First test

Apple Macbook Air (M1)

Same as our old favourite laptop but with its brain enhanced by aliens – should be decent, then

An Apple financial report is always met with a degree of eye-rolling inevitability, but its latest added raised brows. The total sales of Macs for the 2020 financial year hit a new record of $28.6billion, with the majority taken up by its supremely popular Macbook laptops… which does beg the question: If it ain’t broke, why dump Intel?

The Californian tech giant has switched to its own Arm-based M1 processors for its latest Macbooks, with the promise that the arrival of Apple Silicon would make a monumental difference to the performance of its computers. So with Apple’s most affordable laptop, there really is something in the Air, but has the decision to rejig its insides been the right one?

Not much seems to have changed from the outside. Some will rejoice that the focus this time around is all about what’s under the hood, while others will bemoan the lack of external evolution; either way, there’s still no divisive Touch Bar to debate about – for that you’ll need the more expensive Macbook Pro.

Consider this a Daft Punk move by Apple to ‘work it harder, make it better’ without the showy distraction of a cosmetic redesign… while, with no internal fan, the Macbook Air (M1) aims to keep its cool and do it all in deafening silence.