I’m increasingly more meh about the MacBook Air M1
Once again, this isn’t a Macs vs PC post, I work on both, both open Chrome or a web browser and an email client which is 99% of what people use them for.
We already covered that they don’t work with VMWare Fusion, Parallels, and that the Mac version of Microsoft Office is complete garbage.
As with most of the Mac equipment I’m tasked with working on, this was presented to me with the “I’ve got this, get it working with our setup,” and was not a researched project of mine. Even at time of purchase I believe Parallels still had up that they worked on all devices.
What I’ve learned from supporting them this week includes that we can’t use Boot Camp to run Windows to try and get at least a functioning Office install. We also can’t use more than one external monitor without purchasing more equipment.
My challenges this week included attempting to get an old printer to work with the Air (didn’t work, Catalina drivers evidently not happy with Big Sur,) attempting to set up dual external monitors like on the last Mac we’re attempting to replace. Can’t be done with what we’ve got due to a one external display limitation (womp womp).
And generally it’s … I mean it’s got good battery life because I can’t run anything on it we need, but that’s not particularly great. Like claiming a battery has great battery life if you’re not using it to power anything. Holding out hope that VMWare Fusion or Parallels comes up pretty soon and they fix the single external monitor situation.
I’m also suspecting the Air M1 doesn’t like 2.4gHz WiFi, but that’s going to take some serious testing to determine.
Sigh… play with the cutting edge, you’re going to get cut. Waiting on an OS update in hopes of solving some of these things, and hoping Parallels or VMWare get out of the gate pretty quick.
