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Journalism of Courage
Since the launch of the M1 MacBook Air in 2020, I have been eyeing it for two reasons. One, my old MacBook Pro, which also happened to be my first PC, has started to show its age. Two, all the Windows laptops I have ever used, some of which cost a lot more than a Mac, have failed to be good laptops.
All this, combined with the irresistible deal available on the MacBook Air M1 during the Amazon Great Indian Festival, made me finally pull the trigger. However, to get the MacBook Air for Rs 52,000, I had to give away my ageing MacBook Pro, as I definitely didn’t want it to end up as e-waste collecting dust in my wardrobe.
Unboxing an Apple device is always a joyous moment. The MacBook Air ships in double packaging – an external brown-coloured cardboard box that protects the actual white box with the new Mac inside. You don’t need a knife or a cutter to unbox a Mac; everything can be done with bare fingers.
Taking out the new MacBook Air M1 and holding it in my hand was a blissful experience. I could feel the cold sense from its aluminium body, which reminded me of my MacBook Pro, which was also bought on Amazon almost exactly 10 years ago.
Most Indians have an affinity towards gold, and by now, you might have guessed the colour of the MacBook Air. The gold variant (which looks more like rose gold) of the MacBook Air looks like sheer luxury, and the fit and finish reaffirmed that my choice of colour is indeed perfect.
As soon as I opened the lid of the laptop, which can be lifted with just one hand, the boot chime took me back 10 years down the lane, the same sound that I also heard while setting up the MacBook Pro.
Setting up the MacBook Air is a straightforward process, especially if you don’t want to transfer any data. Transferring data from an older Mac is still a seamless process.
The MacBook Air M1 felt like a refined version of my older MacBook Pro but with a high-resolution display in almost every scenario. While it did take some time to customise the settings to my liking, which includes customizing various gestures on the trackpad, it is clearly one of the best trackpads that I have ever used on a laptop.
Besides the 2K retina display, the laptop has great speakers and a fantastic keyboard (powered by a scissor mechanism) that offers great feedback, although I would have liked a bit more key travel.
The primary reason to buy the MacBook Air M1 was for my work. I was tired of carrying my gaming laptop and its huge power brick. With the MacBook Air, all I need is a single charger to keep my phone, tablet, and the MacBook Air up and running.
For my work routine, all I need is a laptop that runs Chrome and offers all-day battery life. On top of that, I also need a notebook that can run office apps and support VPN. This is why I chose a MacBook rather than a Chromebook, which also happens to deliver excellent battery life. Yes, Safari is definitely a more optimized browser on Mac. However, Google released a native Apple Silicon Chrome, which works flawlessly.
Do note that the entry-level MacBook Air offers just 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of internal storage. Whenever I accessed the activity monitor, even with just six to eight tabs open on Chrome, the memory usage would be at 100 per cent. However, the newer Macs are equipped with a technology called swap memory, which can use flash storage like RAM whenever required. Despite showing 100 per cent memory usage, the MacBook Air did not show any signs of slowness.
Another interesting thing to mention here is that the MacBook Air M1 feels as snappy as it when it is connected to a power brick, even when it is running on battery, out of the box. Most Windows laptops fail in this regard.
Port Connectivity and Convenience
I don’t have much to complain about in terms of I/O, as I have a monitor that takes USB-C input, and I also have a few dongles that help me add an HDMI and a USB-A port to the MacBook Air.
Features like Touch ID make using this MacBook Air a lot easier. With the new macOS Sonoma, the Mac feels just like an iPhone or an iPad with support for a custom lock screen, stacked widgets, and more. I also installed quite a few third-party apps like VLC, Transmission, and a VPN app, and all of these have been native Apple Silicon apps, which also help to improve performance.
Lastly, the battery life. I have been running the MacBook Air on battery, and on both days, it has offered me around 12 to 13 hours of usage, which includes web and social media browsing, music streaming, and YouTube. This is also a fanless Mac, and with my usage, the laptop didn’t even get warm. However, if you are a photo/video editor, your mileage may vary.
Despite coming from a MacBook Pro, the new MacBook Air feels like a worthy upgrade in almost every way. It has the same premium build quality that one comes to expect from an Apple MacBook, paired with an excellent display, a great trackpad, keyboard, and a good-sounding speaker setup that outperforms most Windows laptops.
