Well, it'll be the same people who have refused to buy a new iPhone for the last 1.5 years as it didn't have 5G. Some of us just buy stuff using the latest common technology at the time.
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2020 MacBook Air Reviews Praise Magic Keyboard and Faster Performance at Lower $999 Starting Price
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It isn't about saving the day. Apple really tries to do something stupid by not including WIFI 6 when virtually other device is getting supported.Doesn't "weak signal" have more to do with the router itself rather than its wireless protocol?
Ya'll are acting like 802.11ax is a white knight riding in to save the day. Save you from what, exactly?
Doesn't "weak signal" have more to do with the router itself rather than its wireless protocol?
Ya'll are acting like 802.11ax is a white knight riding in to save the day. Save you from what, exactly?
To be fair, Wi-Fi 6 does improve on interference handling.
I really don't buy the argument of "a deal-breaker for the vast majority of people who travel", though.
You want a dealbreaker for frequent travelers? The MacBook Air has no cellular option! That's arguably a dealbreaker. Why not? Well, we can find possible reasons, like macOS not having a notion of metered connections. But they can add an API whenever they feel like it (the best time to do so would have been five years ago, but the second best time would have been this month, with the MBA release and 10.15.4!), and third-party apps like TripMode can handle it, too.
Lack of Wi-Fi 6, though? For travelers? I think extremely few people will buy a competitor's laptop just because the Air has an older Wi-Fi version.
(My guess is the improvements only apply when the AP and client both do Wi-Fi 6. Perhaps they even only apply when all connected devices do Wi-Fi 6, but there's probably a mixed mode. Either way, sure, Apple can and should put it in as soon as possible, to resolve the chicken-and-egg issue. But "deal-breaker" is a bit much.)
And, yeah, Wi-FI 6 isn't going to make Wi-Fi perfect. It's merely an iterative improvement.
Jury is either falling for the trap of "until and unless the MacBook Air has literally all the specs I want, I'm not interested", which, good luck with that (what's next? mini-LED? cellular? slimmer bezels? ARM? the new Intel Xe graphics from Tiger Lake? there's always going to be something missing, because IT is a fast-paced industry, and because Apple is in the business of making you buy new hardware over and over again).
Or Jury is just finding rationalizations of why this is a bad product, when from my vantage point (and I'm definitely not in the market for this; I need something far beefier), it's the first time in about half a decade that I can recommend a mainstream probably-can't-go-wrong-with-this-one Mac.
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Which… honestly… probably tens of thousands of people, if even that. The iPhone 11 is a huge hit, after all. It not having 5G had no statistically meaningful impact.
Don't buy the tech press hype of always needing the latest and greatest.
But what are you NOT able to do with this Macbook Air since it doesn't have WIFI 6? I'm still looking for actual usage examples... not theory.
Yeah I hear the "Apple made a dumb decision" reasoning. And people are making it sound like it's a useless product since it has AC instead of AX.
If this Macbook Air didn't have WIFI at all then yeah that would be a problem. Unacceptable!
But a different flavor of WIFI? I think it'll be fine.
Let's be honest... the people who are buying the cheapest Apple laptop available probably won't have $300-$500 AX routers.
And it'll be a looong time before coffee shops and airports have AX access points for travelers.
Wait another year... perhaps the 2021 Macs will have it. Or you can buy a Dell right now if you've got the itch.
lol wifi 6 is the least of worries by the macbook air's target market
they might worry more about the lack of better cooling system that upgrading to quad core isnt gonna be worth it because of throttling
they might worry more about the lack of better cooling system that upgrading to quad core isnt gonna be worth it because of throttling
MacBook Air runs well above Intel’s spec for that 10W chip. During Cinebench R20 testing it can easily be seen that Apple limits power consumption to 13W, at which point the i5 1.1GHz settles in at a clock speed around 1.45GHz.
The cooling system is fine. And the $100 upgrade from the dual core is worth more like $250 as @chucker23n1 has pointed out, and with which I agree. An “Apple tax” rate of about negative 60% lol. It’s a no-brainer upgrade.
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While on the topic -
as it has often been pointed out already the still-not-updated, definitely-dealbraker, 720p only-camera of the Macbook Air 2020 is an absolute no go. 🙃
In all seriousness though, seeing that the new MacBook Pro 16" also sports a 720p one I suppose the new 13 / 14" will get it as well - which isn't really a big issue for me in terms of the pixels, but do the Pro's at least have a better sensor or is it really very much the exact same camera as in the 2020 Air.
I'm one of those people who actually need a new machine soon-ish - and it's already clear I'll either go for a maxed out 2020 Air or the smallest new Pro with 16GB RAM and at least 512 SSD, which should be fairly comparable price wise (so I actually could just go ahead and buy an Air and be happy with that - still it feels like the smart thing to do wait until the Pros come out so one can make a deliberate decision).
Basically I'm just hoping they'll do a 13" Pro not a 14" (as I have no need for it and would love to keep size / weight and price as low as possible), and hoping they'll do a weaker-specced one, and without the stupis touch bar, haha.
Better camera (to get back on topic) would also be nice as I'd really use that, but as mentioned above 720p is basically alright - but do the Pro's have a better sensor? Because what I'm seeing from the 2019 Air is not great, especially when compared with other people's cameras you often look a bit **** in conference calls 😅
[edit] ..to sort-of answer my own question, I just stumbled across this article which mentions the 720p cameras of Airs and Pros may be different, yet all of them leave a lot to be desired..
as it has often been pointed out already the still-not-updated, definitely-dealbraker, 720p only-camera of the Macbook Air 2020 is an absolute no go. 🙃
In all seriousness though, seeing that the new MacBook Pro 16" also sports a 720p one I suppose the new 13 / 14" will get it as well - which isn't really a big issue for me in terms of the pixels, but do the Pro's at least have a better sensor or is it really very much the exact same camera as in the 2020 Air.
I'm one of those people who actually need a new machine soon-ish - and it's already clear I'll either go for a maxed out 2020 Air or the smallest new Pro with 16GB RAM and at least 512 SSD, which should be fairly comparable price wise (so I actually could just go ahead and buy an Air and be happy with that - still it feels like the smart thing to do wait until the Pros come out so one can make a deliberate decision).
Basically I'm just hoping they'll do a 13" Pro not a 14" (as I have no need for it and would love to keep size / weight and price as low as possible), and hoping they'll do a weaker-specced one, and without the stupis touch bar, haha.
Better camera (to get back on topic) would also be nice as I'd really use that, but as mentioned above 720p is basically alright - but do the Pro's have a better sensor? Because what I'm seeing from the 2019 Air is not great, especially when compared with other people's cameras you often look a bit **** in conference calls 😅
[edit] ..to sort-of answer my own question, I just stumbled across this article which mentions the 720p cameras of Airs and Pros may be different, yet all of them leave a lot to be desired..
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