And during my testing, I never once encountered the dreaded spinning beachball of death, which I've grown all too used to seeing on my work-issued MacBook Pro from 2017. Again, I felt a very iOS-like sense of smoothness here. There's no hesitation when swapping between apps, and as I mentioned, it wakes up the MacBook Air immediately when you open the lid. You can feel that while merely browsing around the finder and system menus. MacOS Big Sur, the 17th edition of Apple's long-running desktop OS, is also fully optimized for the M1. It's like seeing the web for the first time - one unencumbered by the cruft of increasingly sluggish desktop browsers. Sites load up almost instantly, and scrolling through complex pages feels effortless. Safari, in particular, delivers the best web browsing experience I've ever had on a computer. Running apps natively built for the M1, like Safari and GarageBand, felt just as fast as launching an iPad app.

It's shockingly responsive, as if it's awaiting your next command like an over-eager puppy. My first thought while using the M1-powered MacBook Air, surprisingly enough, was that it felt like an iPad Pro. Now the company is basically bringing that same cohesive experience to Macs. But if you want something excessively polished, your best bet is usually Apple. Sure, Android offers a lot more variety and customization. The harmonious marriage between Apple's own hardware and software has always been the iPhone and iPad's biggest selling point.

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