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If you care about thermals in the MBA 2020, get the i3 version.
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Disagree. If your requirements is to run as silent as possible, and battery longevity, the i3 beats the i5 hands down. The i5 runs hotter and the fans come on earlier.
The i3 has about a 10% better battery life using normal tasks (web surfing, movie watching), and that equals over an hour.
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Except use-cases and money. Other than that.Yeah my i7 does that just fine too.
There's no need to buy peasant spec.
The i3 runs quieter and for longer on battery.
Of course, because that's the i7 model I also have no usual-for-a-macbook thermal issues with.
(sarcasm)This machine is quieter during normal operation than either of my two previous MacBook Pros (a 13" 2015 i5, and a 15" 2011 i7). YMMV. The 2015 Pro was/is (still in the household, gf has it) close to this but had some coil whine from the SSD that you could hear when the fans were off; my new air does not.
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Dunno about that. He got a lot of YouTube clicks and links back to his video.
Macrumors alone probably paid his mortgage for the month.
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That will depend heavily on what you do with it. The power limit for the quad cores is 1-2 watts above the power limit for the i3. The cores in the i5/i7 will go to sleep if idle. A single thread can be bounced from core to idle/cooler core more on a quad for better average clock-speed/performance even in single threaded apps. The screen/ssd/network/etc. all draw the same power on both machines.
The GPUs are much stronger on the i5/i7. Power consumption and heat goes up exponentially with clock-speed, and with more cores the quad can run an average lower clock-speed across the cores for the same workload.
So depending on what is going on, there's every chance you'll have to sit in front of your i3 for far longer to get your job done. And serious work gets done plugged into AC power anyway so in that situation where you're not just doing away-from-the-desk stuff, the power consumption issue is moot.
What I'm saying is that the power consumption difference real world will be pretty hard to detect, but when you need the speed the i3 will get slaughtered.
I've had 10-11 hours out of my i7 doing basic stuff. So not sure why you're "only" getting 8-9 out of your i3
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Of course it depends what you do with it. You are right you are largely going to be doing photo/video processing on AC.Of course, because that's the i7 model I also have no usual-for-a-macbook thermal issues with.
This machine is quieter during normal operation than either of my two previous MacBook Pros (a 13" 2015 i5, and a 15" 2011 i7). YMMV. The 2015 Pro was/is (still in the household, gf has it) close to this but had some coil whine from the SSD that you could hear when the fans were off; my new air does not.
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Dunno about that. He got a lot of YouTube clicks and links back to his video.
Macrumors alone probably paid his mortgage for the month.
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That will depend heavily on what you do with it. The power limit for the quad cores is 1-2 watts above the power limit for the i3. The cores in the i5/i7 will go to sleep if idle. A single thread can be bounced from core to idle/cooler core more on a quad for better average clock-speed/performance even in single threaded apps. The screen/ssd/network/etc. all draw the same power on both machines.
The GPUs are much stronger on the i5/i7. Power consumption and heat goes up exponentially with clock-speed, and with more cores the quad can run an average lower clock-speed across the cores for the same workload.
So depending on what is going on, there's every chance you'll have to sit in front of your i3 for far longer to get your job done. And serious work gets done plugged into AC power anyway so in that situation where you're not just doing away-from-the-desk stuff, the power consumption issue is moot.
What I'm saying is that the power consumption difference real world will be pretty hard to detect, but when you need the speed the i3 will get slaughtered.
I've had 10-11 hours out of my i7 doing basic stuff. So not sure why you're "only" getting 8-9 out of your i3
The tests I have seen has shown for typical battery-usage activities - office work, web browsing, video watching/streaming shows the i3 performs much longer on battery than the i5 or i7. None of them got 10-11 hours out of any of them though so you must have an amazing model.
Have a youTube or there's been 2 reviewers on here who have posted their results, and the tests seem very well thought-out and fair.
The MacBook 12 bests them all though so might want to hold on to that laptop.
If you concerned about time spent processing long-running tasks, the MBA isn't the right tool for the job, in my opinion,
Cheers mate.
Thanks! Do you have any experience/comparison to wipr ad-blocker? I have read, that this is most lightweight, so should be better for battery. Though, wipr misses select-and-block feature, but I've never ever used it.
Nope, I've only used 1blocker, but the reason for that is that it works well on iPhone/iPad as well.
I don't want to sound rude, but you've had two people tell you that we are getting 10 hours out of our i5 and i7 variants doing basic tasks. I have no reason to lie about it. Do you own one or are you basing all your assumptions from Youtube videos?
No not rude, good question. The 2 extensive reviews that posted on here put their results up and what their testing parameters were, so I tend weigh their results over people that say "I got 10 hours" without saying how they tested this. Maybe they did. Maybe they had the lid closed for half the time. Maybe they were working on an office document with wifi and bluetooth off, and at 10% brightness. Who knows!
The youTube videos also do a fairly standardised set of tests. Basically, the conditions were: using basic web browsing and office work for half battery, 50% brightness, and then streaming HD video over wifi until exhaustion.
I believe none of them have registered 10 hours+ , not even close. These results fit with the MacBook 12 that I actually had upto a month ago, would last 11-12 hours and there's no way that the current MBA would get near that using basic TDP of the processor and the battery capacity.
