February 25, 2025 • 11 mins
My quest for a capable, ultra-portable, content creation laptop is probably leading to a 2020 M1 MacBook Air...
johnny@geektherapyradio.com
johnny@geektherapyradio.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Geek Therapy Radio. You've got your mental curator,
Johnny Hamburger. As you can see if you are watching
this on YouTube, I'm bringing you behind the scenes of
how I record these episodes in the car. As you see,
I've got my MacBook Pro sixteen right here, and I'm
speaking into the left speaker grip because that left speaker
(00:23):
grill because as I've mentioned in the past, that is
where the main microphone is in MacBook pros. At least
I assume it's the same in MacBook errs. I've got
a actually, I mean that this is what the episode's
going to be about. This is a little bit of
a shorter episode. It's nine forty five and I have
to be up in the office for work at ten,
(00:43):
so this will be about a ten minute episode. I
would say, I'm going to try to keep it there.
But yeah, So as of now, I'm recording my MacBook
Pro sixteen. It's got the M one pro chip in there.
I think it's ten core and sixteen core GPU. I
think that's what it is. But I ordered recently, I've
been going through I've been looking for a sub fourteen
(01:07):
inch fourteen inch or below ultra light laptop that I
can put in my everyday carry that I can edit
video on. Of course, it's not going to be as
powerful as working on a MacBook Pro sixteen inch with
the M one pro chip, and it is not certainly
not going to be as powerful as editing on my
fifty nine to fifty X with the RTX thirty ninety
(01:27):
graphics card.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
But the MacBook Pro.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
The MacBook Air, I ordered a I think it's a
twenty twenty one MacBook Air with the original M one
chip in it. I believe it's the seven core GPU,
not the a core GPU. Two hundred and fifty six
gigabytes of storage, which is not that much, but that's
not very important to me since I'm always working off
of these external solid state drives. Anyways, I did get
it with sixteen gigabytes of RAM. I don't have it yet.
(01:54):
It was supposed to be delivered yesterday. For whatever reason,
FedEx did not leave it at the door, and there
was no There's no notes anywhere about needing a signature
or anything like that, so I don't know why they
didn't just leave it. But it was supposed to be
a day early yesterday when they tried to deliver it
a day early, but the actual delivery date is today
as a recording Thursday. So I left a note on
(02:16):
the door saying, hey, you can just hide it behind
the chairs. That's totally cool. I also told my wife
if she's at home today to if FedEx knocks on
the door, that's what it is. But I've during Black Friday,
I ordered I ordered a couple of laptops on Black
(02:38):
Friday because the deals were crazy. One was a really
cheap Snapdragon x plus laptop. I think I've talked about it.
I ordered a fifteen point six inch Samsung Galaxy Book
four with the Snapdragon x plus chip in there, just
as an experiment. It's not great at this point, I
(02:59):
would say Windows. I mean, it's certainly way better for
office tasks, for doing lightload kind of things. Twenty hour
battery life easy. I would expect it all day. The
battery life just does not go down. If you're doing
anything like word processing or even just watching YouTube videos,
it lasts forever. But for video editing, anything over ten
(03:20):
eighty is not is just gonna be a pain on
the Snapdragon x plus. On the Samsung Galaxy Book four
that I have, so I got it more as an experiment.
It was Black Friday, it was cheap. It just I
whip it out every once in a while just to
kind of see. With Windows updates. The audio drivers, for instance,
(03:40):
on Snapdragon Plus and Snapdragon processors period, are not there
yet all the way. They have the USB audio driver,
which allows like one like one input and two outputs,
you know, one input for recording and two outputs for
stereo output. That's it's a basic USB audio driver. That
means it's not compatible with my task M twenty twenty
(04:01):
that has over twenty ins and outs on it. The
ISO drivers are not there yet on Windows on Arm.
So as far as productivity, I'm very limited because obviously
a lot of what I do involves audio work. So
the fact that Windows on Arm thus far does not
have great audio drivers is a shame. It's not a shame,
(04:23):
it's just not there yet. I know that several manufacturers
are working in cahoots with Microsoft to update those drivers
and make Windows on Arm, you know, as good as
M one Silicon Max as far as driver support.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
But the thing with M one.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Is that it's supported multi input as far as I know,
because I got the m one Pro or the MacBook
Pro in twenty twenty. At launch, I was so excited
about it and I plugged it into my audio interfaces
and it just worked fine.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Whatever.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
The Rosetta two translation layer emulation translation work just fine.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
There was no.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Issues running pro tools or running Reaper or anything like
that at launch for Windows M Silicon, but a Windows
on Arm Snapdragon processors and Microsoft there's the driver support
is just not there yet. It was kind of If
you're looking at Windows on Arm to do audio production
(05:23):
work and you have a multi input, multi output audio
interface as of recording right now in February twenty twenty five,
you're gonna be out of luck.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
You can.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
You can definitely record with a simple interface like a
simple one hundred dollars USB like m audio or Focus
right whatever that just has one microphone input and to
monitor outputs.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Sure you can do that all day long.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
But if any serious production work is not gonna not
gonna fly there. If you need multiple audio inputs at
once in my interface, it just won't even recognize it.
