Don’t get an M1 MacBook Air…

… if you are weak!

Photo by Mark Decile on Unsplash

Since the first laptop I’ve ever purchased, I’ve always used mobile computers to only do real work, such as developing software for Windows, Web, or — recently — macOS and iOS. Of course, there was some browsing here and there, some reading and writing, and even watching a movie sometimes, but nothing big, nothing alarming at all.

Playing games — any games —, however, was a thing that: 1. I’ve done rarely (possibly because of the second point), and 2. was left either for the mobile phone or for a desktop computer, the latter in the early years, long time ago.

The reason: computer games were simply running very bad on a laptop, turning on fans at maximum speed and generating lot of background noise — it was truly disturbing. Not to mention the low computational and graphical performance, not to mention the battery being drained out in so short time (unless you’re playing Solitaire and Minesweeper or being plugged in to the wall — all right).

Things could have changed when I’ve bought my current MacBook Air, with its brilliant M1 processor. It runs anything I throw at it so fast, it never makes a noise — it has no fan! — and finally for such a light, yet powerful mobile device, the battery is good enough!

So good that it took me real effort to control my gaming thoughts — and keep my non-work screen time low enough — technology was ready, it was close to capture me inside!

I don’t want to list any titles, but the games I played (and some, still play) were/are not the best games in the world. And still: being possible to run hours and hours of really cool 3D engines on a mobile Mac is really enjoyable and… you must be able to control yourself to ensure you don’t go there too much.

Don’t buy such as device unless you can control your urges (gaming side)!