I have the i3 2020 MBA and basic testing gives approx. 4 hours video conferencing, and around 9 hours a day. This is not using any processor-intensive tasks. The i5 and i7 will be lower battery life based on some basic maths - and this is born out by youtube testing and test results on here. I presume that the tester on here have no agenda. I certainly don't. Just trying to put some empirical data out there.
Cheers mate
I want to see the YT video which did tests on i3 and i5 battery life. I have been trying to find videos like that but have been unable to. So if you know any, please share the link bro. The only test I have seen so far is from one user here.
well, right now browsing MacRumors and after having played with Xcode a little bit I'm on 75% battery and have 9 hours remaining. I've been using the machine on/off for the past 3 hours, probably 1.5 hours of total use.
Xcode chews a bit of power compiling (but I'm just writing noob project stuff at the moment) so the time it spent asleep (flat line in history) would be somewhat balanced out by the time I spent in Xcode compiling stuff.
I rebooted a bit earlier and it has just recently woken from sleep, but hey...:
The whole "i7 gets bad battery life" thing is crap.
Xcode chews a bit of power compiling (but I'm just writing noob project stuff at the moment) so the time it spent asleep (flat line in history) would be somewhat balanced out by the time I spent in Xcode compiling stuff.
I rebooted a bit earlier and it has just recently woken from sleep, but hey...:
The whole "i7 gets bad battery life" thing is crap.
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I've been using Wipr for a long time now on both Mac and iPhone, and no complains at all.
Convinced me for its simplicity, blocks pretty much everything, light and perfectly integrated into safari, and a big point to me was the transparency of the developer behind. Ah, and it's also good that's not a subscription plan as others.
Let's see if at some point ads something like a whitelist/blacklist or some way to get more control on what the app is doing behind the scenes, but never missed it honestly.
I've been browsing on and off all day, the screen has been on quite a bit (without using the machine) and I had Keynote running for a little while and my i5 reports the following. I don't know how to read it, but the battery on my i5 is a great deal better than the 2015 Pro it replaces and is more powerful, so I have no complaints.
Attachments
I don't have the links unless I go through my youtube history oh god
Max tech (I know he's not popular on here) talkked about battery life in a subsequent video to his initial inflammatory "The MacBook Air is broken and throttles and cannot cool, etc etc" called something like "A month later with MacBook air"
Noah Hermann also measures temps and talks about battery life.
Also search for "Juan&only" he had some insights too.
Hope that helps!
The 2 reviewers on here posted their results and their test scenarios on how they achieved them. I put a lot of weight in that given they aren't selling clicks and it was 'real-world' type parameters.
All the best with your purchase! I love the new MBA and I'm sure you will too whatever model you choose!
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p.s. looking at my youtube history shows one thing - I am on youtube way too much
of course you are, that’s why your pushing the i3 so much 😬. But the poll shows the i5 has 5x more buyers in this forum. I would say the few want to convince themselves they made the right choice and speak often and loud, But the many stay quiet and enjoy 4 cores. Happy dual core to you and the few. 😉
I think all this nonsense talk about how hot this chip gets or that chip is all bullsh^t. People need to really get over it. These YouTube idiot reviewers are all stuck home like us for the past almost two months with this covid-19 stuff and i think they have really nothing better to do then bash another apple product. Once the summer rolls around and people start using the AC more they won't complain as much about a hot macbook. Just my 2 cents.
haha I think you are so correct! 🤘 All the people that jump on the thermal bandwagon atually have no idea and no intention of buying one!
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What a strange comment, commenting on how people use the Internet. I have no interest what others purchase, only my experience (i'm not paid by Apple, Intel, or by advertising). I don't need to convince myself - I know I made the right decision for me. But if it wasn't, I can just return it - got 3 weeks to make up my mind bud 🤷♂️
Perhaps you feel regret on spending more than you needed to 😯😟 don't know but again - use-cases differ for differing requirements. Good luck!
I think the only genuinely dumb thing I've read here is people telling other people 'I know what laptop you need better than you do!'
If you've got the i5, great. If you've got the i3, great. As long as you're happy right?
Nobody is 'pushing' anything. What's the incentive?
I wrote a fair bit about what it was like for me having the i5 versus the i3. The only reason I wrote about my experiences was that it's information I would have liked to have before I made my purchase, so hopefully those anecdotes and tests help people like me.
Nobody here gets a cut of Macrumors ad revenue or Apple sales bonuses as far as I know. It's just people trying to help people.
And the occasional 'I don't have a personality so my choice of computer brand defines me, and any criticism [real or perceived] of that brand offends me deeply' person. I was going to say 'troll', but I don't think it's deliberate.
If you've got the i5, great. If you've got the i3, great. As long as you're happy right?
Nobody is 'pushing' anything. What's the incentive?
I wrote a fair bit about what it was like for me having the i5 versus the i3. The only reason I wrote about my experiences was that it's information I would have liked to have before I made my purchase, so hopefully those anecdotes and tests help people like me.
Nobody here gets a cut of Macrumors ad revenue or Apple sales bonuses as far as I know. It's just people trying to help people.
And the occasional 'I don't have a personality so my choice of computer brand defines me, and any criticism [real or perceived] of that brand offends me deeply' person. I was going to say 'troll', but I don't think it's deliberate.
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that is the most correct post in this entire thread. Finally, good job 👍