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Is anyone moving from 2016+ MBP to 2020 MBA?
- Thread starter thadoggfather
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I wonder how much of a downgrade the screen actually will be. Its sRGB vs P3 of course, but its like 400 nits vs 500 I believe, the 2020 MBA has TT.
It also seems like the 2020 has twice the RAM bus speed, and roughly twice the single and multicore. And key travel, hallelujah
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Personally the keyboard seals the deal for me on the MacBook Air. I just ordered one tonight and if they would have kept the butterfly keyboard I most likely would have went Dell XPS for my next laptop. As for the screen you obviously won't notice unless they are side by side, but that extra 100 nits of brightness would be extremely useful in a bright environment.
it really is the keyboard that has me wanting to make the leap. performance hasn't been an issue, but I also haven't moved from Sierra
I would hope since this laptop ships with Catalina, it runs somewhat decent and has good battery life. I can only imagine my 2016, even without a shot battery, magically won't get good battery life on Catalina or even Mojave.
Maybe I can give it the proper rundown to see if it will actually be a good MBP replacement. And if not, can return. And if so, can always wipe laptop and trade it in to take a good amount off of the machine.
Anyways, it sounds like you should wait for an updated 13" (or 14") MBP, as that will be better in every possible way when compared to the 2016.
I don't want a touchbar though. And I also don't want to spend mid $1000's on a laptop.
$1000 is an incredibly appealing price point
I haven’t but I’m currently considering moving from a 2016 15” MacBook Pro.
When I bought the former, I was doing a fair bit of stuff with Photoshop and having a portable solution was quite useful. Now, when I use Photoshop, it’s either on a 2018 Mac Mini or on a Dell work PC.
My first Mac was a 2011 MBA, which I used a lot over many years. I’ve been waiting for the MBA to become a more compelling choice for my needs and I think it’s pretty much there with this refresh. I don’t particularly dislike the feel of the butterfly keyboard, and have yet to experience any issues with it, but it’s always lurking in the back of my mind that it could fail on me.
I don’t think I’ll miss the Touchbar, I hardly use the capabilities of it. I do wonder, though, whether I‘ll notice a difference with the screen, probably not, but perhaps. I also have fairly large, Gollum-like hands, so although the Air I used to have was 13”, I’m wondering if I’ll notice the size difference going from the MBP 15“.
At the moment, I’m waiting for a few more reviews to come out before I decide whether to go for a CPU and/or memory bump or save some £s and just go for the entry level. However, I am probably going to buy one of them within the next couple of weeks.
When I bought the former, I was doing a fair bit of stuff with Photoshop and having a portable solution was quite useful. Now, when I use Photoshop, it’s either on a 2018 Mac Mini or on a Dell work PC.
My first Mac was a 2011 MBA, which I used a lot over many years. I’ve been waiting for the MBA to become a more compelling choice for my needs and I think it’s pretty much there with this refresh. I don’t particularly dislike the feel of the butterfly keyboard, and have yet to experience any issues with it, but it’s always lurking in the back of my mind that it could fail on me.
I don’t think I’ll miss the Touchbar, I hardly use the capabilities of it. I do wonder, though, whether I‘ll notice a difference with the screen, probably not, but perhaps. I also have fairly large, Gollum-like hands, so although the Air I used to have was 13”, I’m wondering if I’ll notice the size difference going from the MBP 15“.
At the moment, I’m waiting for a few more reviews to come out before I decide whether to go for a CPU and/or memory bump or save some £s and just go for the entry level. However, I am probably going to buy one of them within the next couple of weeks.
You’ll definitely notice the size the difference screen wise, but as far as typing goes the keyboards are about the same size so that shouldn’t be a problem. I pulled the trigger on the i7 16GB model but it probably would be wise to wait for more information on the details of the i5 vs i7.
I’m also having the dilemma of replacing my 2016 15” Pro with the i5 model w/16GB ram. My touchbar has a bright flicker by Touch ID and the cost of replacement is insane. How different in performance will the i5 vs i7 be, in everyone’s opinion? Not an extreme power user, it’s a basic office machine and I dabble occasionally in photo editing with affinity. While the keyboard alone has me close to sold, I’m wondering if that magic will fade if performance takes a major hit.
