MacBook Air 2020 USER reviews

[segfaultdotorg]

That sounds like a disappointment. I would send it back and wait for the ARM refresh. Maybe pick up a iPad Pro and magic keyboard instead For the immediate use.

I appreciate the thought, but I'm well past the return period. I may trade it in when they do the ARM refresh if I won't take that large of a bath.

To be honest, web browsing is really more dependent on raw internet speed now, so unless you upgrade your internet package to higher speeds, you probably won't notice much difference between a 2017 and 2020 Mac. On the Windows side, you might see some improvement with the 10th gen Intel machines over 7th/8th/9th gen systems because they have switched to WiFi6 (802.11ax) for those systems already.

Understood... To clarify, my old MBA was a 2011 model and not a 2017. I have gigabit service at home, but wireless tops out around 400-500 megabits. I will say that the newer MBA seems not to get as hot when browsing resource intensive webpages.

 

[segfaultdotorg]

Latest issues with the 2020 MBA. Popping sounds from the speakers, sometimes randomly, usually a few seconds after I stop streaming video. The ambient light sensor brightness transition is not as smooth as the nine year old MBA it replaced. I probably should have just gotten a crappy Chromebook or Windows laptop with a similar form factor.

 

[ghanwani]

Latest issues with the 2020 MBA. Popping sounds from the speakers, sometimes randomly, usually a few seconds after I stop streaming video. The ambient light sensor brightness transition is not as smooth as the nine year old MBA it replaced. I probably should have just gotten a crappy Chromebook or Windows laptop with a similar form factor.

The popping sound is a bummer.

If the popping is reproducible, take a video of it and send it in to get fixed.

I have both true tone and ambient lighting adjustments disabled. They were giving me headaches. They remind me of the lane departure warning and lane keep assist in my car, i.e. features that are worse than useless and need to be disabled.

 

[ascender]

Got the opportunity to try a new i3 (base) MBA yesterday for a couple of hours having briefly used it a couple of weeks ago. I have a 16" MBP myself, and having read all of the threads/complaints on here, I was expecting high temperatures with relatively light use, excessive fan noise for long periods etc.

Now before I give my thoughts, I'll just say that my usage was limited to watching Netflix, YouTube, running Discord in Safari, using Microsoft Word and Excel. In Safari I maybe had 4 or 5 tabs open. I wasn't doing any photo or video editing or gaming.

Honestly...

It was great!

• Doing the above tasks, it was QUIETER than my 16" MBP and the two recent 13" (base) MBPs I've had.
• Fans didn't kick in once (or at least, I couldn't hear them) in the two hours I used it.
• Stayed cool or at worst, lukewarm.
• No noticeable slowdown or sluggishness. Not a single rainbow wheel in sight.

Maybe it's just the i3, maybe it was the relatively light workload, I don't know - but for general web browsing it was perfect and dare I say it, a better experience than any of the current MBPs.

Easily the best MBA Apple have produced to date.

Obviously if you're doing any kind of creative work in terms of photo/video editing/3D work etc then it's no comparison, the MBPs will wipe the floor with it, but if you're just looking for a laptop to browse the web and watch stuff, the base MBA is the one to go for.

I’ve been without my 16” MBP so have been borrowing my wife’s 2020, i5 Air. Totally agree with everything you say, its nice having such a small & light machine.

Use has been similar to yours, but also running Citrix desktop and occasional Windows in a Parallels VM. Its been hooked-up to a 4K Ultrafine screen.

All in all, very impressed.

 

[segfaultdotorg]

The popping sound is a bummer.

If the popping is reproducible, take a video of it and send it in to get fixed.

I have both true tone and ambient lighting adjustments disabled. They were giving me headaches. They remind me of the lane departure warning and lane keep assist in my car, i.e. features that are worse than useless and need to be disabled.

It's not reliably reproducible, just majorly disappointing in a premium product. I have no issues with the ambient light on my old MacBook Air, my iPhone, or my iPad. This one just seems off. I will probably dump it once Apple offers a trade-in program for it, and see whether I can live with my tablets in its place.

My work truck has lane departure warning (but not LKA) and, given the habits of the average driver, I actually think it should be non-defeatable on interstate highways. It doesn't work so well on narrow country roads, where you have no choice but to get close to the edges fairly often.

 

[ghanwani]

My work truck has lane departure warning (but not LKA) and, given the habits of the average driver, I actually think it should be non-defeatable on interstate highways. It doesn't work so well on narrow country roads, where you have no choice but to get close to the edges fairly often.

Depends on where you live. Around where I live the road divider lines on the highway are barely visible so it keeps getting triggered.

