#1 ·
Honestly, I’ve never been an Apple fan—to me, their stuff always felt like pure style over substance.
But then the M1 dropped, and suddenly everyone's losing their minds. You've got people praising it to high heaven, while others are comparing it to absolute beasts of machines and claiming "it just doesn't hit the same." Mostly it's the video editors working with 8K footage.
Whatever: here's what I've realized—maybe it isn't some monster like an Intel i9, but it costs less, performs nearly as well, uses about 10x less battery, stays ice cold, and unlike those massive rigs, it doesn't take up my entire desk space.
I picked one up for video editing and photo work, plus the ability to actually sit in coffee shops and get things done on battery alone, so I went with the beefier model with 16 GB of RAM. And seriously, the video I edit flies through it. Even though I usually work with proxies in DaVinci, I don't even need to on this little laptop. It handles 4K from my DJI drone like a total beast. It completely lived up to the hype. Apple fans (for whatever reason) absolutely hate the Touch Bar. Personally? I think it's awesome.
Obviously, I supplemented the tiny internal drive with a 1 TB Samsung T7 external drive (I could've gone with the X5, but there are reasons—and no, it wasn't the price—why I didn't) and it's plenty for now.
Bottom line: I recommend it (and I’m a certified Apple hater). Big Sur hasn't given me any grief, even with certain quirks like SIP and Gatekeeper. But I've gotten used to it, and besides, I know how to toggle them off when I need to.
But then the M1 dropped, and suddenly everyone's losing their minds. You've got people praising it to high heaven, while others are comparing it to absolute beasts of machines and claiming "it just doesn't hit the same." Mostly it's the video editors working with 8K footage.
Whatever: here's what I've realized—maybe it isn't some monster like an Intel i9, but it costs less, performs nearly as well, uses about 10x less battery, stays ice cold, and unlike those massive rigs, it doesn't take up my entire desk space.
I picked one up for video editing and photo work, plus the ability to actually sit in coffee shops and get things done on battery alone, so I went with the beefier model with 16 GB of RAM. And seriously, the video I edit flies through it. Even though I usually work with proxies in DaVinci, I don't even need to on this little laptop. It handles 4K from my DJI drone like a total beast. It completely lived up to the hype. Apple fans (for whatever reason) absolutely hate the Touch Bar. Personally? I think it's awesome.
Obviously, I supplemented the tiny internal drive with a 1 TB Samsung T7 external drive (I could've gone with the X5, but there are reasons—and no, it wasn't the price—why I didn't) and it's plenty for now.
Bottom line: I recommend it (and I’m a certified Apple hater). Big Sur hasn't given me any grief, even with certain quirks like SIP and Gatekeeper. But I've gotten used to it, and besides, I know how to toggle them off when I need to.