I can't even play audio through the taskam It just't play.
I won't even see it. It'll say your device is
not connected like, yes, it is connected, it's whatever not
there yet on Windows Unarmed. So back to the MacBook
(06:09):
Air that I ordered, the twenty twenty one MacBook Air
two hundred fifty six gigabyte solid state drive and sixteen
gigabytes a RAM. Sixteen gigabytes a RAM was very important
to me obviously for video editing. That's not to say
that it's been well established, well documented that even this
the base model eight gigabyte version of the M one
(06:30):
MacBook Air is more than capable of four K video editing.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
You can even six K. They tell that you can.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
You can scrub through an eight K timeline on a
on an M one MacBook Air even with eight gigabytes
of RAM. Look over YouTube, Google search it. It's all
over the place. You know, it's not going to be
the same as editing like on a on an M
one Pro or an M one max Chip or a
sixteen inch MacBook Pro something like that. But you can
do actual video editing work without being weighed down, with
(07:00):
out being bogged down, without having to wait forever for
rendering and for cash. And that's why back to when
I was ordering laptops on Black Friday, I ordered also
alongside the Samsung Windows on Arm experiment that I still have.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Obviously, I ordered what is it?
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Oh gosh, I'm blanking out on the fourteen Acis Vivo
Book fourteen beautiful display. The sixteen gigabytes of RAM that
it came with was just not enough on a Windows chip.
It had a Core nine five h something like that
process or twenty threads. It was an amazing little beast,
but the sixteen gigabytes of RAM and the integrated graphics
(07:44):
on that I nine ultra chip whatever was just not
up to snuff for for for quality video editing that
that I that you could do on the fly. So
I returned it. I had like a ninety day return policy.
I returned it, got all my money back for it,
and I wound up going with I was beating around
(08:04):
the bush, I was avoiding. I was like, I know
that I'm probably gonna wind up on a on a
first gen Mac M one MacBook Air. I know that
this is probably where it's gonna wind up. But let
me try the Windows side of things, the non Mac
side of things first.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It's like, you know what, yup?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
It? All all roads lead to M one MacBook Air
with sixteen gigabytes to RAM that I got four around
five hundred bucks.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
That is insane.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
I don't have enough time in this podcast and I
have to start wrapping it up. But a sixteen gigabyte
of RAM M one MacBook Air for around five hundred
dollars is the best value in an ultra portable right now.
Like if someone walking on the street asked me what
I need to really relate powerful laptop to do a
(08:53):
bunch of like M one MacBook Air.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Simple.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
They're so cheap now because we were four generations now
into the MROs that you can score a still legitimately
powerful M one MacBook Air for around five hundred bucks used,
you know, in good condition on Amazon or whatever that is.
That's gonna do everything you needed to do without hiccups.
That's baller. It's it's crazy Apple, and I sun like
(09:18):
a fanboy, but I'm obviously I'm not. You've heard all
the different Windows stuff that I have, including Windows on Armed,
But right now, bang for the buck, best value for
the money. If you are a content creator who does
serious video editing and serious audio work, serious production work,
serious content creation, and you need an ultra portable sub
fourteen inch laptop that can do it's all. It's gonna
(09:41):
be the M one MacBook Air of eight gigabytes or
sixteen gigabytes. But I'd say at this point, if you're
looking how to use MacBook Air and you're into serious
production work, get the sixteen gigabyte model. So that's where
I'm at, and hopefully i'll have that in today and
I can start tinkering around with it. I like that
that the twenty twenty one MacBook Airs, before the M
two refresh and before the M three's and so on,
(10:04):
had the top firing speakers. In the modern MacBook Airs.
Current generation MacBook Airs, the speakers are below the keyboard,
but I like the way that the first gen has
them sticking out front, kind of like the MacBook Pro
sixteen inch. See the speakers front facing. What's going on?
Why did my radio just turn on? I guess that's
my cue to kind of wrap up the podcast here
and go up to my real job. So I'm recording
(10:26):
in Da vinciat Resolve. I don't know if you can
see it really on the screen there, but that's what
it is. Thank you so much for listening to this
quick episode of the Geek Therapy Radio podcast. You are
worthy of love, you're worthy of giving love, you're worthy
of receiving love, and you're worthy of your own self respect.
