro to try)
Next let me talk about what all misconceptions might exist to a purchaser:
Q. Is 8 gigs RAM enough ?
A. It honestly depends on your use cases. Safari is what I’m using now (Chrome users should be a bit wary) due to it being optimised to work with Big Sur. Unless you’re doing a lot of multi tasking, building a massive project or into video editing or multiple photo editing 8 gigs will meet your needs. ( I plan on changing the laptop in 4ish years, if you wish to future proof it then I suggest you get 16 gigs).
Q. Is 8 gigs RAM actually good enough ??
A. Yes it is. In case of higher requirement processes, swap memory will kick in. All OSes have swap memory, but due to the system on a chip design and SSD memory, this works seamlessly for the M1 Mac.
Q. What about a Pro instead of an Air ?
A. M1 has same-ish performances in both. If you wish to have a larger screen to stare into get the Pro. I prefer portability so I got the Air.
Q. Could you explain how much memory would be good enough ?
A. Sure. So I purchased the 512 gbs and had a realistic amount of 470gbs actually available to me. Out of that once I installed whatever I needed I was left with roughly 350+gbs. I’ll go out on a limb an say that if you purchase a 256 gb version, you’ll have around 200gbs actually available. Some people like to get a 256gb model + external ssd/hdd. Depends on whatever you’re comfortable with.
Q. Online reviews said that front camera is okayish. Is it ?
A. You’re not gonna take National Geographic levels of photographs. The camera however is pretty good and will suffice for your Zoom calls (or Discord if you’re a part of the hipster crowd !)
Q. 7 vs 8 GPU ?
A. Won’t be that huge of a difference. I wanna continue using and making neural networks and ML models hence I got 8.
And now the caveats:
- Some languages don’t have a version out yet for M1 Macs( Golang, Nodejs, etc.) So you’ll have to use it on top of Rosetta 2 (it’s pretty smooth though)
- Homebrew is still under development for M1 Macs. However no need to worry, Rosetta 2 has got you covered for this too!
- Rosetta 2 acts as a translator and will lead to roughly 20–25% more time on average for certain tasks
- Certain games aren’t supported on Macs in general. I was ready to dish out some sweet carnage in Risk of Rain 2, unfortunately, it turns out that the game is meant only for Windows (cries in a corner)
- External Hard Disks ! If you got an external HD which you were using with windows, chances are that it’s formatted as NTFS. NTFS is windows proprietary hence you’ll have to format it as exFAT.
- If you’re on the more creative side of things, then you might want to check if your favourite software has been made for the M1 ( Adobe Illustrator I’m looking at ye)
- As of now TensorFlow and Pytorch aren’t supported completely for M1 ( TensorFlow kinda has issues and Pytorch needs a complete github source based build)
- Hardware virtualisation isn’t supported as of now so no virtual machine for you and now android emulators for you !
All in all, despite all the caveats I’ve mentioned, the laptop is definitely a must purchase. As expected from any new hardware, there will be a few issues due to software-hardware compatibility, but those things tend to get ironed out eventually.
