New M1 Macs are a huge shift for Apple
New M1 Macs are a huge shift for Apple
5:51

New M1 Macs are a huge shift for Apple

Laptops
Hello and welcome back apples. One more thing. Mac events. Basically the biggest change to Apple's computer lineup since 2006 when they introduced Intel Chips. I'm going to tell you why that is. So Apple switched their laptops and desktops 2 Intel chips back in 2006. That's actually some of the very first reviews I ever wrote at CNET and now many years later they're getting rid of Intel chips and moving on to what they previously called Apple Silicone Chips. Now it's called the M1 and it's their own design, just like they design the chips for iPhones an iPads. Now they're designing the chips. The Max as well. That's both Mac Books, an Mac desktops, as we saw at apples event where they talked about putting this M1 chip in three systems to start with. The classic 13 inch MacBook Air 13 inch MacBook Pro an also the Mac Mini and that Mac Mini. That's the dev kit. Basically they've been sending out to software developers over the summer so they could work on new versions of their software that were optimized for the new M1 versions on the Max. The Junior Mac books in the Mac Mini. Physically, they're basically the same as the previous versions. That real change that inside adding that M1 ship Apple describes it as in SoC. That means system on chip, which means basically instead of having a processor for one company in the GPU from another company and it's all it's all together in one package. So it's an 8 core chip. An Apple says that for the chords are very high power cores and four of the cores are very high efficiency cores, which basically means some of them are used for very power intensive things like editing. High Resolution video were playing games. And the more efficient ones are used for basically saving battery life, making sure the system runs longer, and that's one of the big claims that Apple made about these new systems that tune the laptops, at least is that they would have much better battery life. We saw similar claims when people started putting ARM chips in Windows laptops over the last couple years, and in a sense, that's essentially what this is as well is just apples custom version of it. On the Windows side, those claims did not really pan out. We really didn't see that much better battery life, but Apple says for example in the. MacBook Pro, you get up to 20 hours of video playback, which they say is the longest battery life of any Mac book ever. The most interesting of the new M1 powered Max is probably the new MacBook Air. It looks the same as the current 13 inch MacBook Air which was just updated back in about March of this year and frankly very popular system. Everybody loves it rightfully so. Still 999. The biggest change besides the M1 chip is it is now be cause it has this very efficient new processor inside. It is now fan Lez so it will run quieter. And of course if you don't have a fan in there spinning around. That gives you some additional battery life because you're not spending battery power to keep that fan going. When disappointing thing about the new MacBook Air is that even though Apple says both the Big Sur operating system and the M1 chip can leverage some software, an AI to make the image better from the built in webcam webcam hardware is not actually any better, and Mac books, frankly, have always had not great webcams, and that continues. There's also a new 13 inch. MacBook Pro. Interestingly, it has the same M1 chip as the air does, so we have a lot of questions about what the actual difference in performance is going to be like between the 13 inch Pro which is 1299 and a 13 inch air which is 999. Are you spending extra on that pro just to get the touch bar that's built in a slightly brighter screen? A few other bells and whistles, but it's got the same performance and it's got the same processor inside previously. They were processor differences between the Intel versions of the air and the pro. We're again going to have to get these systems in and benchmark them and test them to see what exactly you're getting by spending more on the Pro right now are paper. At least it looks like that 999 MacBook Air is probably the best bang for your Buck. And last but not least, that new M1 chip is going into the Mac mini that is a cult favorite little micro desktop that Apple pays attention to sometimes, but mostly just ignores. It goes years and years without an update. This is a pretty significant update. Adding the M1 chip to that. A lot of people get the Mac mini and they use it for video production. An music production, Anne. Frankly, it's the least expensive Mac you can get. This new version is 699, so I'm pleased that the lowest cost Mac is. Also, one of the ones that is first to get this new M1 ship. Now we still have a lot of unanswered questions about the M1 chip and about the Max that contain it. How does their performance compared to the Intel versions? How does it compare to iPads and iPhones that have similar arm based CPUs in them? We're going to have to wait till we get these systems and benchmark the manusama hands on to get a feel for that. But in the mean time it's still very exciting that this is the biggest overall change to the Mac lineup since 2006 when they move to Intel chips. Now it's 2020. They're moving away from Intel chips, so Apple once again controls everything about the Max the hardware design, the software design an now the chips inside as well.

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