**The Best Value MacBook Air: A Review of the M1 MacBook Air**

I've spent a significant amount of time and money on Apple products, but I have to say that this experience has been one of the most rewarding. Recently, I purchased a refurbished M1 MacBook Air for an incredible price of $333, which is significantly lower than what you'd pay from Apple or other retailers. But, I'm not going to sugarcoat it - this thing is a beast, and its value proposition is unmatched.

**90% of Everything You Need**

The M1 MacBook Air offers 90% of the features that would normally come with a newer model, like the M2. This means you get a great display, a great design, fanless architecture, phenomenal battery life, and exceptional performance - all without breaking the bank. The only trade-off is that it's an older design, which some might find less modern or appealing than the latest models.

**The Value Proposition**

One of the most significant advantages of this MacBook Air is its price point. If you're looking for a top-of-the-line Mac experience, it's hard to argue with this value proposition. The M1 chip is still widely used in the iMac, and while the M2 is great, it's not significantly better than the M1 in terms of performance or features. This means that if you need a computer for everyday tasks like browsing, email, and social media, this MacBook Air is an absolute steal.

**The Design**

While some might find the older design less modern or appealing, I can assure you that it's not as big of a deal as it sounds. The fixed keyboard is actually quite nice to type on, and it's not like it's holding me back in any way. In fact, I think it's one of the few downsides to using an older Mac - and even then, it's more of a minor trade-off than a major drawback.

**Reliability**

One thing that might be a concern for some people is reliability. When I was searching for this MacBook Air on eBay, I noticed that many listings mentioned issues like liquid damage, cracked displays, or iCloud locks. However, after digging deeper, I found that most of these issues were user-created problems rather than anything inherent to the machine itself. It's clear that Apple has designed the M1 chip to be incredibly reliable, and this MacBook Air is no exception.

