My first ever jump into a Mac was back in about 2010/11 with the 11" MacBook Air. I really liked the size, portability, and relative power. I graduated to the mid-2014 MacBook pro retina 13". I like it a lot, but it might be time to move on. I kind of wish that Apple was using the form factor of the 11" but with a better screen and smaller bezels. Am I alone here? I know they can't make a million sizes for everyone.
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Missing 11"?
- Thread starter Dhonk
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I will probably go with an i5 in the MacBook Air 2020. The MacBook using the m3 processors...were they any good processors? between that and the keyboard, I wasn't interested, but liked the design.
The MacBook was a train wreck. The only demographic and use case it excelled in was being a wealthy persons third computer to act as a pretty "Google machine" or 8 Ball Pool player to sit on a coffee table and sunbathe in it's toasty silence as it struggled to display those Miniclip.com flash games.
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Anyways, I'd recommend the i5 for the 2020 MacBook Air, quad core, 10nm, and an attractive price that we haven't seen in years from Apple.
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Anyways, I'd recommend the i5 for the 2020 MacBook Air, quad core, 10nm, and an attractive price that we haven't seen in years from Apple.
Answer deprecated due to OP's comment below:
I replaced my 12" MacBook 2017 with my current 13" MacBook Air 2019 (upgraded Core i5 processor). I'm glad I made the switch. The 2017 MacBook itself replaced an 11" MacBook Air 2013.
Since the MacBook 2017 had no fan, CPU throttling came quickly which resulted in degraded responsiveness with a sustained load. The keyboard ended up being an absolute atrocity. It looked good and was easy to carry around, but almost everything that had to do with using the system in a real world situation was appalling.
At least under a heavy sustained CPU load, my MacBook Air 2019 is still responsive, albeit with a noisy fan running.
Apple would say your real alternative is an iPad Pro. Depending on your specific usage case, you might want to look into that.
My MacBook Air is definitely my second system. I simply don't like staring at a small notebook computer's screen for hours and hours. My primary system is a Mac mini 2018 connected to a 27" UHD monitor with a real keyboard.
I've come to the realization that my next notebook computer could be a Wintel system. When I'm using a notebook computer, there is less requirement for the Mac environment and ecosystem. I just need my notebook computer for A.) e-mail, B.) basic web browsing, C.) the occasional video playback, and D.) running my brokerage's trading tool.
If I really needed to run office apps (a rare occurrence), I could get by with iCloud's browser based solution in a pinch.
I have a cheap Wintel desktop box at home so I'm already familiar with the interoperability considerations.
Since the MacBook 2017 had no fan, CPU throttling came quickly which resulted in degraded responsiveness with a sustained load. The keyboard ended up being an absolute atrocity. It looked good and was easy to carry around, but almost everything that had to do with using the system in a real world situation was appalling.
At least under a heavy sustained CPU load, my MacBook Air 2019 is still responsive, albeit with a noisy fan running.
Apple would say your real alternative is an iPad Pro. Depending on your specific usage case, you might want to look into that.
My MacBook Air is definitely my second system. I simply don't like staring at a small notebook computer's screen for hours and hours. My primary system is a Mac mini 2018 connected to a 27" UHD monitor with a real keyboard.
I've come to the realization that my next notebook computer could be a Wintel system. When I'm using a notebook computer, there is less requirement for the Mac environment and ecosystem. I just need my notebook computer for A.) e-mail, B.) basic web browsing, C.) the occasional video playback, and D.) running my brokerage's trading tool.
If I really needed to run office apps (a rare occurrence), I could get by with iCloud's browser based solution in a pinch.
I have a cheap Wintel desktop box at home so I'm already familiar with the interoperability considerations.
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I'm a high school teacher that always has 4-8 tabs open in safari, sometimes including Google Drive. I use Numbers a ton, always with 1-2 spreadsheets open for things like planning, budgeting, etc. I always have Mail open (it's a resource hog). I probably do half of my texting/messaging from my laptop. I also use test generator software to make my tests, and I haven't found anything that works on an iPad. It's possible the new iPad pro (edit: originally typed mac pro) could meet most of my priorities, but I've never really tried to use my iPad as a computer replacement. Instead I generally have different use cases for my iPhone X, iPad mini 5, and MacBook Pro ret 13".
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Well, unfortunately for you, Apple would rather have you buy a 11” iPad Pro than make another ultra compact laptop. It’s too bad, but it is what it is.
I wish you had posted your specific usage case in your original post. It would have saved me the time of writing my reply.
Revised answer: it's a MacBook Air or a Wintel notebook.
I hereby bow out of this conversation.
I also may go a completely different direction and get an iMac, trying to use the iPad more. If there's no trade-in value for this old mac pro retina, then maybe it'll become a secondary device. But regardless, I'm glad Apple has made the Air more compelling. Thanks for the input everyone.