This seems to be one of those rare moments when a product dramatically over-delivers on expectations. The numbers we’re seeing under Rosetta 2 emulation are kind-of mind blowing, given that I think we all assumed there’d be a big hit to performance.
I compared the benchmarks against my 15" 2016. LoL.
Mine 766/3088
Air: 1703/7261
There is going to be a -gate. Or at the very least some rough edges coming out.
It kinda makes you wonder, why is Surface Pro X (Windows 10 on ARM chip) such a dog and Apple Silicon on Big Sur such a beast?
Yeah I’m tempted to jump back with a MBA, but probably will end up with a similarly priced but bigger 2-in-1. First gen worry and all that.
Because Apple’s chip design is that good.
Qualcomm. (Joking obviously, but Qualcomm really doesn’t seem to be able to come close to what Apple can do.)
Please note that the consistent ding in the reviews is the PoS 720p webcam. I HRosed that it would suck at the announcement conference, and I was right. Shame that Apple couldn’t shove a slightly better part into there. Sure, these were designed pre-pandemic, but shipping a laptop with a 720p crapcam right now is worthy of the dings it will cause to their reviews.
Not that they’ll be complaining. The tech press seems bowled over.
It’s still better.
And I still say this is being way over stressed. Even if your best cameras look like crap in Zoom meetings. No one looks good in the ones I am in.
This, combined with a concerted effort for many years on the software side to make sure the OS (including all the tools and system frameworks used by 3rd parties) takes advantage of what the hardware has to offer. There is a very close partnership between the architecture teams and the software teams.
It’s not better. It’s just over processed and blown out. I actually prefer the original, at least the shadows are accurate. And I’ve used both the built in webcam in my 2016 MacBook Pro, which I’m pretty sure is the same or a very similar part, and compared it to a basic Logitech 1080p webcam, and there was an immediate and significant improvement.
Apple can do better. They do better in their phones every year. They could dip back 4 years into their phone cams and do better.
Just going off my experience, in my works meetings. Everyone on Dells. Everyone is dark with crappy lighting. It seems like an improvement to me. But obviously I am minority here, I couldn’t care less about the camera. If they did anything with it I wish they would make a hardware black out so I would quit seeing color stickies over the the things.
Edit: I also agree they should fix it. It’s Apple, they should have the best camera out there.
I gave up on webcams and use a mirrorless Nikon. It is consistently entertaining how often people comment on the video quality on webex calls. OTOH, better video quality of me is a questionable value to those on the receiving end.
Absolutely the right thing to do. If I had a modern enough mirrorless or DSLR, I’d be using it. In my line of work (therapy), we use our webcams for our actual business, not just meetings. I’m the clinic manager and I’ve been advising the team on how to improve the quality of their teletherapy, and most of the therapists have MacBooks. That’s why I’m especially disappointed in this. Even when the pandemic ends, remote sessions are going to be part of our offering, and it’d be nice to just tell people to buy the newest MacBook Air.
Instead I’ll keep having to try to support them with other tricks, like improving their front lighting, and buying external webcams.
Wow, Chome version on day 1? That is surprising.
While accurate shadowing, it looks like a hostage video. I have an external Logitech camera that is still a 720p. During the Great Webcam Shortage, I wanted to at least get a camera from a known manufacturer like Logitech.
For the most part, it’s fine. The goods news is, right in front of me is a window that gets sun. The problem is, now that it gets dark at 4:00, my two monitors cause some blowouts that I have a hard time adjusting for. I am getting some lighting things to see what I can do to make it better.
Honestly, I’ve been really tempted to give something like this cheap selfie ring-light with phone mount a try. It would take advantage of the fact that the selfie cam on my iPhone is significantly better than any other option I own.
That is sort of where I am going as well. I don’t know if I can install the software on my work PC.
That’s awesome.
Thankfully, in our meetings there’s always someone screen-sharing — everyone is just a thumbnail anyway, So in our case, 720P does not matter.
I use two Elgato Key Light Airs for that. I have a third one for backlight, but I’m lazy and haven’t set it up. They have a ring light these days that wasn’t available when I bought my gear.
I love it so much. It’s great. I’m in middle management, so I have a lot of small meetings and one-on-one conversations, so it helps a lot there. I also do a fair amount of pre-recorded video for internal communications meetings (internal launch of the Apple Silicon products, for example), etc, which is also really nice to have high quality video content for.