**The Experience**

So, what can you expect from this MacBook Air? In short, everything you'd expect from a high-end Mac - with one major caveat: it's not the latest model. But, if you're looking for exceptional performance, a great display, and phenomenal battery life without breaking the bank, then look no further.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, I'm utterly thrilled with my decision to buy this M1 MacBook Air. It's an incredible machine that offers 90% of everything you need at a fraction of the cost of newer models. While it may not have the latest design, its fixed keyboard and older architecture are hardly significant drawbacks in my opinion. If you're looking for a top-of-the-line Mac experience without the hefty price tag, then this MacBook Air is an absolute steal.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enit has now been nearly 3 years since the Apple silicon transition began with the M1 MacBook Air Mac Mini and MacBook Pro and I'm just going to pause there while you stare at your computer in disbelief at at the realization that it's been 3 years since this thing came out like what the hell how did that happen but given that we are somehow at that 3-year anniversary I thought it would be worth asking the question is the M1 MacBook air Still The King when this thing came out at a $1,000 price tag it absolutely smoked the rest of the industry this was the best value laptop full stop period end of sentence but is that still the case because you no longer have to pay $1,000 to get one of these laptops in fact I paid just 300 for this one so so given the current landscape and the the newer MacBook airs the p PC competition is this thing still the King today we're going to find out after this quick word from today's video sponsor today's video is sponsored by yui and their incredible X9 Pro handsfree all-in-one Robot vacuum this thing is legitimately an all-in-one cleaning assistant it comes equipped with 5,000 pascals of cleaning suction and a tangle-free rubber roller and with dual spinning Mop Heads it can even mop your floors and you don't even have to worry about getting your carpets wet thanks to carpet detection and Auto Lift Tech you can seamlessly transition from mop to carpet without getting your carpets wet at all and with iPath and AI map Laser Technology X9 Pro can effortlessly create detailed maps of your space allowing you to designate rooms and cleaning schedules through the yui clean app and that means you can select individual rooms for cleaning it's really really handy I was genuinely impressed with how good the X9 Pro is I named him Paul by by the way and he was an absolute Trooper he was able to move across bumpy surfaces and around Furniture legs without getting stuck once and he can detect when his mops need to be cleaned so he goes back to his little home cleans them and then goes back and picks up right where he left off and with clean and dirty water storage in Paul's house it would definitely take me a couple full cleans of this apartment to need to refill anything and because Paul has rotational mops he doesn't leave streaks on your floors it's really really great to learn more about the yui X9 Pro check out the links in the description below a huge thanks to yui for sponsoring this video and supporting the channel and a huge thanks to Paul for cleaning my floors now let's get back to the video so it's no secret that the M1 MacBook Air was a resounding success that keynote moment was not a word of exaggeration this thing absolutely took over the laptop world I mean it was the go-to recommendation for pretty much 90% of people and it's still extreme extremely impressive that this base model run-of-the-mill entrylevel MacBook can compete with any laptop that was manufactured before it and I know because I've got one here's a 2019 15-in MacBook Pro this thing when it was new cost $3,899 it's got an 8 core I 9 32 GB of ddr4 RAM a terabyte of storage dedicated Radeon Pro 560x graphics and yet when you fire up cinebench 2024 you'll find it it barely outperforms this base model MacBook Air I even fired up gfx bench metal to find out if the dedicated graphics could compete with the so integrated 7 core GPU on this base model M1 MacBook Air and it can't the MacBook Air is faster in most cases that is absolutely ludicrous that's the benefit of optimization and efficiency and keep in mind this is literally the least power powerful Apple silicon machine that exists you cannot get any less powerful than this and it's already beating one of the most powerful Intel MacBooks ever made oh and by the way it did all of that without a fan and it used less battery in the process I ran cinebench twice on the MacBook Air only once on the MacBook Pro and then I ran gfx bench on both the 15-in MacBook Pro is at 45% the MacBook Air is at 60 it's like it's not even that close this is this is how crazy the transition to Apple silicon has become and I know what you're thinking you're thinking Luke we've seen all of this before it's a 4-year-old MacBook Pro and we all know how good the M1 MacBook Air is but the point is that when this machine was brand new and this was only a year old this was 1/4 the price given all of this information this machine absolutely tanked in value nobody would want to pay for four times the money for this old thing when you could just buy an M1 MacBook Air in fact $500 is an an outright bargain for this machine and if you go on eBay and try to cross shop one of these MacBook airs you're going to find it's not much more expensive than one of these this is a 2017 touch bar 13-in MacBook Pro this thing sucks okay it's got a kbl lake dual core i5 it's absolutely hot garbage it's slow than