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Not every person, but many could encounter this while upgrading to Catalina.

I can not see anything abnormal here.

It looks like nydailynews website is a resource hog. Just for curiosity opened on my laptop and it immediately used 90% of CPU power and stabilized at 28%. Anything above 10% usage of CPU will lead to warm/hot laptop experience on any laptop.

So nothing should ever be over 10% usage of CPU, and if it is, the computer will likely get warm? Interesting. I'll look into that on both this new pro and my old 2013 air.
 
I fear that you will find that pretty much all modern CPUs run hotter than those from 7 years ago. One of the ways that Intel has wrung more speed out of its CPU lineup has been to run them much closer to their thermal limits. Some (but not many) Windows laptops have the ability to reduce the speed of the CPU, or to undervolt it, reducing heat, but Apple has gone the route of allowing the CPUs to work up to the thermal limit to get more out of them.

That said, I find the old style of pre-2017 MacBook Air to be remarkably cool and quiet even for the standards of the day. The rest of Apple's range already ran a bit hotter and louder. If cool and quiet is your priority, then perhaps look at the iPad Pro? It's not a perfect Mac replacement, but it does meet many people's requirements.
 
I fear that you will find that pretty much all modern CPUs run hotter than those from 7 years ago. One of the ways that Intel has wrung more speed out of its CPU lineup has been to run them much closer to their thermal limits. Some (but not many) Windows laptops have the ability to reduce the speed of the CPU, or to undervolt it, reducing heat, but Apple has gone the route of allowing the CPUs to work up to the thermal limit to get more out of them.

That said, I find the old style of pre-2017 MacBook Air to be remarkably cool and quiet even for the standards of the day. The rest of Apple's range already ran a bit hotter and louder. If cool and quiet is your priority, then perhaps look at the iPad Pro? It's not a perfect Mac replacement, but it does meet many people's requirements.

So it sounds like my fate is sealed. While cool and quiet is very important to me, so is power and speed and the ability to zoom meet and share screens and constant downloading and uploading videos and all that jazz. Presumably this MBP is better for all those things than any iPad? I don't know much about iPad's though.
 
So it sounds like my fate is sealed. While cool and quiet is very important to me, so is power and speed and the ability to zoom meet and share screens and constant downloading and uploading videos and all that jazz. Presumably this MBP is better for all those things than any iPad? I don't know much about iPad's though.

That would be better done on a MBP. I have a current 12.9" and even own the Magic Keyboard Case. It's super fluid and fun to use, but I get at least 500% more work done per hour on the standard 2020 Air. Granted, it's only for writing and light browsing, I use two desktops for the heavy lifting. In your case I'd consider the MBP. It will serve you better than the Air.
 
If it's brand new out of the box, it's probably still indexing. iCloud files, Photos, Keychain and whatever other services you are using are still syncing. It gets hot during that process.

Was it still running hot, during day two?

If yes, what browser are you using? Chrome is a resource hog.

My MacBook Air 2018 (i5) is running dead silent and cool to the touch. I see no reason why the MacBook Air i3 shouldn't. The i5 on the other hand is a Quad Core and is bound to run a lot hotter in the Air.
 
So nothing should ever be over 10% usage of CPU, and if it is, the computer will likely get warm?
Just like our body: in everyday life we don't use more than 10% of the body power. We eat, sleep, walk, type on a keyboard - all of that doesn't require much power. But if you run at your maximum speed, then your body will eventually hot and you will sweat and decrease the speed(throttle). Running 5k at normal speed for 1 hour will also lead to a sweat.
My main point is that for cool and quiet experience, you do want to stay at 10% or below of CPU power used.
Anything above 10% for sustained period will eventually lead to warm/hot experience. If your work does require for CPU to stay above 10%, then you have to deal with heat and be O.K. with that, since it is inevitable.
 
My main point is that for cool and quiet experience, you do want to stay at 10% or below of CPU power used.
Anything above 10% for sustained period will eventually lead to warm/hot experience. If your work does require for CPU to stay above 10%, then you have to deal with heat and be O.K. with that, since it is inevitable.

I'm just doing random surfing now, and when I click on activity monitor and just look at it for 30 seconds, I see the numbers and names of things moving around constantly, with some things going well over 10% off and on. Is all that normal?

Meanwhile, my 2013 Air when observed is also jumping all over the place and regularly exceeding 10% on various things, and not getting warm whilst doing so.

Unless you folks see glaring issues with screenshots I posted, I suspect it's as the poster above said: Today's machines run hotter than those from 7 years ago. I'm just gonna have to put ice cubes in my pants when using any 2020 Mac laptop.


Was it still running hot, during day two?

If yes, what browser are you using? Chrome is a resource hog.

My MacBook Air 2018 (i5) is running dead silent and cool to the touch. I see no reason why the MacBook Air i3 shouldn't. The i5 on the other hand is a Quad Core and is bound to run a lot hotter in the Air.

Still running warm on day 3, only using safari. I'm gathering that enough 2020 i3 MBA user are having similar heat and noise issues that it doesn't seem worth switching from my pro in hopes I'm not one of them.
 
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My "newly found" mint 2012 i5 Air with only 4GB seems to run the NY Daily News site without any audible fan spinning up, and its ancient Ivy Bridge CPU bouncing between 15% and 40% when scrolling the site.
 
My "newly found" mint 2012 i5 Air with only 4GB seems to run the NY Daily News site without any audible fan spinning up, and its ancient Ivy Bridge CPU bouncing between 15% and 40% when scrolling the site.

I believe it. My 2013 Air i5 could run the Daily News site and an actual marathon without perspiring.
 
I refunded my 2020 i3 and just decided to stick with my 2018 Air. For me, at least, I couldn't tell a bit of difference in the performance. And the keyboard...well, I like the butterfly keyboard better. The 2020 Air's keyboard was stiff and hard to press. The butterfly keyboard: you can breath on it and it will type a letter, and that's exactly what I love about it. Speed.
 
I refunded my 2020 i3 and just decided to stick with my 2018 Air. For me, at least, I couldn't tell a bit of difference in the performance. And the keyboard...well, I like the butterfly keyboard better. The 2020 Air's keyboard was stiff and hard to press. The butterfly keyboard: you can breath on it and it will type a letter, and that's exactly what I love about it. Speed.

Thats interesting you find the keyboard stiff and 2018 air 'breathable'

I have a 2016 NTB and 2020 Air, and my experience has been the polar opposite.

Granted there are multiple revisions of butterfly kb, so its not a direct comparison between your experience with Air but

Maybe there's variation for the 2020 air keyboard as well? Thats what I would suspect

--

still saving money and not forking over for a new laptop is always a preferential way to go I would imagine
 
What keyboard is on the 2013 Air? Did I miss the whole butterfly drama going from a 2013 to a 2020 machine?
 
What keyboard is on the 2013 Air? Did I miss the whole butterfly drama going from a 2013 to a 2020 machine?

Yep

The 2018+2019 Retina Air are butterfly. 2017 was non-retina still.

2020 is the 'magic' one ie a refined scissor switch
 
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