Apple just announced its new line of MacBooks sporting the company’s own M1 microchips, sister silicon to what you’ll find inside iPads and iPhones. It’s a big shift, and one of the biggest immediate advantages is an in efficiency, which should lead to better battery life. The question is, do you need that right now?
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Apple’s move to in-house silicon has undoubtedly been in the works for years and years, only just reaching its culmination during the COVID-19 pandemic by unavoidable happenstance. But the result is that the company’s new suite of laptops boast a flagship feature that is not particularly relevant for plenty of people at the moment. Raw performance, meanwhile, is historically not the strongest suit of this family of microchip design. Yes, the M1 MacBook Air is rated for 15 hours of web browsing on a charge, but if you’re spending most of your time at home, what use is that?
That’s not the only reason to wait. While the pandemic will abate eventually, but it’s still a good reason to consider holding off on the new hardware if you can afford it. The first run of any new technology is bound to be a little janky, and other companies’ attempts to build laptops based on the same tablet-derived architecture Apple is using have illustrated how difficult the transition can be. Apple may well have better luck, but it’s still a point of friction.
Apple’s new MacBooks are available for preorder today, and the certainly pack a lot of promise. But this time, more than ever, it’s wise to wait for reviews at the very least.