Same story here.
I´ve got the MBA with 16GB RAM, 8 core GPU and 512 GB SSD. While performance on Lightroom and Resolve was very good, overall speed was just OK (same or a little bit slower than my i7 8700k with Samsung M2 SSD). I was a little bit disappointed because all the reviewers called it super snappy even against the Mac Pro and I thought this would also be true in my case.
But I had some serious issues with network and the finder. Finder performance was very bad an every folder took some time to open up the first time. No matter if stored local on the mac´s SSD or on my Synology NAS. Yesterday I had the issue, that I couldn´t create a PDF out of a Microsoft Word File and store it on my NAS. Finder and Word had some kind of freeze for about 5 minutes and then it finished. Local on my SSD it had no issue at all. I also had issues with wired LAN connection using a USB-C Adapter (slow connection, no IP, always using WIFI instead even with changed ranking). The Adapter worked perfectly on my Windows-Machine and I´ve got a pretty decent home network with a Synology DS1817 and an Unfi Ecosystem with the Dreammachine Pro and some switches as well as the new Unfi 6 Lite access points. So I decided to erase the disk of my MBA and give it another try (I really liked the machine so far but this issues were driving me nuts and I really thought about returning it and forget about Apple once an for all - this is my first mac and I´ve always been a die-hard windows user but the m1 seems to be just the machine I´ve been waiting forever).
Long story short: After deleting the hard drive and reinstalling Big Sur 11.2.3 the macbook air is just flying. Super snappy performance. Finder works like a breeze with local files and on my NAS with wifi and cable connection. PDF creation works as it should and the LAN connection gets priority and maxes out GB-speed. Installed my apps slowely after and after just in case the weird behavior would coma back so I know where to search for the issue.
No problems at all. One thing I didn´t do was to enable FileVault. Should make no difference since it only affects boot time and the CPU is capable enough to manage decryption but you never know. Despite the soldered SSD it´s not possible to remove it and plug it into another computer like in the old days. Maybe I´ll acitvate it later but for now I´ll keep it off and watch the machines behavior when doing some real world usage again.
So I have no idea if the previous version of my MBA´s OS had some issues or the first software update caused some troubles (updated the machine just after turning it on). Maybe I did something wrong when setting it up an installing all the apps (remember apple newby and trying a lot of things) or it´s really FileVault.
I´m glad that my machine is working fine now and all of my hopes came true.
Maybe I can help someone with the same issues and bringing back the fun with this great machines.
Cheers,
Tom
