We have already taken a look at the graphics performance of the two different iGPUs (7 vs. 8 cores), and now we have first results for the battery runtime. The battery capacity is unchanged at 49.9 Wh, but the new M1 chip is supposed to be much more efficient. Apple's official specs sheet lists 15 hours for web browsing, which is much more compared to the 10 hours of the old model.
Wi-Fi battery runtime
Our Wi-Fi test at Notebookcheck is performed at an adjusted brightness of 150 nits. Therefore, it is very important to deactivate the automatic brightness control of the MacBook Air. To get to the 150 nits, we had to reduce the brightness by 7 steps, and then use the fine control (via Option + Shift) to reduce the brightness by two more steps.
The old MacBook Air 2020 with the Intel CPUs managed a runtime of 10:17 or 11 hours, respectively, depending on the processor (Core i5 or Core i3). The new MacBook Air with the M1 chip on the other hand lasts 16 hours, which is an improvement between 45-55 %.
The Wi-Fi runtime at the maximum display brightness, which is once again around 400 nits, is considerably lower. Our test unit only lasted for about 8.5 hours. This is still better compared to the previous Intel MBA, but the gap is much smaller.
Charging Performance
Apple continues shipping the MacBook Air with the compact 30W power adapter. We have also tested the charging performance with the more power 96W unit from the current MacBook Pro 16. The initial charging performance was increased from 31 to around 43 Watts for the first 45 minutes before it dropped. Overall, the charging time was reduced by 17 minutes to 2:23 hours. In addition to the shorter charging time, the more powerful PSU also gives more headroom when you use the device during the charging process. In this case, the charging time with the included 30W adapter would be much higher. The MacBook Pro 13 with the M1 chip is still shipped with the more powerful 61W power adapter.
A look at the efficiency of the power adapters only reveals minor differences in a range between 0.05-0.1W. The maximum performance does not seem to be limited by the power adapter, either, because we see a peak power consumption of 31W for the new MacBook Air, which levels off at 22-25 after a short time. This behavior is identical for both power adapters.
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