The port situation is quite limiting so you'll definitely have to use a USB-C dongle. There are only two Thunderbolt 3 (up to 40 Gbps)/USB 4 (up to 40 Gbps) ports on one side, and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the other side. So it looks like durability shouldn't be a problem this time. It's compact, portable and weighs just 1.29kg.Īpple has switched from using their disastrous scissor-switch to butterfly keys.

You can use 1680 x 1050 scaling to get more desktop space but the UI elements will be too small, at least for me. I'm using the 1440 x 900 scaling to make the UI elements big enough for my eyes to see comfortably. Resolution of 2560 x 1600 makes all the visuals look sharp but you can't actually use the native resolution without UI scaling. Colour accuracy is good and this is a bright display. Using a Datacolor calibrator, I measured colour support for 100% sRGB, 89% AdobeRGB, 86% NTSC, 96% P3 and a maximum brightness of 313 nits. All the edges are cut to perfection.Ĭolours on the display look good out of the box. The full metal body build quality is excellent. Designĭesign of the M1 Macbook Air looks great. That will provide additional 2-years warranty for a total of 3. The LG Gram 16 (2021) I bought with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage is S$1750 which to me is a pretty good deal, and it comes with 2 years warranty.ĪppleCare+ for the MBA is S$279. Apple refurbished products can be purchased directly from Apple and prices are usually 15% off official retail (S$2,399 in this case). The refurbished M1 MBA I bought with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD was priced at S$2,059 (US$1,532). Official retail price of the LG Gram 16 and M1 MBA with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage is S$ 2099. ModelĢx Thunderbolt 3/USB 4, full-sized HDMI, 2x USB-A I did not regret my LG Gram 16 purchase though.īelow's the comparison table for the computers mentioned in this review. On hindsight, I probably should have tested Parallels Desktop with Windows first. I need a Windows laptop because the new M1 Macs no longer have Bootcamp to install Windows. So I sold that Macbook Pro and bought a refurbished M1 Macbook Air and a secondhand LG Gram 16 (2020). The MBP 2015 fans would rev too often even when doing simple work like web browser, and the fans are usually quite noisy, too noisy for me when live streaming on Youtube. I bought the M1 MBA to replace my old 15-inch Macbook Pro (2015) which was starting to show its age. These three Macs are the start of the transition from Intel processors to Apple's own M1 processor. The M1 Macbook Air and M1 Macbook Pro were released in November 2020 together with the M1 Mac Mini. There will be some comparison to the LG Gram 16 (2021) and M1 Mac Mini 2020 ( review) just to give you some basis of comparison, and I will repeat portions of my M1 Mac Mini review here because performance is very similar. This review is from the perspective of a visual content creator, someone does digital art, graphic design, edits photos and 4K videos.

Macbook air m1 illustrator