Thank you so much for listening, and I'll talk to
y'all later. My wisdom teeth feels so much better. It's
(10:48):
two weeks after I've had the procedure.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I'm healing. Nice sleep peace,
Welcome to Geek Therapy Radio. You've got your mental curator,
Johnny Hamburger. As you can see if you are watching
this on YouTube, I'm bringing you behind the scenes of
how I record these episodes in the car. As you see,
I've got my MacBook Pro sixteen right here, and I'm
speaking into the left speaker grip because that left speaker
(00:23):
grill because as I've mentioned in the past, that is
where the main microphone is in MacBook pros. At least
I assume it's the same in MacBook errs. I've got
a actually, I mean that this is what the episode's
going to be about. This is a little bit of
a shorter episode. It's nine forty five and I have
to be up in the office for work at ten,
(00:43):
so this will be about a ten minute episode. I
would say, I'm going to try to keep it there.
But yeah, So as of now, I'm recording my MacBook
Pro sixteen. It's got the M one pro chip in there.
I think it's ten core and sixteen core GPU. I
think that's what it is. But I ordered recently, I've
been going through I've been looking for a sub fourteen
(01:07):
inch fourteen inch or below ultra light laptop that I
can put in my everyday carry that I can edit
video on. Of course, it's not going to be as
powerful as working on a MacBook Pro sixteen inch with
the M one pro chip, and it is not certainly
not going to be as powerful as editing on my
fifty nine to fifty X with the RTX thirty ninety
(01:27):
graphics card.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
But the MacBook Pro.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
The MacBook Air, I ordered a I think it's a
twenty twenty one MacBook Air with the original M one
chip in it. I believe it's the seven core GPU,
not the a core GPU. Two hundred and fifty six
gigabytes of storage, which is not that much, but that's
not very important to me since I'm always working off
of these external solid state drives. Anyways, I did get
it with sixteen gigabytes of RAM. I don't have it yet.
(01:54):
It was supposed to be delivered yesterday. For whatever reason,
FedEx did not leave it at the door, and there
was no There's no notes anywhere about needing a signature
or anything like that, so I don't know why they
didn't just leave it. But it was supposed to be
a day early yesterday when they tried to deliver it
a day early, but the actual delivery date is today
as a recording Thursday. So I left a note on
(02:16):
the door saying, hey, you can just hide it behind
the chairs. That's totally cool. I also told my wife
if she's at home today to if FedEx knocks on
the door, that's what it is. But I've during Black Friday,
I ordered I ordered a couple of laptops on Black
(02:38):
Friday because the deals were crazy. One was a really
cheap Snapdragon x plus laptop. I think I've talked about it.
I ordered a fifteen point six inch Samsung Galaxy Book
four with the Snapdragon x plus chip in there, just
as an experiment. It's not great at this point, I
(02:59):
would say Windows. I mean, it's certainly way better for
office tasks, for doing lightload kind of things. Twenty hour
battery life easy. I would expect it all day. The
battery life just does not go down. If you're doing
anything like word processing or even just watching YouTube videos,
it lasts forever. But for video editing, anything over ten
(03:20):
eighty is not is just gonna be a pain on
the Snapdragon x plus. On the Samsung Galaxy Book four
that I have, so I got it more as an experiment.
It was Black Friday, it was cheap. It just I
whip it out every once in a while just to
kind of see. With Windows updates. The audio drivers, for instance,
(03:40):
on Snapdragon Plus and Snapdragon processors period, are not there
yet all the way. They have the USB audio driver,
which allows like one like one input and two outputs,
you know, one input for recording and two outputs for
stereo output. That's it's a basic USB audio driver. That
means it's not compatible with my task M twenty twenty
(04:01):
that has over twenty ins and outs on it. The
ISO drivers are not there yet on Windows on Arm.
So as far as productivity, I'm very limited because obviously
a lot of what I do involves audio work. So
the fact that Windows on Arm thus far does not
have great audio drivers is a shame. It's not a shame,
(04:23):
it's just not there yet. I know that several manufacturers
are working in cahoots with Microsoft to update those drivers
and make Windows on Arm, you know, as good as
M one Silicon Max as far as driver support.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
But the thing with M one.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Is that it's supported multi input as far as I know,
because I got the m one Pro or the MacBook
Pro in twenty twenty. At launch, I was so excited
about it and I plugged it into my audio interfaces
and it just worked fine.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Whatever.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
The Rosetta two translation layer emulation translation work just fine.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
There was no.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Issues running pro tools or running Reaper or anything like
that at launch for Windows M Silicon, but a Windows
on Arm Snapdragon processors and Microsoft there's the driver support
is just not there yet. It was kind of If
you're looking at Windows on Arm to do audio production
(05:23):
work and you have a multi input, multi output audio
interface as of recording right now in February twenty twenty five,
you're gonna be out of luck.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
You can.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
You can definitely record with a simple interface like a
simple one hundred dollars USB like m audio or Focus
right whatever that just has one microphone input and to
monitor outputs.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Sure you can do that all day long.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
But if any serious production work is not gonna not
gonna fly there. If you need multiple audio inputs at
once in my interface, it just won't even recognize it.