an iPhone 10 it's got four Thunderbolt ports so at the very least there's there's something there it's also got twice the storage half a terabyte but quite frankly wouldn't take any of those trades for a billion dollars because this thing sucks to use compared to an M1 MacBook Air I mean are you joking you guys saw what happened when an M1 went up against an 8 core I9 how do you think a dual core U series I5 from 6 years ago yeah no it's not even close so this thing has a fraction of the capability plus it's hotter it runs hot it runs loud and the battery life sucks this one also likes to Colonel Panic a lot so that's fun no offense if anyone bought one of these recently but are you like okay do you need a doctor cuz why would you why would you buy this piece of garbage with a butterfly keyboard when you can get an M1 MacBook a for like $1100 extra come on and the thing about the M1 MacBook Air is it's arguably just as relevant now as it was 3 years ago I know that there's a new Macbook Air in fact oh what a surprise I've got it here on my table but you didn't expect that and don't get me wrong this thing is excellent I think it's a very decent and noticeable improvement over the M1 right you've got the new design with new color options I absolutely love Starlite I absolutely adore the design for this new generation of MacBook Air it is ridiculously thin ridiculously light it has fantastic battery life a gorgeous display and a very powerful chip at a great price you know $10.99 you can buy these things refurbished cuz it came out about a year and a half ago like you you can absolutely make the case for the M2 MacBook Air but the M1 MacBook Air gives you maybe 90% of this at still a couple hundred lower price point yeah sure Apple still sells this for $11,000 but you're not going to buy it from Apple for $1,000 because you have so many options you can shop Apple refurbished if you want to save an even larger amount of money you can go look for a Best Buy sale or find one that's Amazon renewed if you want to save a lot of money you can go on eBay and buy one from another person like you or me who's just selling it as they're getting getting ready to upgrade maybe they want to get the new M2 MacBook Air and boom you've scored yourself a discount or you can be ridiculous like me and buy a broken M1 MacBook Air for $150 off of merari and then buy a screen and fix it yourself at which point you've saved a ludicrous amount of money I spent $333 on this M1 MacBook Air and I quite frankly cannot think of a single piece of technology that is a better deal than this at that price I mean come on you've got every single feature you've got a chip that apple is still selling in the iMac so it's not even outdated and if it wasn't enough that this MacBook Air could save you a couple hundred over an M2 it also has a faster SSD because remember with the M2 generation Apple is only using a single nand chip on the base models whereas with the M1 devices they have two which means you get basically twice the SSD speed it's very simple so yeah you're saving money you get a faster SSD and you get 90% of everything else a great display a great design fanless architecture phenomenal battery life and great performance that's pretty hard to argue with so at this point you might be wondering Luke what's the downside where where's the catch it can't just be all positives right um yeah yeah it can it's basically all posit the only thing that is remotely a downside with this MacBook Air is that it's uh it's the old design it's a little thicker a little heavier and doesn't look quite as modern that's the trade-off think of this as a Macbook SE okay it's got all of the modernity of Apple silicon in the previous generation design but with a fixed keyboard so don't worry about that that's that's basically what this thing is and there's no inherent downside to that it just means that you save a little money and you're not rocking the newest and latest greatest design that's that's all there really is to it I mean these things have been out for 3 years and as far as I'm aware there's no reliability concerns and one way that you can tell that's the case is by looking at broken MacBook airs being sold on eBay believe you me I looked through a lot of those when I was trying to find this computer to repair and the most common thing that I saw all the time is liquid damage a crack display or an iCloud lock those are user created issues I couldn't find a single listing where it seemed like a logic board had just died or some fault with the machine had killed it it was all user created issues this isn't even a review this is just a rant about how good this MacBook Air is when this generation of MacBook Air came out in 2018 the consensus at the time was basically yeah okay the MacBook Air is fine provided that all you're doing is iMessage photos email and web browsing and nothing else but now we've flipped the script completely I now argue to most people like well well why would you need any more than a MacBook Air what are you doing that demands more than what a MacBook Air can offer that's a that's a pretty major paradigm shift in the way that you look at these computers it used to be well if you can get away with the Bas model go for it now it's why would you need anything more than the base model for 90% of people that is a legitimately crazy thing to have happen in such a short amount of time so yeah the moral of the story here is if you need an computer your default Choice should be a MacBook Air and probably an M1 at that the M2 is great don't get me wrong but but my goodness it is hard to beat the value that this thing provides legitimately absolutely incredible I think this is going