Three Years With My M1 MacBook Air
I've had my M1 MacBook Air for 3 years now. It's the most expensive laptop I've ever owned, but was it worth it?
Monday 29th July 2024 marks 3 years of M1 Air ownership, which is also the first Mac device I've ever owned. We all know they're very expensive pieces of kit, and I'm a cheap bastard, so I decided to go for the most basic model - the 8GB M1 Air, which cost me £999.
I'd heard lots of great stuff about the battery life and performance of the M1 Macs when they first came out - 20 hours battery life, the best performance they've ever seen from a laptop etc. etc. But I'd also read comments about the 8GB version being underpowered and not worth the money. So I approached the whole thing with a certain amount of trepidation.
But the performance is still staggeringly good. I press the power button and it's begging me to login after a couple seconds. I've been on the laptop since 07:45 this morning (it's 12:28 as I write this) and I still have 78% of my battery left. That's on 3 year old hardware, I'd like to remind you.
This thing is absofuckinglutely phenomenal. So much so that it's now my only computer. I sold my desktop around 2 years ago and the M1 has been my daily driver for all things ever since. When I'm at my desk, it gets docked to a USB C dock, and I use it just like a desktop. So why would I need a desktop? This thing can do it all.
Time for an upgrade?
Question is, will I upgrade? Well, no. Not any time soon anyway. The M1 Air still does everything I need it to extremely well. So why upgrade? Why drop another £1,000 or so on the latest version of the Air? Because it looks a little nicer? Because it comes in blue? Because the chipset is 2 increments better? Nah, I'll stick with this workhorse until it dies.
Speaking of the dead of Macs, I saw this post in the Bear Blog discovery feed recently - if my M1 Air can last 15 years, that would be incredible value for money. Realistically, I don't think it will last that long; I don't even know if Apple would support it for that long.
Right now, 3 years in, I think my M1 Air is good value for money, but if I can get 5 or 6 years out of this thing, that would be fantastic.
What about other Apple kit?
I've been questioning my Apple usage recently. I have the M1 Air, an iPad Air and an iPhone 13 Mini. I think when the iPad dies, I won't get another one. It sits next to the bed and is used for reading RSS feeds and some YouTube before I go to bed. I can get that from a cheap Android device, so will probably go that route when it comes to renewal.
As for the phone. I'm really stuck on this one. I couldn't move to a dumb phone, but I think I could move, again, to a cheap Android device. Problem is all the privacy issues that come with Android (yes, I know there are problems with iOS too, but I think they're the lesser of the 2 evils).
I've only had my iPhone for around 18 months, so I'm hoping it's still got another couple years in it at least. If I can get 5 years out of it, then maybe it would be worth going with another entry level iPhone, we'll have to see though.
Anyway, I digress...the M1 Air is a fantastic laptop and I'm so happy I bought it. I can't see myself moving away from the MacBook line any time soon. Especially with all the adverts in Windows 11, and the death by a thousand small issues on Linux. But never say never, right?
Want more?
So you've read this post and you're still not satisfied? Ok then, here's some other stuff for you to do: