It's not a good idea to buy a MacBook for gaming, right? It's just not a good move ever for any reason. But what is nice is that you'll be able to play a little game every once in a while. And that's the way I game, period. The thing is, when we're talking about a $650 computer, gaming is something that you will probably want to do from time to time.
Gaming on Mac is in a really weird spot, in 2024, because most games of course have never run on Mac. But the thing is, there actually are some signs of life here. There are a number of games that are coming out. You know, some of the AAA games that are on the Mac App Store show up every once in a while. In fact, I'm actually working on a gaming on Mac video very shortly.
So there's a lot to talk about here, but the nice thing is that even though the M1 Air is the absolute lowest end configuration that could possibly run Apple Silicon, as we found out last year when I tried to game on a Mac, the MacBook Air base model is still pretty decent. Obviously not a gaming computer.
So with the M1 and the M3 MacBook Airs, they use dual NAND SSDs, which are much, much faster than the single NAND SSD in the M2 MacBook Air, which means that ironically, the cheapest MacBook Air actually has tied for the fastest SSD of all of them. That isn't a huge problem unless you're doing some crazy over-the-top workloads.
What is a bigger problem is just the fact that 256 gigs of storage is not a lot. It's fine if you use your computer like a glorified Chromebook. And I say that with no shade, I use my computer, it's kinda like a glorified Chromebook. I mean, yes, I do some video editing, I do some things, but when I'm doing that, I'm usually working off like an external drive and I can actually live inside the 256 gigs of storage fairly easy for my workflow.
I mean, I do like having a larger drive, but it's not incredibly important. And it depends on your workflow, right? Because the problem with this MacBook is that first of all, while they're here, they're here, and as soon as they're sold out, these are gone right? They're not gonna restock them as far as they know.
So look at this MacBook Air. I think first of all, it compares really favorably compared to the last time when I looked at this, when it came out in 2020. At the time Apple Silicon was brand new. And while there's a ton of potential, most apps really weren't optimized. But at this point, pretty much everything is right.
And the few apps that are, and specifically games that are not optimized still run very well under Rosetta. Performance is a giant thumbs up. Is it a slight bit slower than an M2 or an M3 MacBook? Yes, yes it is. Are you going to notice unless you put them side by side, you absolutely will not.
While you might scoff at the fact that I'm talking about a base model, 3-year-old MacBook Air that doesn't have a fan, and eight gigs of RAM, and like, yeah, that might not be the system for you. But for an enormous amount of people out there, this is not only the best MacBook I think it is hard to argue that this is not the best value MacBook that has ever existed.
But on top of that, it's good for just most people, period. This just sort of makes me sort of wish that Apple could find a way of actually selling even if they just kept the M1 MacBook around and gave it a price cut. Like even if they had to sell these things for like $800 MSRP or whatever.
Because if this exists at $650 or $700, there's no reason to buy the $1,000 MacBook. There's no reason to buy the $1,100 MacBook. There's no reason to almost buy the $1,600 M3 MacBook Pro, like you have to go to the high-end Pro machine to have any significant difference in the experience that you have with these devices.
So the problem with the M1 MacBook Air is a nefarious one. It's too good to live and that is a dangerous place to be.
WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Walmart now sells discount MacBooks.So for the first time ever,they're selling brand newMacBooks directly on Walmart.com.Now, in the past they'vehad the restored MacBooks,but as we've determined,those are always notnecessarily the greatest move.However, they love to advertisethe MacBook Air for only $699.So this is the original M1 MacBook Air.But up until very recently,this was selling on theApple site for $1,000and yet Walmart are sellingthese things for 699.So is a $699 MacBook fromWalmart actually worth it?Well, there's only one way to find out.Wow, that's some fast shipping.All right, let's see what we get.That is a MacBook my friends,and that looks very much brand new.We've got ourselves,I chose the Space Gray MacBook Air.Now this is the baseconfiguration as you would expectfor $300 less than it was a few weeks ago.So this is the 13-inch M1Air with eight gigs of RAMand 256 gigs of storage.And this is the older style SSD,which is actually fasterthan the M2 MacBook Airbecause this uses twochips instead of one.So my thought here is thatthis is actually still goingto be a very usable system.Oh, that was very pleasant.And there we go.A brand new MacBook Air.Also have the dinky little charger.It's only like what, 30 watts,which seems just absurdly slow.All right, let's fire it up.Is it, is it dead?This MacBook with probablysitting around for so longthat the battery died.(Austin laughing)There we go.Just need a little bit of encouragement.So if you're unfamiliar,this is the M1 MacBook Air,which has the older school design.So it's still the wedge,which I actually know a lot of peopleare a fan of the wedge design.I do personally prefer the M2 and the M3from a design standpointbecause you actually get MagSafein addition to the dual Thunderbolt ports.And that extra port is really nicebecause if you're charging this device,you only have one extra port.It's usable but it's niceto have a little bit extra.But other than that though,it's actually not gonnabe a huge difference.So we do have Touch ID,we have the keyboard,we have the very niceForce Touch track padand the display, whilea little bit smallerthan the current MacBook Airs,it's only like in half aninch difference or something.It's quite minimal.For the next few days,I'm going to live with thisMacBook Air as my main machineto tell you exactlyis a $699 MacBook Air actually worth it.(upbeat music)So I've just finished settingup in the MacBook Air.It's only been a few hoursbut I do have some initial thoughts.This thing still feels very modern.Now that shouldn't be a surprise,I mean it's only a few years old,but like I think there's this tendencyto expect that a three,four, five year old systemshould feel old and ancientand that's the way that things used to be.But I'll tell you thedifference between this MacBook,which came out in 2020,and the brand new 2024 M3 MacBook Airis really pretty minimal.I mean, yes, that M3 isa little bit snappierbut like we don't see the kindof huge leaps that we used towhen you would go from likea sixth to like ninth gen Intel processoror something like that.Like, just the speed and the snappinessfeels very, very solid.But at 699, I don't really carethat I've only got eight gigs of RAM.I know that that is going to be fine.Are you gonna run intothe occasional bottleneckif you're doing a heavier task?Yes, but a lot less sothan you would think.I did a video on thebrand new M3 MacBook Prothat came out in 2023and that system at $1,600still ships with eight gigs of RAM.That's egregious.But, even though I don'twanna give them a free pass,it's still a very usable systemand it is doubly sowhen you're spendingless than half of that.Day two with the MacBookand things have been going pretty well.So the first thing that's jumped out to meis the battery life.It is so refreshing.I have not actually, dailyMacBook Air in a while,and especially with Apple Silicon,I've like last night,I spent like threehours doing like emails,streaming music, that kinda stuff,and I only burned like 25% of the battery.Like it's so nice to not haveto worry about the charger.Now I have finally just plugged it inabout 24 hours after I unboxed itand it's just been a battery champ.On top of that, I havebeen editing with this.So this timeline is prettyindicative of what I normally do,which it's a 34 second 4K YouTube Shortand it's holding up pretty well.Now, I will say that you will noticea little bit of a lack of performanceif you're coming from a higher end system,but not at $700, right?So like I'm throwing in all the effects.Color correction, again, it's 4K.And while yes, I have to rendera couple of smaller things,especially some of the morelike demanding effects,it's not that much worsethan my normal setupand it's very workable.I'm sitting here watching Marques' videoon the M3 MacBook Airwhen he mentioned somethingI wasn't aware of.Best Buy now selling this laptop for $649,undercutting Walmart by a full 50 bucks.I liked this laptop at$700 but for 650 bucks,I mean like has there ever beena brand new MacBook thatis not wildly out of datethat was available for less than $700.If there was, let me know the commentsbut I cannot think of a single one.So at this point, I've spentthe entire week with the MacBookand I have a lot of thoughts.Now, when you look at thisas a thousand dollar laptop,there are some trade