My company provided me with a MacBook Air M1. So the trusty MacBook Pro 15 inch from 2015 has been replaced for everything work related. Is this a happy day? The good, the bad and the ugly.

Good

Boot time, battery time, build quality, portability – everything good in these departments. The battery time is so good I can work two days without plugging in – that is unparalleled 😎 and a huge step up.

Colleagues that picked the windows alternative are complaining about drivers. – no comment –

Bad

Moving from 15 to 13 inch is a big step down. Every review online talks about this. In the pictures below you see them side-by-side and stacked to illustrate te difference. You’ll have to experience it to know what this means for your setup.

I most notice it when using Visual Studio. There is just more room to work with om the 15 inch. Now the solution explorer, output window and other panes must be on auto-hide or I’ll loose to much space for coding.

Ugly

The machine is managed by the company. This means some extra software is installed for remote monitoring, security and no-admin-rights-for-me. I’m allowed to install software from the app store and tweak some user settings – but not all My 2019 developer and power user tools. I’m still not over this one 😦

MacBook Air only has two usb-c ports. For everything not usb-c like network, monitor, external mouse/keyboard we use a hub. This is something I will not bring with me and stays home connected to wires on my desk.

Conclusion

Would I buy this machine for myself? No, my personal life is on iPhone and iPad and the MacBook Pro stil works.

Would I buy it to replace my MacBook Pro if it broke? Absolutely. Because of the apple ecosystem a new device is up-and-running very quickly and sometimes a laptop is preferred over a mobile device.

Is the MacBook Air M1 a good work laptop? Yes. When we return to the office we need to bring the laptop and that is exactly where the MacBook Air M1 outperforms my MacBook Pro – lighter and two-day battery.