I am contemplating a move from a high spec 2018 MBP 13 to a maxed out Air, simply because of the keyboard and touch bar, both of which I really do not like.
The lack of brightness will be a pain though and the cooling seems poor, so it's not a clear choice.
I will wait to see if a revised Pro offers me what I want, but I fear it will keep the touch bar in the same way as the 16 inch has. I just hope they have a non-touch bar low-end model like before, but quad core. The loss of two ports would not bother me much.
The lack of brightness will be a pain though and the cooling seems poor, so it's not a clear choice.
I will wait to see if a revised Pro offers me what I want, but I fear it will keep the touch bar in the same way as the 16 inch has. I just hope they have a non-touch bar low-end model like before, but quad core. The loss of two ports would not bother me much.
Having used a touch bar for some time now on my MacBook Pro, I must admit, it’s pretty useful depending on what you do. When I open my old MacBook Air now I actually miss the Touch Bar.
I ordered a 2020 MBA for home use.
At work, I use a 2016 MBP with Touch Bar. It was the second Apple laptop to get the butterfly keyboard, after the 12” MacBook in 2015. It’s the first Apple product I’ve owned (well, my employer owns it) that I don’t like. For my use cases, the Touch Bar turns out to be a downgrade from the dedicated function keys. But the real problem is the keyboard.
Starting a few months after I got the machine, the keyboard started having intermittent errors. The most annoying of which is that certain keys would randomly trigger touch Bar functions. But also some keys repeated letters.
My employer’s tech support people tried replicating the errors but couldn’t (the errors happen intermittently). So my employer was never willing to replace it or even have Apple replace the keyboard.
Aside from the keyboard errors, I just didn’t like the feel of typing on it. I bought a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard to use with the computer, and that made it tolerable. And quite often, I brought my own laptop to work so I wouldn’t have to use the 2016 MBP with TB.
My own laptop at the time was a 2015 retina MBP, the last MBP with the original scissor mechanism keyboard. I effing loved that keyboard, like I loved the keyboard of the 2012 mba I owned previously.
When the 2018 retina MBA was announced, I ordered it on day 1. I love the MBA form factor and only bought the 2015 rMBP because the Airs at that time still had the low-res display.
My 2018MBA felt a little underpowered, but I could get by with it and it was worth it to finally have a MBA with a Retina display.
The keyboard on my 2018 MBA was quieter and less uncomfortable to type on than my 2016 MBP with TB at work. But after 1 year it developed a problem with repeating keys. So I took it to Apple Store, who replaced the keyboard under the butterfly keyboard repair program. The new keyboard feels a little better to type on, though not as good as the scissor keyboards from 2015 & earlier.
The 2020 MBA is almost the perfect machine for me. Scissor keyboard, Retina display, much faster quad core processor, and the model I ordered has 1tb SSD, all in the wedge form factor that I love and at a price that by Apple standards is a great value. I’m disappointed about the mediocre web cam. But I don’t use it much (I never used it before social distancing, working from home, and having more face time and Skype calls with my friends and family.)
I hope all of you who’ve ordered a 2020 MBA love it as much as I expect to love mine.
At work, I use a 2016 MBP with Touch Bar. It was the second Apple laptop to get the butterfly keyboard, after the 12” MacBook in 2015. It’s the first Apple product I’ve owned (well, my employer owns it) that I don’t like. For my use cases, the Touch Bar turns out to be a downgrade from the dedicated function keys. But the real problem is the keyboard.
Starting a few months after I got the machine, the keyboard started having intermittent errors. The most annoying of which is that certain keys would randomly trigger touch Bar functions. But also some keys repeated letters.
My employer’s tech support people tried replicating the errors but couldn’t (the errors happen intermittently). So my employer was never willing to replace it or even have Apple replace the keyboard.
Aside from the keyboard errors, I just didn’t like the feel of typing on it. I bought a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard to use with the computer, and that made it tolerable. And quite often, I brought my own laptop to work so I wouldn’t have to use the 2016 MBP with TB.
My own laptop at the time was a 2015 retina MBP, the last MBP with the original scissor mechanism keyboard. I effing loved that keyboard, like I loved the keyboard of the 2012 mba I owned previously.