offs,but those trade offs are verydifferent at 650 or $700.So take something simple like the inputs,the keyboard and track padare pretty much identicalto the much more expensive MacBooks.And while the keyboard is pretty good,the track pad remains to bethe absolute best in the business.Touch ID is nice and thescreen is quite solidconsidering the price point.So no, it's not going tobe 120 hertz in ProMotion,but it is still very, very solid.It's high resolution, it'sgonna look a lot betterthan most other laptopdisplays at this price point.Now the speakers are alittle bit of a low point,I'll be honest.They're fine.But especially if you compare itto something like a MacBook Pro,it is a huge difference.I mean, those things sound phenomenal.The MacBook sounds average.So my use case is notincredibly demanding.The things that I've donewith the MacBook this weekinclude editing a little bit.So you know, again, some Shorts,nothing that's super huge and demandingbut doing some editing on it,I've actually done some gaming,so I just recently spent sometime playing StarCraft II.So obviously this is a gamethat is very old, right?We're talking aboutsomething that came outprobably a decade ago, if not longer.Now what I'm actually seeingfor performance is not perfect.So it's definitely,I'm lagging just a little bit here,but I am running on high settingsand it's on a fanless MacBook.So look, no one should buya MacBook for gaming, right?It's just, it's not a goodmove ever for any reason.But what is nice, is to beable to play a little gameevery once in a while.And that's the way that I, honestly,that's the way I game, period.But the thing is, when we'retalking about a $650 computer,gaming is something thatyou will probably wanna dofrom time to time.And while there's a fairlylimited selection of gamesthat are available on Mac, they do exist.You know, it's funny,gaming on Mac is in areally weird spot, in 2024because most games of coursehave never run on Mac.But the thing is,there actually are somesigns of life here.There are a number ofgames that are coming out.You know, some of the AAA gamesthat are on the Mac App Storeshow up every once in a while.In fact, actually subscribe to the channeland ring-a-ling that ding-a-ling button,I'm actually working on a gamingon Mac video very shortly.So there's a lot to talk about here.But the nice thing is thateven though the M1 Airis the absolute lowest end configurationthat could possibly run Apple Silicon,as we found out last yearwhen I tried to game on a Mac,the MacBook Air base modelis still pretty decent.Obviously not a gaming computer.So with the M1 and the M3 MacBook Airs,they use dual NAND SSDs,which are much, much fasterthan the single NAND SSDin the M2 MacBook Air,which means that ironically,the cheapest MacBook Airactually has tied for thefastest SSD of all of them.That isn't a huge problemunless you're again,doing some crazy over the top workloads.What is a bigger problemis just the fact that 256gigs of storage is not a lot.It's fine if you use your computerlike a glorified Chromebook.And I say that with no shade,I use my computer,it's kinda like a glorified Chromebook.I mean, yes, I do some videoediting, I do some things,but when I'm doing that,I'm usually working offlike an external driveand I can actually liveinside the 256 gigs of storagefairly easy for my workflow.I mean, I do like having a larger drivebut it's not incredibly important.And it depends on your workflow, right?Because the problem with this MacBookis that first of all, whilethey're here, they're here,and as soon as they're soldout, these are gone right?They're not gonna restockthem as far as they know.So look at this MacBook Air.I think first of all,it compares really favorablycompared to the last timewhen I looked at this,when it came out in 2020.At the time Apple Silicon was brand new.And while there's a ton of potential,most apps really weren't optimized.But at this point, prettymuch everything is right.And the few apps that are,and specifically gamesthat are not optimizedstill run very well under Rosetta.So performance is a giant thumbs up.Is it a slight bit slowerthan an M2 or an M3 MacBook?Yes, yes it is.Are you going to notice unlessyou put them side by side,you absolutely will not.While you might scoff that I'mtalking about a base model,3-year-old MacBook Airthat doesn't have a fan,and eight gigs of RAM, and like,yeah, that might not be the system for youbut for an enormous amountof people out there,this is not only the best MacBook,I think it is hard to arguethis is not the best valueMacBook that has ever existed.But on top of that, it's goodfor just most people, period.This just sort of makes me sort of wishthat Apple could find away of actually selling,even if they just keptthe M1 MacBook aroundand gave it a price cut.Like even if they had to sell these thingsfor like $800 MSRP or whatever,like this is such a phenomenal system,but I understand why they can't do thatbecause if this exists at650 or 700 or even $800,there's no reason tobuy the $1,000 MacBook.There's no reason tobuy the $1,100 MacBook.There's no reason to almostbuy the $1,600 M3 MacBook Pro,like you have to go tothe high-end Pro machinesto have any significant differencein the experience that youhave with these devices.So the problem with the M1MacBook Air is a nefarious one.It's too good to liveand that is a dangerous place to be.
