It’s Amazon Prime Day again and the M1 MacBook Air has dropped to the tempting price of only $750. But is that 2020 model even worth Amazon’s reduced price? Let’s take a closer look.
Beware of the base model
The model that’s in the Amazon Prime Day sale for $750 is the entry-level 13in model. It has 8GB of unified memory and only 256GB of storage.
I definitely wouldn’t recommend buying a Windows laptop with only 8GB of RAM these days, but the unified memory of Apple silicon is much more efficient. As you’ll see from the piece I wrote about my M1 MacBook Pro with 16GB of unified memory, even when running heavy duty apps, it barely ever comes close to using 8GB of memory. So, I’ve no strong concerns about the memory.
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However, that 256GB of storage is tight. If you’re looking for a laptop to store your photo collection, your documents and other files on, you may soon find you’re running out of storage space. And there’s no way to expand the internal storage once you’ve bought the laptop. You’ll either have to rely on external storage—which is awkward with a laptop with only two USB-C ports, one of which is used for charging—or keep a very tight ship.
Personally, I wouldn’t recommend buying a laptop with anything less than 512GB of storage, unless you’re really only after a laptop for basic web browsing, email and other lightweight apps.
The M2 MacBook Air
The other reason to be cautious of buying the M1 MacBook Air is the presence of its successor: the M2 model.
The M2 chip is 18% faster than the M1, but more importantly, it’s more power efficient. In looping video tests, reviewers from TechRadar.com saw the battery life of the MacBook Air jump from 11 hours with the M1 version to an astonishing 16 hours for the M2 version. That’s a huge boost, and means you never need worry about taking a charger with you if you’re taking the MacBook Air away for the weekend, for example.
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The M2 version is also going to be more future proof. The M1 version is now getting on for three years old. Although it’s still more than powerful enough to cope with the day-to-day computing tasks that you would buy a MacBook Air for, it’s going to be two or three years closer to retirement, when Apple’s latest version of macOS no longer supports the M1 processors.
For the sake of the $300 difference between the M1 and M2 models, you’ll need to weigh up whether that’s a false economy. Personally, I’d be looking for an M2 chip if I were buying a MacBook Air today. The M1 was a fabulous breakthrough processor, but it’s yesterday’s technology now.
A lot of buyers will be tempted by the $750 M1 MacBook Air, and there’s no doubt it will still be a very capable laptop for many years to come. But this is probably the last hurrah for that particular model. If your budget can stretch to four figures and one of the newer M2 models with more built-in storage, it’s a safer long-term bet.
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