Yeah, that's what I'm undecided on. I think I'll wait until after WWDC and see what happens. The reality is that I should just get a Windows machine, but I hate Windows. Every time you want to do anything it's updating or something odd is happening. I've got a Surface Pro for work and it's a lovely bit of kit but the OS kills me. My 2011 MBP is still going strong and given me far fewer problems than a 1 year old top end machine straight from MicrosoftTo be honest I wouldn't really know as I've never played a single game on any Mac I've owned. From what I've read and seen online, I would imagine it would run fine but would expect the fans to be blaring and the machine to be quite warm. I guess considering apps like Zoom etc get the fans and heat going a bit, i'm sure a game would as well. But honestly i have no point of reference so more than happy for someone to prove me wrong on this one
Aside from that, i would highly recommend. If you're on the fence and not in a rush perhaps wait for the incoming refresh for the MBP to compare? Might be overkill though if your usage case is similar to mine.
Macbook Air 2020 thread
- Thread starter deaglecat
- Start date
Yeah i completely get you. Like yours, my usage case really doesn't warrant needing a Mac but I've had them since 2011 and just get on with MacOS so much more and have a lot fewer problems than with Windows. The 4 months with my HP work device were painful. To me i just prefer the overall experience i get with a Mac so will always lean that way.
I have a MBP 2018 and with FM the fans really do kick in. I don't think the Air would be any better unfortunately.
Yep, still loving mine. I'm actually liking the keyboard more and more each time I use it. Feels so easy to type quickly.
Definitely no buyers remorse over here
i5/8/500 arrived yesterday.
Tiny little thing, the magic keyboard is SUCH an upgrade over the complete POS that is the butterfly keyboard.
Anyway, gf played Sims 4 no problems with everything on Low, but OMG it sounds like a bloody jet taking off.
Runs stupidly hot, and the fan blows out cold air
Oh Apple, you never change!
Tiny little thing, the magic keyboard is SUCH an upgrade over the complete POS that is the butterfly keyboard.
Anyway, gf played Sims 4 no problems with everything on Low, but OMG it sounds like a bloody jet taking off.
Runs stupidly hot, and the fan blows out cold air
Oh Apple, you never change!
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I'm waiting for the 14" Macbook Pro to come out before upgrading my 12" MacBook 2016 as I no longer have a desktop computer so would like something a bit more powerful this time round. Considered the 16" model but it feels too large for carrying around IMO.
I might still go for a 13" Macbook Air though depending on the cost of the new Macbook Pro though as for an Apple device the Air is pretty competitively priced! I wouldn't be surprised if the the additional cost of a Macbook Pro I could buy both a laptop and a desktop! It would be quite nice to consolidate everything onto one device though.
I might still go for a 13" Macbook Air though depending on the cost of the new Macbook Pro though as for an Apple device the Air is pretty competitively priced! I wouldn't be surprised if the the additional cost of a Macbook Pro I could buy both a laptop and a desktop! It would be quite nice to consolidate everything onto one device though.
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That was my logic. The Macbook Air isn't cheap, but the Macbook Pro is going to be eye-wateringly expensive for what it is, especially the base models.
I know what you mean. Though I'm hoping if anything that they'll bump the storage up to 256 minimum and hopefully add some higher specs with more RAM/SSD as I really want it with 16Gb RAM and 512GB or 1Tb SSD. Whilst it seems expensive if you start looking at similar models (Dell XPS, HP Elitebook, etc) from other manufacturer's they're priced just as high as well!
Interesting to see that the general consensus in most places seems to be that, even though on paper it looks like a good deal for £100, it doesn't make sense to upgrade from the base i3 dual core to the quad core i5 due to Apple's cooling solution limiting the real world performance 
I've been round the houses on laptops, and given that I don't want Windows so either need a MacBook or something which works well with Linux, and the disappointing low end MBP announcement, I keep coming back to the Air.
My one remaining concern (I think) is fan noise. If sitting in a quiet room, at what stage do the fans become audible? If I've got, say, 4-5 tabs open on a browser, a couple of Word documents, and Spotify open, will I be getting fan noise on the i5 model? I think if it's quiet under that kind of load it's probably a buy for me
My one remaining concern (I think) is fan noise. If sitting in a quiet room, at what stage do the fans become audible? If I've got, say, 4-5 tabs open on a browser, a couple of Word documents, and Spotify open, will I be getting fan noise on the i5 model? I think if it's quiet under that kind of load it's probably a buy for me
So how's everyone getting on with their 2020 MacBook Air's now you've had them for a few weeks? What's everyone using them for? Just general web browsing and office apps?
Has anyone attempted anything more intensive like running virtual machines/parallels, running video editing, app development or gaming?
On paper the benchmarks of the 2020 13" Air look pretty close to the 2019 13" Pro. Hence I was wondering how they held up during more intensive tasks?
Has anyone attempted anything more intensive like running virtual machines/parallels, running video editing, app development or gaming?
On paper the benchmarks of the 2020 13" Air look pretty close to the 2019 13" Pro. Hence I was wondering how they held up during more intensive tasks?
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Been reading through this thread and your comment caught my eye as I currently have a 2016 12" MacBook and I'm looking to upgrade to something more powerful so was considering whether the 2020 Air would be sufficient in i5 quad core spec?
Specifically I often run a couple of virtual machines for testing/development as part of my job and I'm finding the 12" MacBook just isn't able to run them at a usable level of performance.
It's odd because it's pretty snappy for productivity and office tasks. It also has no issues running dozens of browser tabs simultaneously. However the moment you start a VM performance tanks. I've tried a couple of apps (Vmware/ virtualbox) in both Windows and MacOS but it's dire in both. Would something designed for Mac like Parallels be better?