 

[emadeaziz]

2020 MBA i5/8GB/2TB. Previously used a late 2013 MacBook Pro through October 2019 when I purchased an entry-level MBP. Couldn't live with the keyboard. Got excited about the 2020 MBA when it came out and watched a ton of reviews that recommended the upgrade to the i5 processors. I chose the air over the pro for portability and form factor, and to avoid the Touch Bar.

This is by far the best laptop I have owned/used in a very long time. My laptop is my main - and only - computer save for an iPad. Because of the portability fo the MBA, I am using my iPad less for work and more to consume media.

 

[roncron]

Bought the 2020 MBA quad-core i5/16gb/1tb last spring. Love the form factor and keyboard, but the fans were going on far too often, including when I was doing very basic tasks that don't tax the machine. Also, it was no faster at processor-intensive tasks than the 2018 MBA it replaced. (Benchmarks are higher, but in my everyday real world use, it wasn't any faster.)

Returned it and bought a 2020 MBP. Performance and display are really excellent. Don't like the touch bar, and I prefer the MBA form factor. But on balance, I prefer the MBP.

My employer bought a 2020 MBA base model (dual core i3/8gb/256gb) for my use at work. Fan doesn't come on as often as the quad core model I bought and returned last spring. But it is really sluggish, especially when booting on or when opening apps the first time after rebooting. But also in general.

I'm an MBA guy, most of my work and home computers since 2010 have been MBAs and I've loved them all. Except the 2020 models.

I expect the next MBA with Apple's own processor will solve the issues with the 2020 MBAs that some of us have found so frustrating.

I understand that some of you are having a terrific experience with your 2020 MacBook Air. I'm glad for you, truly, and I'm not trying to disrespect or delegitimize your positive reviews. Your opinions are no less valid than mine.

 

[ghanwani]

Bought the 2020 MBA quad-core i5/16gb/1tb last spring. Love the form factor and keyboard, but the fans were going on far too often, including when I was doing very basic tasks that don't tax the machine.

It looks like the issue has been fixed by a software update (10.15.6).

2020 i5 MBA overheating problem fixed + MBP to MBA migration experience.

I received two 2020 MacBook Air units both i5/8GB/2TB. We use them to run a project management consulting business, so mainly running Microsoft Office, Merlin, Trello, Mail, multiple IM apps and the occasional episodes of Parallels and MS Project and/or Visio. Before I go on about this review...

forums.macrumors.com

Returned it and bought a 2020 MBP. Performance and display are really excellent. Don't like the touch bar, and I prefer the MBA form factor. But on balance, I prefer the MBP.

Did you get the 2TBP or 4TBP model?

 

[ignatius345]

I got the 2020 MBA with the i5 upgrade 512 GB storage and 8 GB RAM. I do very much wish in retrospect I'd picked the 16 GB RAM upgrade instead of getting a bigger SSD. Maybe that would have helped with the sluggishness that sets in when I have two user accounts (work and home) logged in. I find this makes it bog down a lot as I use it. But then again, my iMac 5K also bogs down a lot with 2-3 user accounts logged in, and it's got 24 GB of RAM installed. I've been working this way for years and it's only become a problem (on both my Macs) with Catalina.

Anyway, otherwise I think it's pretty solid. Great keyboard, love the feel of it and the return of the classic inverted-T arrow layout instead of the finger-hostile symmetrical ones.

Touch ID is massively useful and I want it on my iMac now.

Battery life is... fine. Nothing to write home about but not horrible either.

Biggest surprise has been the speakers, which are quite good. This is the first Mac laptop I've had where the speakers weren't buried behind the hinge somewhere, and the stereo separation is quite good.

I was coming off several years of pent-up demand after waiting out the butterfly keyboard fiasco, so I pounced on the new MBA as soon as it came out. I think it's a fine, basic Mac laptop. I did expect it to be a little zippier, but again I think it might just be due to Catalina sucking so hard.

 

[ctjack]

I do very much wish in retrospect I'd picked the 16 GB RAM upgrade instead of getting a bigger SSD. Maybe that would have helped with the sluggishness that sets in when I have two user accounts (work and home) logged in. I find this makes it bog down a lot as I use it.

It is not because of hardware. Basically multiple accounts doesn’t bother hardware, since they are not used at the same time. This is a Mac OS bug. Known from long time ago.

But then again, my iMac 5K also bogs down a lot with 2-3 user accounts logged in, and it's got 24 GB of RAM installed.

this is another confirmation from your experience to the bugs of Mac OS.

 

[ignatius345]

It is not because of hardware. Basically multiple accounts doesn’t bother hardware, since they are not used at the same time. This is a Mac OS bug. Known from long time ago.

It's a "known bug"? I'd love to see more info about this. I've been working with multiple accounts for a few years now and it's only since Catalina that it's started to truly suck.

this is another confirmation from your experience to the bugs of Mac OS.

Yeah, I said that.