When the 2018 retina MBA was announced, I ordered it on day 1. I love the MBA form factor and only bought the 2015 rMBP because the Airs at that time still had the low-res display.
My 2018MBA felt a little underpowered, but I could get by with it and it was worth it to finally have a MBA with a Retina display.
The keyboard on my 2018 MBA was quieter and less uncomfortable to type on than my 2016 MBP with TB at work. But after 1 year it developed a problem with repeating keys. So I took it to Apple Store, who replaced the keyboard under the butterfly keyboard repair program. The new keyboard feels a little better to type on, though not as good as the scissor keyboards from 2015 & earlier.
The 2020 MBA is almost the perfect machine for me. Scissor keyboard, Retina display, much faster quad core processor, and the model I ordered has 1tb SSD, all in the wedge form factor that I love and at a price that by Apple standards is a great value. I’m disappointed about the mediocre web cam. But I don’t use it much (I never used it before social distancing, working from home, and having more face time and Skype calls with my friends and family.)
I hope all of you who’ve ordered a 2020 MBA love it as much as I expect to love mine.
I’ve been considering it. I don’t need something very powerful, but it needs to have enough power that I can do a bit of photo editing, run a VM, do some video editing etc on occasion. I’m pretty confident based on what I’ve seen in the Apple store that I won’t notice any difference in the screen.
I quite like the touch bar, but won’t miss it. And I prefer the tapered shape of the Air.
Then there’s the price.
I‘m guessing the revised MBP will drop the base model as it’s too similar on paper to what you can spec an Air up to now.
But I can‘t quite bring myself to pull the trigger yet until I see what the revised Pro is going to look like.
I quite like the touch bar, but won’t miss it. And I prefer the tapered shape of the Air.
Then there’s the price.
I‘m guessing the revised MBP will drop the base model as it’s too similar on paper to what you can spec an Air up to now.
But I can‘t quite bring myself to pull the trigger yet until I see what the revised Pro is going to look like.
I also have a 2016 TB 15" MacBook Pro and was considering the switch to the MBA. The Touch Bar has been useless to me as well. However, after looking at sustained CPU/GPU performance, screen quality/brightness/size, wifi (2x2 mimo vs 3x3 mimo on MBP) etc. I think I'm going to hold off for another year or so and see what the new 13"/14" MBP is going to bring. The MBA is compelling but not quite enough to sacrifice the benefits of my machine as yet. If they had released a 15" MBA I would have been on it like white on rice.
I'm thinking about it. I have a 2016 base MBP 13 nTB. The Air looks great except it would be a downgrade in terms of the screen which I couldn't bring myself to do since I think a 4 year newer machine should give me a screen upgrade. Also I game occasionally and the MBA's sustain ed performance is really lacking.
I'm moving over from a 2017 MBP 13 nTB (256 GB SSD; 8 GB RAM) I bought right after release in June 2017, to a 2020 MBA with 512 GB & 16 GB.
Reasons:
- I'm on my third keyboard; each replacement took more than four weeks to be done (Germany & no Apple Store nearby), I'm done with that sh... At least Apple paid for it & the battery is fresh...
- I'd like to have more disk space than I currently have (yes, poor decision in the past, though I learned to be disciplined in managing disk space)
- I have a spreadsheet that shows me if I sell now to current used-market prices, the MBP will have cost me less per day compared to as if I would simply write it off over 5 years, which is my benchmark in terms of monetary performance.
- I don't like the touchbar, so no point in waiting for the new MBP
I'll keep & use the MBP & MBA simultaneously for about ten days and see if it feels like an upgrade. If it does: bye bye, MBP. If it does not, I'll keep the MBP & hope the keyboard fails another 1-2 times before the four year coverage ends in June 2021... Delivery's slated for April 8th, but might be delayed because of you know what...
Reasons:
- I'm on my third keyboard; each replacement took more than four weeks to be done (Germany & no Apple Store nearby), I'm done with that sh... At least Apple paid for it & the battery is fresh...