I know the 2018 Air would have been a few generations ago but I thought the performance would have comfortably outpaced a fanless ultra low power CPU in terms of performance?
What apps and scenarios did you find the 2018 Air struggled with?
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I find Parallels in general faster than VMFusion at the minute. You can see a comparison on my channel here. I just found the overall performance of the 2018 woeful in pretty much everything tbh. I'm a bit spoilt for choice on machines however so I'm sure there's an element of that. To be fair I also like my i7 Macbook! A lot of it is down to expectations. I only expect my Macbook to run mail and web-browsing, I expected a bit more of the Air, and just didn't get it. Review of the air here on my channel by the way. (Sorry, feel like I'm pimping my channel, I'm not - I genuinely think there's stuff in there you'll find useful).
Look at the benchmarks however: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kyhq9ingwpye85r/Screenshot 2020-05-08 at 12.36.36.png?dl=0
The 2020 Air has a 1030NG7 i5 in it, which Geekbench 4's at about 5233 single core, and multi-core 13694. It's a lot more capable than the 2018. A LOT.
My i7 2012 Macbook by comparison is single core 3796, multi-core 6962. There's no way I'd use the 12 for Virtual machines, it's just way too frustrating.
The 2016 unit, assuming you have the m7, is 3591 single, 7035 multi. That's not far off the 2018 Air - the 2020 Air is a lot quicker.
The base model 13 Pro i5 is 4610/16880.
For virtual machines I'd be going for the 13" base MBP tbh if I could. I know benchmarks aren't everything, however they're a decent indicator for overall general performance.
Look at the benchmarks however: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kyhq9ingwpye85r/Screenshot 2020-05-08 at 12.36.36.png?dl=0
The 2020 Air has a 1030NG7 i5 in it, which Geekbench 4's at about 5233 single core, and multi-core 13694. It's a lot more capable than the 2018. A LOT.
My i7 2012 Macbook by comparison is single core 3796, multi-core 6962. There's no way I'd use the 12 for Virtual machines, it's just way too frustrating.
The 2016 unit, assuming you have the m7, is 3591 single, 7035 multi. That's not far off the 2018 Air - the 2020 Air is a lot quicker.
The base model 13 Pro i5 is 4610/16880.
For virtual machines I'd be going for the 13" base MBP tbh if I could. I know benchmarks aren't everything, however they're a decent indicator for overall general performance.
I've been watching quite a few of your videos as you seem to have a similar use case to myself. My 12" Macbook is the base spec one (1.1 GHz Core m3-6Y30, 8Gb RAM, 256Gb SSD). I only bought it as a portable device really to compliment my Windows desktop PC. This issue being that my desktop failed last week so I've been running literally everything on the 12" Macbook which I realise is never something it was designed for. To be fair I'm quite surprised how well it's coping. Running Virtual Machines is actually the only area where it's really struggled.
That's why I was trying to decide on what to replace it with as I'm thinking that rather than replacing my desktop I'll just move to using a laptop as my main device. I'm a bit suspicious of these benchmarks as sometimes devices look incredibly capable however, as I've found with the 12", many of these devices can't sustain processor intensive stuff for any duration and will throttle back hard after running stuff like that for more than a few minutes due to thermal issues. The 12" is probably the worst case scenario for thermal throttling as it literally doesn't have a fan to help dissipate heat when the going gets tough so throttles back way harder than most devices.
That's why I was keen to know if anyone had run more intensive stuff on their Macbook Air's as on paper it looks like a pretty capable machine and very close to what the Macbook Pro offers. However, I'm aware that real world experience doesn't always match what the benchmarks say.
The problem I find with the base spec Macbook Pro 13" is that for my use case and work I'm not happy with the storage and memory it offers. I need a laptop which has 16Gb RAM and a 512 SSD as a minimum. I found by the time I spec that the 8th generation base spec ends up being only ~£200 less than the 10th generation Macbook Pro which for the latest chipset and an extra 2 Thunderbolt ports is easy to justify.
So I'm effectively at the stage where I'm trying to decide whether to go for a 13" Macbook Air (i5/16Gb/512Gb) or spending around an extra £300 to get the 10th generation 13" Macbook Pro with the same spec?
Unfortunately, the 2018 Airs put the frighteners on our users so nobody wants them, so it's unlikely we'll get any either tbh.
Completely understand what you're saying on the benchmarks. I use them as general guidance and try and run them in the same environment. I.e. new machine, no software, not having been under load. I then go on to look at the throttling. It just helps me/us profile the right machines for the right users.
The 2020 Airs do seem to throttle from what I've seen on t'internet, I've no experience of them however. My 2018 i9 used to throttle to below base clock making it slower than the previous gen, which was infuriating. Apple took some convincing to replace it.
I've an i5 and an i7 13" 2020 turning up on the 12th - I'll grab some real world performance stats and throttling from them if it would help.
Completely understand what you're saying on the benchmarks. I use them as general guidance and try and run them in the same environment. I.e. new machine, no software, not having been under load. I then go on to look at the throttling. It just helps me/us profile the right machines for the right users.
The 2020 Airs do seem to throttle from what I've seen on t'internet, I've no experience of them however. My 2018 i9 used to throttle to below base clock making it slower than the previous gen, which was infuriating. Apple took some convincing to replace it.
I've an i5 and an i7 13" 2020 turning up on the 12th - I'll grab some real world performance stats and throttling from them if it would help.
An i5 and i7 Air or Pro, out of interest? I'm going to hold off and wait for your feedback regardless!