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I’m a little surprised that no one seems to have mentioned/realized that the Midnight will radiate heat more efficiently than any other MBA color. Black objects radiate heat much more efficiently than lighter color objects.
 
Thinner, hotter and auto clocked down because fanless, smaller and inferior screen, less connectors, same price (in many countries). The why is a valid point.
Those things are not particularly important for everyone. Not everyone needs maximum performance at all times. I would trade that for better portability and no fan. The MBA connectors are adequate and the screen is quite good enough. Don’t assume that everyone values the properties of a laptop in the same way that you do.
 
Those things are not particularly important for everyone. Not everyone needs maximum performance at all times. I would trade that for better portability and no fan. The MBA connectors are adequate and the screen is quite good enough. Don’t assume that everyone values the properties of a laptop in the same way that you do.
You don’t understand my point. Yes the mentioned factors are fine and many people will be happy with them. I just don’t understand how a product with reduced functionality costs the same amount. Imagine if Apple would sell their 14“ MBP for the same price as the 16“, would you still argue that is normal as the 14“ is more portable than the 16“?
 
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You don’t understand my point. Yes the mentioned factors are fine and many people will be happy with them. I just don’t understand how a product with reduced functionality costs the same amount. Imagine if Apple would sell their 16“ MBP for the same price as the 14“, would you still argue that is normal as the 14“ is more portable than the 16“?
The form factor of the Air is the functionality. One could say that the Pro 14 has reduced functionality when compared to the Air. Likewise the 16 against the 14 although less so as they both have active cooling systems and therefore don’t have the functional advantage that the Air has in that it is completely silent regardless of load and/or enviromental conditions. And yet conversely one could say that the active cooling of the Pro machines is a functional advantage if one required higher performance at the expense of having fan noise or possibly lower case temps.

You can argue objectively that the Pro display has far better contrast and black levels than the Air and it has more CPU and GPU performance, more ports, etc as these are facts, as is the case with the Air being lighter and smaller and quieter under heavy load with superior battery life to the Pro 14. But functionality and which machine is better is absolutely subjective. And this is what people blindly stating the same thing over and over again about buying the Pro 14 instead of the Air (as if it hasn’t been said a thousand times already) don’t understand - there is no objectively better machine and the price is potentially irrelevant if one can afford either.
 
Great video! Midnight is a good colour. Hope the colour won't chip off.
It’s an anodize layer, but just a type 2 anodize, so not great on sharp edges like ports. However, Apple happens to have picked a color that is extremely easy to fix scratches on using a commonly available acid solution pen that converts bare aluminum to a durable black coating. (Birchwood-Casey Aluma Black).

Kind of like a Sharpie, but instead of putting a layer of pigment on the scratch, it physically turns the metal black-blue.
 
Lot of people asking what spec they should get.
My advice: stop thinking about “future-proofing” you purchase. It doesn’t longer work that way.
In 2 years Apple will be launching an OLED Macbook Air and you will want to have that.
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I usually keep my macs for 6+ years. It would need to be a preternaturaly amazing OLED to change my mind. Face id or a stainless steel shell are the only reasons I can think of to upgrade more quickly.
 
i don't think Face ID would bring any more comfort, as you'd still need manual input via key command anyway to actually make this a secure thing and not let somebody exploit it if it just was using the camera only, which would basically work every time you are sitting in front of your computer without even being aware that you are just being Face ID'd before it is too late and already completed
 
I usually keep my macs for 6+ years. It would need to be a preternaturaly amazing OLED to change my mind. Face id or a stainless steel shell are the only reasons I can think of to upgrade more quickly.
FaceID isn't happening without Apple making the lid twice as thick.
 
I’m a little surprised that no one seems to have mentioned/realized that the Midnight will radiate heat more efficiently than any other MBA color. Black objects radiate heat much more efficiently than lighter color objects.
Not unless your MacBook gets red hot.

See: https://www.europhysicsnews.org/articles/epn/pdf/2007/01/epn07102.pdf

"Black" objects do absorb and radiate heat more efficiently (the two things run together), but it is only significant if they are "black" at the frequencies emitted at the temperatures involved - which you can't tell just by looking at them in visible light.

Visibly black objects do get noticeably hotter in sunlight because the "temperature involved" is that of the sun which emits a lot of energy as visible light. For objects at ambient 'earthly' temperatures ~25C, most of the radiation is in the far infra-red, so the visible colour of the object makes no significant difference. Turns out that - at those frequencies - pretty much all paint is "black".

If you look at a table of emissivity (1=theoretical maximum, for objects at room temperature) you'll see that polished metal has very low emissivity (polished aluminium = 0.07), anodised aluminium is much higher (0.77) and most types of paint are in the 0.8-0.95 range. So yeah, paint your heatsinks and radiators any colour you like because any sort of paint or coating has far higher emissivity than bare metal. I think Macs use anodised aluminium with pigments added - probably even to the 'silver' ones - so my guess would be that all modern Macs will be about the same.

Also, since we live in an atmosphere, in most cases convective cooling is far more significant than radiation, so airflow and surface area are far more important than radiation. Unless you're dealing with 6000K sunlight - and your "midnight" Mac will get hotter than a silver one if you leave it in the sun.
 
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