Poll: *** The official 2020 MacBook Air/13" MacBook Pro thread (it has the M1 chip and everything!) ***

What 2020 Apple Silicon notebook have you ordered?

  • MacBook Air

    Votes: 72 71.3%
  • 13" MacBook Pro

    Votes: 29 28.7%

  • Total voters
    101
Soldato
Joined
1 Nov 2007
Posts
5,613
Location
England
For MacOS/iOS Development in particular you will find nothing better than these.

Awesome. Thank you. My old laptop died and I need a new one and I've always wanted to make an iOS app but never had the Mac hardware to do so. This seems like a really good chance to replace my broken laptop and do the development stuff I've wanted to do for ages.
 
Don
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
22,747
Location
Wargrave, UK
So I decided to do a battery test overnight. I fully charged the Air and using the brightness setting I use mainly, unless it’s an exceptionally bright day where I might go one bar higher, I started a 4K video running in full screen. The video was a fireplace that lasts for 10 hours which I started at 2130. When I got up 9 hours later, the battery was down to 45%

Far from a scientific test but I am impressed with that.

The battery life is utterly incredible and has completely changed how I deal with a laptop. I used to always have the charger in my bag because I could never guarantee I could get though a work day without running out of juice. Now, I don't bother. This alone is the difference in weight in my bag between an ultra-portable and a full laptop.

Last night I spun up my 2-month-old HP Envy X360 (Ryzen 7 4700U, 16GB, 512GB) and it felt sluggish and old in comparison to my MBP. After 2 hours of doing some stuff in VSCode it was at 48% battery.
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Nov 2007
Posts
5,613
Location
England
I'll probably sell my MBP13 and get a 16 when they come out. I do like the 13 but find it a little cramped from a screen real estate perspective.

Are there any rumours when that might be? A 16" model would probably suit me a little bit better but if it means waiting 6 months I'll just get the 13" model.
 
Don
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
22,747
Location
Wargrave, UK
No idea. It could be as soon as March or it might be much later in the year. Hard to tell with Apple. My money would be on them coming out before summer to capitalise on all the students buying things for the next year of university.
 
Associate
Joined
16 Jan 2005
Posts
2,227
Location
South Wales
Just an update on the Bluetooth issues. So I reported the drop out issues I was experiencing and got this response today:

As a result of your feedback, there are changes in the latest update, build 20D5029f, that have resolved this issue.
You can see the software build your device is running and check for the latest update by clicking on the Apple logo in the upper left hand corner > About This Mac. If the build is not visible, click on the macOS version, e.g. 10.15.x, to reveal it.

Basically that's the build number for the Big Sur 11.2 beta. So against my better judgement I'm about to install an early beta on my M1 Macbook Air to see if it sorts the bluetooth issues out.
 
Soldato
Joined
7 Jun 2003
Posts
6,234
Location
Leicestershire
I'm pretty sold on replacing my 2015 MBP with a base model Air. My use case has changed to where a smaller, lighter laptop would be beneficial.

I can get the education discount so it comes out at £900, but I hadn't realised AppleCare doesn't come with education purchases any more, and I'm less keen on spending 25% the laptop cost on AppleCare. That said, the AppleCare was probably more relevant to a spec'd up £2500 MBP than it would be to an off-the-shelf base model.
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Mar 2003
Posts
14,242
Personally AC+ isn’t worth it unless you are prone to accidental damage. It’s an insurance policy at the end of the day and may already be covered by home insurance.
 
Soldato
Joined
7 Jun 2003
Posts
6,234
Location
Leicestershire
Personally AC+ isn’t worth it unless you are prone to accidental damage. It’s an insurance policy at the end of the day and may already be covered by home insurance.

I've only ever had to use AC once, back on a 2011 MBP that needed the main board replacing. Laptops etc are, as you say, covered by the home insurance for accidental damage.

It extends the warranty to 3 years as well.

Which is a good thing to have. Annoyingly, John Lewis and their 2-year warranty are out of stock.

I think I'll skip AC this time as the laptop is so much cheaper. Hopefully this doesn't come back to bite me :D
 
Man of Honour
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
3,416
Location
Retired Don
So.. it turned up . yay..
but boo.. I did Thunderbolt 3 direct connection migration assistant.

All looked fine.. however External monitor (DisplayPort to TB3) was running really low Res (C49RG90SSU 49" 5120x1440 running at only 3840x1080)

Rebooted and then it just stopped working altogether..

Inbuilt screen works fine, external monitor just flashes up and away again.

Tried my old MBP and it worked fine straight away, so definitely MBA related.

Flattened the system, still the same. Definitely some sort of bug going on.
Shuttered the MBA and back on the MBP now.
 

LiE

LiE

Caporegime
Joined
2 Aug 2005
Posts
25,644
Location
Milton Keynes
One thing I'll say about the Air which I'm not keen on is the default scaling isn't x2. This causes text to be a little softer compared to true retina scaling. You can change it to x2 but you end up with a pretty unusable amount of workspace.
 
Associate
Joined
29 Jul 2011
Posts
1,435
Considering returning mine. Nothing wrong with it but just haven't found myself using it as much as I'd thought. Seem to be stuck to my habits of using my Windows PC.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Oct 2009
Posts
3,998
Location
London
So.. it turned up . yay..
but boo.. I did Thunderbolt 3 direct connection migration assistant.

All looked fine.. however External monitor (DisplayPort to TB3) was running really low Res (C49RG90SSU 49" 5120x1440 running at only 3840x1080)

Rebooted and then it just stopped working altogether..

Inbuilt screen works fine, external monitor just flashes up and away again.

Tried my old MBP and it worked fine straight away, so definitely MBA related.

Flattened the system, still the same. Definitely some sort of bug going on.
Shuttered the MBA and back on the MBP now.

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/12/23/apple-to-fix-ultrawide-display-m1-mac-issue/

Apple says software fix is coming.
 
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