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5 Things I Have Learned Using the M1 MacBook Air
External displays, Rosetta 2, Homebrew, and more
The first Apple silicon ARM-based M1 chip has received rave reviews due to its mind-blowing performance and efficiency. I’m impressed by the incredible performance and “System on a Chip” architecture that integrates CPU, GPU, unified memory, Neural Engine, etc.
I was so excited when I received my first M1 chip MacBook Air:
After spending a few days setting up Ruby, Python, Homebrew, and other apps on the laptop, here are the five things I have learned that can be interesting.
1. Fast, Fast, and Fast
I’ve got a late-2019 16-inch MacBook Pro from work that has a six-core Intel i7 CPU and 16GB DDR4 memory. The M1 chip MacBook Air is faster in every way compared to the late-2019 MBP — when clicking to launch apps, browsing the internet with Safari, and opening big apps like Adobe Photoshop and Xcode.
The most impressive part came when building my Xcode project after cleaning the build folder. It took three minutes and 50 seconds to launch the iOS simulator with the MBP, while the same task took two minutes and 40 seconds with the M1 chip MacBook Air.
It’s approximately 30% faster! That’s even more impressive considering it’s a $1,000 fanless MacBook Air.
2. Run External Displays
Apple says that the M1 MacBook Pro/Air can run one external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz. For me, I was using the CharJen Pro hub to connect two Dell 2K monitors on my late-2019 MBP. But now the MacBook Air only supports one external monitor, either via the USB4 directly or the HDMI port at the CharJen Pro hub.
There are workarounds if you really need more than one external display. Nate P managed to support dual monitors on an M1 MacBook Pro by using the DisplayLink dock that uses its own…
