The new MacBook Pro and Air are a huge leap forward in performance, and after reviewing the MacBook Air with M1 (2020), it quickly became clear why Apple has moved on from Intel.

Yes, the new Apple M1 chip is the game changer Apple claims it is. To prove it, we pitted the M1 MacBook Air and Pro against two of the best laptops available, the 11th generation Tiger Lake-based Dell XPS 13 and Asus ZenBook 13. These laptops only had one win when compared to the M1 MacBook.

Also, if performance is not your top priority, check out our battery life results for the M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

Simply put, the M1 chip in the MacBook Air beats the competition - and the past. Take a look at the Geekbench 5 scores below. The new MacBook Air's score of 5,962 trounces the Asus ZenBook 13's 5,084 and beats the Dell XPS 13's 5,319. Both of these PCs are powered by Intel's 11th generation Tiger Lake Core i7 processors, each with 16 GB of RAM (the same amount of memory as the M1-based MacBook).

Those expecting higher numbers from the M1 MacBooks should note that we are using Geekbench 5.1 scores; the MacBooks' Geekbench 5.3 scores are much higher, but as Geekbench itself says, this test is an older versions. Also, Geekbench 5.1 is not optimized for Apple Silicon, so this score may be a bit low for Apple.

The M1 MacBook Air and Pro again won the Handbrake video transcoding test, taking 9 minutes 15 seconds and 7 minutes 44 seconds, respectively, to convert a 4K movie to 1080p; the Air's time was 27 minutes, which the previous Intel MacBook Air took 10 seconds, and both M1 scores are about half (or less) of the times recorded by the XPS 13 and ZenBook 13.

The M1 Air (653) and Pro (649) also outperformed the XPS 13 (588) in the PugetBench Photoshop test (21 different Photoshop tasks, three times per run). However, this test is not optimized for Apple Silicon, but is an Intel-based test run through Rosetta 2, so Apple's score may improve once it is optimized.

The MacBook Air has never been known as a gaming machine, but the M1 chip may change that reputation. The Civilization VI scores below are at slightly lower resolutions (1440 x 900 on Mac vs. 1920 x 1080 on PC), but the M1 MacBook Air (37fps) and MacBook Pro (38fps) lapped the ZenBook 13's 16fps rate and the XPS 13 The M1 MacBook Air (37fps) and MacBook Pro (38fps) round out the ZenBook 13's 16fps rate and are also solidly ahead of the XPS 13.

What about the poor Intel MacBook Air, the Civ VI only got 7fps.

And if durability is an important metric, Apple has done it again. The new MacBook Air (14:41) lasted many hours longer than the Dell XPS 13 (11:07) and beat the ZenBook 13 (13:47) by almost an hour. Need more durability? The M1 MacBook Pro (16:32) redefined all-day battery life.

After all, it is shocking to see what the Apple M1 chip makes possible. Apple has long honed its strengths in the ARM-based processor arena with the iPhone, but by bringing that technology to the laptop world, it has achieved amazing results.

One wonders how the 16-inch MacBook Pro (and the higher-end 13-inch MacBook Pro) will be revolutionized by Apple silicon over the next few years.