- I'd like to have more disk space than I currently have (yes, poor decision in the past, though I learned to be disciplined in managing disk space)
- I have a spreadsheet that shows me if I sell now to current used-market prices, the MBP will have cost me less per day compared to as if I would simply write it off over 5 years, which is my benchmark in terms of monetary performance.
- I don't like the touchbar, so no point in waiting for the new MBP
I'll keep & use the MBP & MBA simultaneously for about ten days and see if it feels like an upgrade. If it does: bye bye, MBP. If it does not, I'll keep the MBP & hope the keyboard fails another 1-2 times before the four year coverage ends in June 2021... Delivery's slated for April 8th, but might be delayed because of you know what...
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I'm doing just that.
Have a 2016 115" MBP with a 2.7GHz i7/16GB ram/512GB non-SSD and I'm waiting for my 2020 MBA with i7/16GB/512GB to arrive.
When I got my MBP I was doing more video editing, but now I'm moving into web development and really wanted a MacBook with a better keyboard, and the 16" MBP just felt like overkill for me in terms of power, size, and most importantly price. Decided to go for the new MBA the day it was announced. Looked like it fit my needs, was way more in my price range, has the new keyboard, and I'm excited to have something a lot lighter. I usually bring my 11" iPad Pro with me also, so my iPad Pro and new MBA will weigh less together than my old MBP did on its own.
It was supposed to arrive between 3/26-4/2, but now that it's shipped it's arriving on 4/7.
Have a 2016 115" MBP with a 2.7GHz i7/16GB ram/512GB non-SSD and I'm waiting for my 2020 MBA with i7/16GB/512GB to arrive.
When I got my MBP I was doing more video editing, but now I'm moving into web development and really wanted a MacBook with a better keyboard, and the 16" MBP just felt like overkill for me in terms of power, size, and most importantly price. Decided to go for the new MBA the day it was announced. Looked like it fit my needs, was way more in my price range, has the new keyboard, and I'm excited to have something a lot lighter. I usually bring my 11" iPad Pro with me also, so my iPad Pro and new MBA will weigh less together than my old MBP did on its own.
It was supposed to arrive between 3/26-4/2, but now that it's shipped it's arriving on 4/7.
I’ve wondered about the screen - last time i looked in the Apple Store, I couldn’t tell the difference. I know there’s a difference in specifications, but I’m not doing pro photo/video work, so that wouldn’t necessarily put me off switching.
I'm considering going from a 2016 13in Touch Bar MBP to an i5/16/512 Air. I don't really need anything powerful, just something for basic web browsing, video streaming, and word documents. I don't game and I don't do any photo and video editing(I used to with the Pro but just basic combining of clips in iMovie). Would like to get a good 6 years of use out of the machine like I wanted to with the 2016 but it seems like a ticking time bomb with the keyboard and flexgate with the display as both replacement programs end in about 6 months.
I picked up a 2019 13in base Pro with updated ram and storage right before the stores closed and the new Air dropped so I'd like to consider returning it and getting the Air. Hopefully sooner than later the stores will open and I can return the Pro(Tried to return via the mail but the return label won't generate in my account to print it so I'm kinda stuck).
I picked up a 2019 13in base Pro with updated ram and storage right before the stores closed and the new Air dropped so I'd like to consider returning it and getting the Air. Hopefully sooner than later the stores will open and I can return the Pro(Tried to return via the mail but the return label won't generate in my account to print it so I'm kinda stuck).
I have a work issued 2017 MBA and it's suitable for the field work I do.
Can't say switching over to a 2020 MBA would be a huge leap.
I'd rather get the 14" MBP since I already have a personal 16" MBP and the use of accessories / dongles would be shareable....
Can't say switching over to a 2020 MBA would be a huge leap.
I'd rather get the 14" MBP since I already have a personal 16" MBP and the use of accessories / dongles would be shareable....
I'm confused what you mean by this? Are you under the impression the two TB3 ports on a 2020MBA behave differently to the four TB3 ports on a 16" MBP?
You are correct - the TB3 ports are identical so that means the accessories I already have will interchange.
When I upgraded my 2015 MBP 15.4" i7 to the 2019 MBP 16" i7 base, I had to change out all the adapters (mini dock, TB3-TB2 dongle, TB3-USB dongle, etc)