I can't even play audio through the taskam It just't play.
I won't even see it. It'll say your device is
not connected like, yes, it is connected, it's whatever not
there yet on Windows Unarmed. So back to the MacBook
(06:09):
Air that I ordered, the twenty twenty one MacBook Air
two hundred fifty six gigabyte solid state drive and sixteen
gigabytes a RAM. Sixteen gigabytes a RAM was very important
to me obviously for video editing. That's not to say
that it's been well established, well documented that even this
the base model eight gigabyte version of the M one
(06:30):
MacBook Air is more than capable of four K video editing.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
You can even six K. They tell that you can.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
You can scrub through an eight K timeline on a
on an M one MacBook Air even with eight gigabytes
of RAM. Look over YouTube, Google search it. It's all
over the place. You know, it's not going to be
the same as editing like on a on an M
one Pro or an M one max Chip or a
sixteen inch MacBook Pro something like that. But you can
do actual video editing work without being weighed down, with
(07:00):
out being bogged down, without having to wait forever for
rendering and for cash. And that's why back to when
I was ordering laptops on Black Friday, I ordered also
alongside the Samsung Windows on Arm experiment that I still have.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Obviously, I ordered what is it?
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Oh gosh, I'm blanking out on the fourteen Acis Vivo
Book fourteen beautiful display. The sixteen gigabytes of RAM that
it came with was just not enough on a Windows chip.
It had a Core nine five h something like that
process or twenty threads. It was an amazing little beast,
but the sixteen gigabytes of RAM and the integrated graphics
(07:44):
on that I nine ultra chip whatever was just not
up to snuff for for for quality video editing that
that I that you could do on the fly. So
I returned it. I had like a ninety day return policy.
I returned it, got all my money back for it,
and I wound up going with I was beating around
(08:04):
the bush, I was avoiding. I was like, I know
that I'm probably gonna wind up on a on a
first gen Mac M one MacBook Air. I know that
this is probably where it's gonna wind up. But let
me try the Windows side of things, the non Mac
side of things first.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It's like, you know what, yup?
Speaker 1 (08:20):
It? All all roads lead to M one MacBook Air
with sixteen gigabytes to RAM that I got four around
five hundred bucks.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
That is insane.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
I don't have enough time in this podcast and I
have to start wrapping it up. But a sixteen gigabyte
of RAM M one MacBook Air for around five hundred
dollars is the best value in an ultra portable right now.
Like if someone walking on the street asked me what
I need to really relate powerful laptop to do a
(08:53):
bunch of like M one MacBook Air.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Simple.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
They're so cheap now because we were four generations now
into the MROs that you can score a still legitimately
powerful M one MacBook Air for around five hundred bucks used,
you know, in good condition on Amazon or whatever that is.
That's gonna do everything you needed to do without hiccups.
That's baller. It's it's crazy Apple, and I sun like
(09:18):
a fanboy, but I'm obviously I'm not. You've heard all
the different Windows stuff that I have, including Windows on Armed,
But right now, bang for the buck, best value for
the money. If you are a content creator who does
serious video editing and serious audio work, serious production work,
serious content creation, and you need an ultra portable sub
fourteen inch laptop that can do it's all. It's gonna
(09:41):
be the M one MacBook Air of eight gigabytes or
sixteen gigabytes. But I'd say at this point, if you're
looking how to use MacBook Air and you're into serious
production work, get the sixteen gigabyte model. So that's where
I'm at, and hopefully i'll have that in today and
I can start tinkering around with it. I like that
that the twenty twenty one MacBook Airs, before the M
two refresh and before the M three's and so on,
(10:04):
had the top firing speakers. In the modern MacBook Airs.
Current generation MacBook Airs, the speakers are below the keyboard,
but I like the way that the first gen has
them sticking out front, kind of like the MacBook Pro
sixteen inch. See the speakers front facing. What's going on?
Why did my radio just turn on? I guess that's
my cue to kind of wrap up the podcast here
and go up to my real job. So I'm recording
(10:26):
in Da vinciat Resolve. I don't know if you can
see it really on the screen there, but that's what
it is. Thank you so much for listening to this
quick episode of the Geek Therapy Radio podcast. You are
worthy of love, you're worthy of giving love, you're worthy
of receiving love, and you're worthy of your own self respect.
Thank you so much for listening, and I'll talk to
y'all later. My wisdom teeth feels so much better. It's
(10:48):
two weeks after I've had the procedure.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I'm healing. Nice sleep peace,
Geek Therapy Radio Podcast News
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com