to be the crowned champion of MacBooks for years to come a couple years ago it would have been the mid 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro but that has been unseated this is it this is the default the best bang for your buck The Undefeated reigning champion and you should absolutely buy one thank you guys so much for watching let me know your thoughts in the comments below and I'll see you in the next oneit has now been nearly 3 years since the Apple silicon transition began with the M1 MacBook Air Mac Mini and MacBook Pro and I'm just going to pause there while you stare at your computer in disbelief at at the realization that it's been 3 years since this thing came out like what the hell how did that happen but given that we are somehow at that 3-year anniversary I thought it would be worth asking the question is the M1 MacBook air Still The King when this thing came out at a $1,000 price tag it absolutely smoked the rest of the industry this was the best value laptop full stop period end of sentence but is that still the case because you no longer have to pay $1,000 to get one of these laptops in fact I paid just 300 for this one so so given the current landscape and the the newer MacBook airs the p PC competition is this thing still the King today we're going to find out after this quick word from today's video sponsor today's video is sponsored by yui and their incredible X9 Pro handsfree all-in-one Robot vacuum this thing is legitimately an all-in-one cleaning assistant it comes equipped with 5,000 pascals of cleaning suction and a tangle-free rubber roller and with dual spinning Mop Heads it can even mop your floors and you don't even have to worry about getting your carpets wet thanks to carpet detection and Auto Lift Tech you can seamlessly transition from mop to carpet without getting your carpets wet at all and with iPath and AI map Laser Technology X9 Pro can effortlessly create detailed maps of your space allowing you to designate rooms and cleaning schedules through the yui clean app and that means you can select individual rooms for cleaning it's really really handy I was genuinely impressed with how good the X9 Pro is I named him Paul by by the way and he was an absolute Trooper he was able to move across bumpy surfaces and around Furniture legs without getting stuck once and he can detect when his mops need to be cleaned so he goes back to his little home cleans them and then goes back and picks up right where he left off and with clean and dirty water storage in Paul's house it would definitely take me a couple full cleans of this apartment to need to refill anything and because Paul has rotational mops he doesn't leave streaks on your floors it's really really great to learn more about the yui X9 Pro check out the links in the description below a huge thanks to yui for sponsoring this video and supporting the channel and a huge thanks to Paul for cleaning my floors now let's get back to the video so it's no secret that the M1 MacBook Air was a resounding success that keynote moment was not a word of exaggeration this thing absolutely took over the laptop world I mean it was the go-to recommendation for pretty much 90% of people and it's still extreme extremely impressive that this base model run-of-the-mill entrylevel MacBook can compete with any laptop that was manufactured before it and I know because I've got one here's a 2019 15-in MacBook Pro this thing when it was new cost $3,899 it's got an 8 core I 9 32 GB of ddr4 RAM a terabyte of storage dedicated Radeon Pro 560x graphics and yet when you fire up cinebench 2024 you'll find it it barely outperforms this base model MacBook Air I even fired up gfx bench metal to find out if the dedicated graphics could compete with the so integrated 7 core GPU on this base model M1 MacBook Air and it can't the MacBook Air is faster in most cases that is absolutely ludicrous that's the benefit of optimization and efficiency and keep in mind this is literally the least power powerful Apple silicon machine that exists you cannot get any less powerful than this and it's already beating one of the most powerful Intel MacBooks ever made oh and by the way it did all of that without a fan and it used less battery in the process I ran cinebench twice on the MacBook Air only once on the MacBook Pro and then I ran gfx bench on both the 15-in MacBook Pro is at 45% the MacBook Air is at 60 it's like it's not even that close this is this is how crazy the transition to Apple silicon has become and I know what you're thinking you're thinking Luke we've seen all of this before it's a 4-year-old MacBook Pro and we all know how good the M1 MacBook Air is but the point is that when this machine was brand new and this was only a year old this was 1/4 the price given all of this information this machine absolutely tanked in value nobody would want to pay for four times the money for this old thing when you could just buy an M1 MacBook Air in fact $500 is an an outright bargain for this machine and if you go on eBay and try to cross shop one of these MacBook airs you're going to find it's not much more expensive than one of these this is a 2017 touch bar 13-in MacBook Pro this thing sucks okay it's got a kbl lake dual core i5 it's absolutely hot garbage it's slow than an iPhone 10 it's got four Thunderbolt ports so at the very least there's there's something there it's also got twice the storage half a terabyte but quite frankly wouldn't take any of those trades for a billion dollars because this thing sucks to use compared to an M1 MacBook Air I mean are you joking you guys saw what happened when an M1 went up against an 8 core I9 how do you think a dual core U series I5 from 6 years ago