 

[ascender]

We've ended up getting a second Air this week as I'm really enjoying using it. With 8GB RAM, its clearly not as snappy as the 16" when opening apps, particularly a Windows VM, but once programs are open, they work just fine.

The fans do come on in all the usual scenarios I'd expect them to - its pretty much the same on all Mac laptops, let's face it. Occasionally they'll come on at very low for 10-15 seconds for something seemingly random, but then they go off again.

The only issue I've found with this one is that it seems to throw a wobbly when being disconnected/connected to an LG UltraFine screen over usb-c. Sometimes it fails to switch view to the external display and occasionally it will reboot when disconnected. I'm not overly worried by this as I've seen similar behaviour from other Mac laptops since the switch to usb-c.

 

[bobjonesco]

I switched back from a MBP 2020 4-port to a base 2020 Air and while I can notice the difference in performance, it's really not a $1500 difference to me.
(I had a base air when they came out and sold that to try iPad only for a while, which didn't work out and I bought the MBP after that and had it for 2 months)

Some things I liked better about the MBP:

- Nicer and brighter screen.
- Slightly better sound.

Some things I like better about the Air

- Form Factor
- Feels sturdier to type on
- Silent Trackpad clicks
- Better Battery
- Feels like a much better value proposition (aka, it doesn't feel like a $3000 laptop that I'm super careful with, but instead as a tool that I use to get work done.)

Heat and fan noise issues seem to have disappeared with 10.15.7

All in all - I love this MacBook Air and think that the base model is more than good enough for anyone who isn't editing videos or photos for a living.

 

[ghanwani]

I switched back from a MBP 2020 4-port to a base 2020 Air and while I can notice the difference in performance, it's really not a $1500 difference to me.

Heat and fan noise issues seem to have disappeared with 10.15.7

Heat & fan noise were not a problem the base (i3) version. It was only a problem with the i5, i7 versions, but appears to have been addressed for those as well.

 

[fitcious]

After having the laptop for 3 months now, I can say my fans only came on when I was transferring 60gig of content to it via usb, installing Office and on LinkedIn (don’t know why but it does).

Battery life is weak- I expected more from an semi-ultraportable laptop.

I have the i7/16/512

 

[ghanwani]

After having the laptop for 3 months now, I can say my fans only came on when I was transferring 60gig of content to it via usb, installing Office and on LinkedIn (don’t know why but it does).

Battery life is weak- I expected more from an semi-ultraportable laptop.

I have the i7/16/512

What kind of battery life are you seeing?

 

[fitcious]

What kind of battery life are you seeing?

Fully charge - around 6-7 hours or so?

Is there a more accurate way to see on the computer? I’m still new to MacOS

 

[ghanwani]

Fully charge - around 6-7 hours or so?

Is there a more accurate way to see on the computer? I’m still new to MacOS

Nothing beats actually measuring it yourself. My battery is now at about 85-90% of capacity. It lasts 6-7 hours with brightness at 75% and using the machine for browsing, youtube, MS Office, and Zoom calls (maybe 1 hour Zoom in 6 to 7 hours, if I have a lot of zoom calls, then battery life is even worse).

So I think your battery life is in line. FWIW, the battery life I see with the MBA is better by about 20-25% as compared to the MBPs that I owned for a short while before switching to the MBA.

 

[Maclver]

Did anyone order from Apple recently? Curious how long the shipping was. Order the i5 with 16GB RAM and it says delivery late october, early november

 

[lambertjohn]

Did anyone order from Apple recently? Curious how long the shipping was. Order the i5 with 16GB RAM and it says delivery late october, early november

Maybe they're waiting for the ARM Airs to come out before they ship you an Intel Air--to give you a chance to change your mind?

 

[ctjack]

Did anyone order from Apple recently? Curious how long the shipping was. Order the i5 with 16GB RAM and it says delivery late october, early november

Delivery says on Apple website October 30: so 16 days is an average wait time, if you order custom Air with changed RAM. Only i5 upgrade is processed the same as base.
This shipping dates are not unusual. This is always have been this way.

 

[Maclver]

Delivery says on Apple website October 30: so 16 days is an average wait time, if you order custom Air with changed RAM. Only i5 upgrade is processed the same as base.
This shipping dates are not unusual. This is always have been this way.

Here’s to hoping they have an i5 with 16GB laying around!

 

[MM07]

I ordered an Air with the i5 on 10-4. Still hasn’t shipped yet.

I hope soon.

 

[throAU]

So having put thermal pads underneath and on top of the heatsink, the machine is MUCH improved.

The whole "heat pipe" vs. heatsink thing.... irrelevant.

Apple need to make a heat sink that contacts the CPU due properly. You can fix it by padding out the space with a shim or a thermal pad.

I barely hear my fan now unless running at 100% CPU for extended periods, and even then its about half as loud as it used to be.