M1 MacBook Air okay for editing?

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pmac

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Ok so last night I decided to move my 2016 mbp from upstairs where I was happily watching Netflix to the sitting room.
Upon opening it after the 2sec walk I now have pink and purple lines in columns over the screen.
Seems to be the screen cable issue which I was quote over the phone £600+ to fix which makes it’s in economical as you can get the air for 899 or 1100 with 16gb ram.

But is this going to be okay for editing on? To be honest o don’t do a lot at the moment but want to get back into it over summer and if I can avoid spending 1800 on the lowest spec mbp m1 pro I would rather, unless it’s a compelling buy over the air.
 
I use a M1 Mac mini for editing. It’s only the 8gig version but it copes with both bridge (x64) version and M1 native photoshop.

16gig would be nice to have but it certainly works well with only 8.
 
The Mac Mini M1 will be fine for your needs even the base version of 8GB runs the M1 version of Photoshop superbly. I process 50mb gfx files without any issues or slowdowns.
 
I've a mac mini m1 16gb and editing around 5000 images per week and it hasn't faulted at all ....very happy with the speed on LR and PS
 
I’m selling mine in the classifieds because I got a pro for work but the m1 was absolutely fine to edit stills. Much quicker than my kids 2yr old pro. It did struggle a bit with big video files and multiple displays.
 
I bought the new 14" Pro when it came out, then a few weeks later got an M1 Air from work. I cannot notice the difference in performance between them.
 
£600 for a cable replacement .... ouch.... was that an Apple quote, you can get it replaced a lot cheaper than that if you shop around, there are a few places that will repair Macs now.
 
Nikon f1.8 said:
£600 for a cable replacement .... ouch.... was that an Apple quote, you can get it replaced a lot cheaper than that if you shop around, there are a few places that will repair Macs now.
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That was an estimate from them yes.
I believe the issue is with these models and the way they were designed where to access/ replace the cable means removing and replacing the screen also .
That what I got from the Apple forum posts where others had this issue(it seems to be a fairly common fault with these models again due to design)
 
I recently upgraded from a fully spec’d out 15” MB Pro 2016 to the 14” MB Pro with M1 Pro. I can honestly say there is a drastic improvement with the new M1 chips. Photoshop optimized their software for the M1 and it has a drastic increase on speed.

With the new M2’s coming out soon it’s the perfect time to upgrade. I ran into an issue with having to fix my laptop and the cost was not justified so I decided to upgrade. No regrets.

I primarily use capture one and it’s significantly faster on the M1 chips. Even with a MacBook Air you should see some significant improvement in photoshop.
 
pmac said:
That was an estimate from them yes.
I believe the issue is with these models and the way they were designed where to access/ replace the cable means removing and replacing the screen also .
That what I got from the Apple forum posts where others had this issue(it seems to be a fairly common fault with these models again due to design)
Click to expand...
Have you seen this... don't know if it applies to your model, but no harm checking.
LINKY
 
Interested in this thread, as my 6 year old Mac book pro has become uneconomical to repair. For editing I use both an iMac and until recently my MBP. Replacing it I was thinking of going down the m1 MacBook Air route, but wondering if it was up to the job?
 
I have an M1 Macbook Air, only the 8GB RAM model, bought a year ago today as it happens.

I've been editing weddings and events in Lightroom on it solidly ever since, last weekend it was 7500 Sony a9 RAW files from Goodwood 79MM, yesterday it was 3000 from a wedding. I've not had even the slightest hint of slowdown, lag, overheating etc and my workflow has sped up significantly. I moved from a PC that I built at the start of lockdown that was on paper significantly more powerful (32GB RAM if I remember correctly) and the M1 genuinely blows it out of the water.
 
ukaskew said:
I have an M1 Macbook Air, only the 8GB RAM model, bought a year ago today as it happens.

I've been editing weddings and events in Lightroom on it solidly ever since, last weekend it was 7500 Sony a9 RAW files from Goodwood 79MM, yesterday it was 3000 from a wedding. I've not had even the slightest hint of slowdown, lag, overheating etc and my workflow has sped up significantly. I moved from a PC that I built at the start of lockdown that was on paper significantly more powerful (32GB RAM if I remember correctly) and the M1 genuinely blows it out of the water.
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Thanks, that’s all I needed to hear. Considering I have an IMac I can use, I thought upgrading to the MBP was overkill.
 
Still using my 2012 Thinkpad E540 (i7), so I imagine an M1 Mac of any variety would be fine.

Admitedly I don't process thousands of photos at a time, but it works very well with Capture One.
 
sajo said:
Thanks, that’s all I needed to hear. Considering I have an IMac I can use, I thought upgrading to the MBP was overkill.
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I have consolidated my MacBook and iMac to a MacBook Pro and external monitor, the jump to M1 is a big one. The jumps within M1 to pro/max etc aren't as significant. Arguably the Air is the most impressive jump from Intel.
 
I have a base model m1 air which I don’t use. It can’t do what I need it to do no matter what apple says it is capable of.

If you are running apple specific video editing suits such as final cut then I am sure it’ll be fantastic but if like me you are running davinci, it’s notably slower than my spare laptop with its i7 9750h and it’s 6gb 1660ti.

Throw the same task at my m1 max 16” pro and it’s a different story entirely.

If you open up and want to use affinity photo, publisher or designer then these programs blow the laptop out of the water on the m1 air and I cannot tell the difference between it and the m1 max.

The m1 air also handles unity quite well for messing around and doing mobile edits, better infact than the laptop which given it’s 1660ti is quite the endorsement but I think this is due to throttling on the laptop where as the air runs cool and doesn’t ever seem to. The m1 max however is something else!

For the money and what you may use it for? Base m1 air with 8gb ram and 256gb ssd is a great option. Stick an T5 or T7 Samsung ssd in the bag to keep your stuff on and to work from (so you don’t degrade the built in ssd) and you will be golden.

Do you have a work flow in mind? I wouldn’t mind putting it to the test to see how important a larger ssd or extra ram may be. It’ll help you out working the cost to you too in the long run to see if it’s viable.
 
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Yeah went to the Apple store yesterday and it’s £630 for the repair as they need to replace the whole screen even though it’s just the cable that’s faulty… (they checked in internals in store) which I thought was abit of a p*** take as it seems to be a design issue more than anything.

While there I was checking out all the MacBooks and I’m now considering saving the extra for a 14” mbp with M1 pro
The screen on that is great but still not sure if the extra is justified. To be honest I’ve not even been editing much in the past two years and mainly use it for watching tv or the odd college work.
 
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