yeah no it's not even close so this thing has a fraction of the capability plus it's hotter it runs hot it runs loud and the battery life sucks this one also likes to Colonel Panic a lot so that's fun no offense if anyone bought one of these recently but are you like okay do you need a doctor cuz why would you why would you buy this piece of garbage with a butterfly keyboard when you can get an M1 MacBook a for like $1100 extra come on and the thing about the M1 MacBook Air is it's arguably just as relevant now as it was 3 years ago I know that there's a new Macbook Air in fact oh what a surprise I've got it here on my table but you didn't expect that and don't get me wrong this thing is excellent I think it's a very decent and noticeable improvement over the M1 right you've got the new design with new color options I absolutely love Starlite I absolutely adore the design for this new generation of MacBook Air it is ridiculously thin ridiculously light it has fantastic battery life a gorgeous display and a very powerful chip at a great price you know $10.99 you can buy these things refurbished cuz it came out about a year and a half ago like you you can absolutely make the case for the M2 MacBook Air but the M1 MacBook Air gives you maybe 90% of this at still a couple hundred lower price point yeah sure Apple still sells this for $11,000 but you're not going to buy it from Apple for $1,000 because you have so many options you can shop Apple refurbished if you want to save an even larger amount of money you can go look for a Best Buy sale or find one that's Amazon renewed if you want to save a lot of money you can go on eBay and buy one from another person like you or me who's just selling it as they're getting getting ready to upgrade maybe they want to get the new M2 MacBook Air and boom you've scored yourself a discount or you can be ridiculous like me and buy a broken M1 MacBook Air for $150 off of merari and then buy a screen and fix it yourself at which point you've saved a ludicrous amount of money I spent $333 on this M1 MacBook Air and I quite frankly cannot think of a single piece of technology that is a better deal than this at that price I mean come on you've got every single feature you've got a chip that apple is still selling in the iMac so it's not even outdated and if it wasn't enough that this MacBook Air could save you a couple hundred over an M2 it also has a faster SSD because remember with the M2 generation Apple is only using a single nand chip on the base models whereas with the M1 devices they have two which means you get basically twice the SSD speed it's very simple so yeah you're saving money you get a faster SSD and you get 90% of everything else a great display a great design fanless architecture phenomenal battery life and great performance that's pretty hard to argue with so at this point you might be wondering Luke what's the downside where where's the catch it can't just be all positives right um yeah yeah it can it's basically all posit the only thing that is remotely a downside with this MacBook Air is that it's uh it's the old design it's a little thicker a little heavier and doesn't look quite as modern that's the trade-off think of this as a Macbook SE okay it's got all of the modernity of Apple silicon in the previous generation design but with a fixed keyboard so don't worry about that that's that's basically what this thing is and there's no inherent downside to that it just means that you save a little money and you're not rocking the newest and latest greatest design that's that's all there really is to it I mean these things have been out for 3 years and as far as I'm aware there's no reliability concerns and one way that you can tell that's the case is by looking at broken MacBook airs being sold on eBay believe you me I looked through a lot of those when I was trying to find this computer to repair and the most common thing that I saw all the time is liquid damage a crack display or an iCloud lock those are user created issues I couldn't find a single listing where it seemed like a logic board had just died or some fault with the machine had killed it it was all user created issues this isn't even a review this is just a rant about how good this MacBook Air is when this generation of MacBook Air came out in 2018 the consensus at the time was basically yeah okay the MacBook Air is fine provided that all you're doing is iMessage photos email and web browsing and nothing else but now we've flipped the script completely I now argue to most people like well well why would you need any more than a MacBook Air what are you doing that demands more than what a MacBook Air can offer that's a that's a pretty major paradigm shift in the way that you look at these computers it used to be well if you can get away with the Bas model go for it now it's why would you need anything more than the base model for 90% of people that is a legitimately crazy thing to have happen in such a short amount of time so yeah the moral of the story here is if you need an computer your default Choice should be a MacBook Air and probably an M1 at that the M2 is great don't get me wrong but but my goodness it is hard to beat the value that this thing provides legitimately absolutely incredible I think this is going to be the crowned champion of MacBooks for years to come a couple years ago it would have been the mid 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro but that has been unseated this is it this is the default the best bang for your buck The Undefeated reigning champion and you should absolutely buy one thank you guys so much for watching let me know your thoughts in the comments below and I'll see you in the next one\n"