At today's event, Apple introduced a new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini powered by the so-called M1 chip, which is the first in a family of chips designed by Apple specifically for the Mac.
The M1 chip, according to Apple, is by far the most powerful chip the company has ever made. With its industry-leading performance per watt, together with macOS Big Sur, M1 delivers up to 3.5x faster CPU, up to 6x faster GPU, up to 15x faster machine learning (ML) capabilities, and battery life up to 2x longer than before.
“The introduction of three new Macs featuring Apple’s breakthrough M1 chip represents a bold change that was years in the making, and marks a truly historic day for the Mac and for Apple,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “M1 is by far the most powerful chip we’ve ever created, and combined with Big Sur, delivers mind-blowing performance, extraordinary battery life, and access to more software and apps than ever before. We can’t wait for our customers to experience this new generation of Mac, and we have no doubt it will help them continue to change the world.”
New MacBook Air
The new MacBook Air comes with the M1 chip that promises to deliver up to 3.5x faster in CPU performance than the previous generation. With up to an 8-core GPU, graphics are up to 5x faster, the biggest leap ever for MacBook Air, this allows graphics-intensive games to run at significantly higher frame rates. As matter of fact, Apple claims that "M1 is faster than the chips in 98 percent of PC laptops sold in the past year."
In addition to the industry-leading power efficiency of M1, MacBook Air also delivers this performance in a fanless design, which means no matter what users are doing, it remains completely silent. The new MacBook Air features extraordinary battery life, with up to 15 hours of wireless web browsing and up to 18 hours of video playback — the longest battery life ever on a MacBook Air.
Here are the other new features:
- Apple’s latest image signal processor (ISP) in the M1 chip that improves FaceTime video call
- Support for P3 wide color results in an even more vibrant, true-to-life Retina display
- Wi-Fi 6 for a faster wireless performance
- Two Thunderbolt ports with USB 4 support
Customers can now pre-order the MacBook Air on apple.com and in the Apple Store app. It starts at $999 (US), and $899 (US) for education.
13-inch MacBook Pro
Apple has also unveiled the latest 13-inch MacBook Pro models. Like the new MacBook Air, it features the M1 chip, and when paired with the MacBook Pro’s active cooling system, is up to 2.8x faster than the previous generation. While the 8-core GPU is up to 5x faster, users can enjoy super smooth graphics performance. MacBook Pro also delivers up to twice the battery life of the previous generation and the longest battery life ever on a Mac.
Other new features included with the new 13-inch MacBook Pro are: studio-quality mics for super clear recordings and calls, the latest camera ISP in the M1 chip enables sharper images and more detail in shadows and highlights on video calls, as well as two Thunderbolt ports with USB 4 support to connect to more peripherals than ever, including Apple’s Pro Display XDR in full 6K resolution.
You can now pre-order the 13-inch MacBook Pro on apple.com or through the Apple Store app, it is available for the same starting price of just $1,299, and $1,199 for education.
Mac Mini
Lastly, Apple announced the new Mac mini, also featuring the M1 chip. The custom chip brings an 8-core CPU with up to 3x faster performance than the previous generation, dramatically accelerating demanding workloads, from compiling a million lines of code to building enormous multitrack music projects. An 8-core GPU delivers up to a massive 6x increase in graphics performance.
Mac mini has a new advanced thermal design to sustain its breakthrough performance while staying cool and quiet, support for up to two displays including Apple’s Pro Display XDR in full 6K resolution, and Wi-Fi 6 for faster wireless performance and the Secure Enclave in M1 for best-in-class security.
Pre-order for the new Mac mini is now available on apple.com as well as through the Apple Store app. Mac mini is now available for just $699, $100 less than the previous-generation quad-core model.
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