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 70.6%

  • 13" MacBook Pro

    Votes: 30 29.4%
  • Total voters
    102
I was massively conflicted given just how good the MBA seems to be but... after much (an hour) of deliberation I've just placed an order for the Pro - with student discount.

This is probably not going to be a popular opinion but the main reason for going Pro over Air is the Touchbar. I had the 16" (which I returned because 1) it was too big and too overkill spec wise for my needs 2) there was a lot of talk about ARM) and I found the Touchbar really useful. In addition, better speakers, mic and fan will probably just make it that bit more futureproof for me (I replace every 5/6 years).

If I already had a functioning laptop I would have held out for this 14" redesign coming at some point next year. Unfortunately, my laptop has completely given up so only have the work Dell tiding me over at the minute.
 
Gone for the higher spec Air, 512 SSD 16 RAM. The fanless design sealed it for me. I’ll probably grab an LG ultra fine 5K at some point if it drives it smoothly (I suspect it will given the improved GPU).
 
wozza2k said:
Is no one worried the fanless air might overheat? I’m genuinely surprised by the uptake for the Air over the Pro so far.
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You mean thermal throttle, right? I would say it’s certainly possible with extended high workloads, but I suspect if that’s your usage profile you’re probably not going for the Air over the MBP 13 (or waiting for a more powerful Apple chip in a iMac/Mac Pro or Mini).
 
wozza2k said:
Is no one worried the fanless air might overheat? I’m genuinely surprised by the uptake for the Air over the Pro so far.
Click to expand...

I know it’s not competent comparable but the iPads don’t have fans and I do believe that for the vast majority of day to day workloads the M1 is going to do just fine without a fan.
 
Temped by an Air, I need to replace a Surface Pro 3 and this would fit the bill. Bit unsure on the memory only being 8GB, I'll certainly be waiting for reviews and looking to buy early next year, my 5900X and a 3080 FE were just delivered :D.

I wonder how the 8gb holds up with it being an SOC with a fast SSD, could be interesting.

On the face of it though, looking very nice. That battery life and fanless design... nom. I wonder what they'll do int he iPad pro as it can obviously take a M1 chip based on this.

EDIT: Super torn actually as a next gen iPad Pro would also do the job. If only the iPad pro has MacOS, it would be an instant buy (with a magic keyboard of course...).
 
I cancelled the order I made a couple of minutes after the presentation and re-ordered using my wife's discount link which took nearly £90 off. It's not quite educational discount but it's better than nothing and the delivery date is unchanged from the 25th November.

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Tempted to get this as been wanting to downsize for a while. I don't use my PC for much anymore other than browsing, streaming and Tableau.

Will wait for reviews.
 
Not sure if they covered this but what is the difference between all the different models with regards to the M1 chip. Are they clocked differently?

I assume not as the a series are all identical and the only differentiator is the X version in the iPad pros as far as I know.

Edit: Just found out.

Basically, the low end air has only 7 cores instead of 8 (binning the lower quality processors) and will likely suffer a bit from thermal throttling. The next model up air doesn't have this however. The air has a smaller battery, less bright screen, no cooling fan and no touchbar. Beyond that, they are all identical.
 
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alex24 said:
You mean thermal throttle, right? I would say it’s certainly possible with extended high workloads, but I suspect if that’s your usage profile you’re probably not going for the Air over the MBP 13 (or waiting for a more powerful Apple chip in a iMac/Mac Pro or Mini).
Click to expand...

chef-borjan said:
I know it’s not competent comparable but the iPads don’t have fans and I do believe that for the vast majority of day to day workloads the M1 is going to do just fine without a fan.
Click to expand...

LiE said:
Agreed, if you’re doing long compiles, exports, renders, then the air isn’t the one for you.
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Hmm I guess I'm really out of touch with the tech (currently on a 2013 MBP). Got me thinking maybe the new MBA would cut it for me since I'm coping with the MBP and the only thing extra I'm likely to mess around with going forward is Lightroom which I don't think I'll be a heavy user.
 
I've got the 2019 13" 2.4 i5 MBP and the MBA's are quite tempting, may wait and see how people find them initially. Fanless definitely an interest..
 
wozza2k said:
Hmm I guess I'm really out of touch with the tech (currently on a 2013 MBP). Got me thinking maybe the new MBA would cut it for me since I'm coping with the MBP and the only thing extra I'm likely to mess around with going forward is Lightroom which I don't think I'll be a heavy user.
Click to expand...

Let's be honest most people aren't heavy users - they may think they are and always want to overspec but a good majority of people aren't going to tax their systems on a regular basis except for certain workloads. Large 4-8k Video Editing/Large VM Usage and massive CAD work isn't the norm I would say.
 
Would be interesting to see if the SSD is PCIe 4.0 (they said controller is 2x performance, and previous controllers were close to PCIe ceiling). Unified memory means the SSD likely doesn't have its own DRAM cache, and uses system memory.

I didn't order one, but I'm excited for the teardown and benchmarks :D
 
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