32 TECH ADVISOR • MAY 2021REVIEWS
57 seconds,whilethe2GHzCorei5
MacBookProtook 82 seconds.Andthen
I dida videoconversionin HandBrake,
andtheMacBookPro(M1)jumpedleaps
andboundsoverthe2.0GHzCorei5
MacBookPro.THE16GBMEMORYCEILING
TheM1is referredtoasa ‘systemon
a chip’.BeforetheM1,a Maclaptop
hadseveraldifferentchipsthatserved
differentpurposes.Youwouldhave
a chipfortheCPU,chipsforRAM,
controllers,andmore.Applehasnow
combinedallthosechipsintoone,
theM1systemona chip.
Therearemanyadvantagestoa SoC,
suchasbetterperformanceandpower
efficiency, and it takes up less room on
a motherboard. But there are also some
compromises, such as the inability to
upgrade memory. Owners of previous
MacBooks are probably used to this,
anyway – it’s been a while since Apple
allowed users to upgrade RAM after
initially buying the laptop.
But another compromise is there
are currently only two available RAM
options: 8GB or 16GB. For many power
users, 16GB in what’s supposed to be
a ‘pro’ machine isn’t enough. They’d
like at least 32GB. That seems to be
one of the reasons why Apple still offers
the 13in MacBook Pro with Intel chips,asthoselaptopssupportupto32GBof
RAM. Now, there’s a possibility that, just
as we need to rethink clock speed as
other aspects of computer processing,
we need to rethink memory. Apple’s SoC
uses what it calls “unified memory”.
If you just can’t wrap your head
around the idea of having only 16GB
of RAM, you have two choices: get an
Intel-based laptop, or wait. Remember,
this is the very first Apple silicon chip for
Mac. Sometime in the near future, Apple
will likely release a chip that uses more
memory. (Apple has not commented
onitssiliconreleasescheduleandwhat
chipsit willinclude.)ALL-DAY BATTERY LIFE
Besides performance, Apple claims
another advantage to an SoC is
improved power efficiency. The M1
Mac is better at managing the power it
uses,whichmeansbetterbatterylife.To
gaugehowlongthebatterywilllast, we
rana videoatfullscreenona continuous
loopuntilthebatteryran out.Battery life: Video playback
13in MacBook Pro 8-core M1 (2020):
1,075 minutes
13in MacBook Pro 2GHz quad-core Core
i5 (2020): 610 minutes
13in MacBook Pro 1.4GHz quad-core
Core i5 (2019): 623 minutes