New MacBook Air Announced With Magic Keyboard, Up to 2x Faster Performance, and Lower $999 Starting Price

[turbineseaplane]

OTOH, limited storage can somewhat easily be remedied by using external hard drives and online storage. I'd recommend upgrading the RAM and the processor if you plan on keeping it for a while. In future macOS versions, the extra RAM especially will probably be important for good performance.

That's a fairly subjective "solution" on storage..

For me, I can't stand the thought of having dongled up storage hanging off my MacBook Air all the time.

Only this user can really know what to do for them I suppose.

Shame they have no SD slot anymore.
That's a great way to add storage to older machines

 

[riverrun46]

I don't understand why there're so many people claiming the same old "MacBook Air is rubbish, buy MBP 13' instead" **** regardless of how significant this update was.

 

[KPOM]

The quad-core Air looks really nice and is priced right.
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I don't understand why there're so many people claiming the same old "MacBook Air is rubbish, buy MBP 13' instead" **** regardless of how significant this update was.

Before today, I had a hard time recommending the MacBook Air. Today, the quad-core is an easy recommendation. $1299 for a quad-core and 512GB of storage is a much better deal than the 13” Pro for most people.

 

[superiska123]

That's a fairly subjective "solution" on storage..

For me, I can't stand the thought of having dongled up storage hanging off my MacBook Air all the time.

Only this user can really know what to do for them I suppose.

Shame they have no SD slot anymore.
That's a great way to add storage to older machines

Of course, it definitely isn't the solution for everyone. I don't mind it as I usually only have a couple of things I need to work on at a time, and when I need additional storage every once in a while I don't mind carrying an external SSD/HDD.

Agreed about the SD card slot...

 

[KPOM]

...And finally, it also has 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports! The single port has been bugging me so much so I went to MBP13.

The MacBook Air has had 2 TB since 2018. What’s new is the quad-core option.

 

[Mac133]

For the people who are into video/photography mbp13 2019 is still better. Not by a huge margine, but display is just better.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Very nice update

Personally I'm waiting for whatever is next on sub 16" Pro I think (hopefully 14" screen)

 

[dgdosen]

I think these are great devices - but I wonder with people working at home for the next few weeks, are people using laptops? Most of my time working from home, I'm on a more powerful desktop...

 

[djrm]

Anyone know if this is still the same with the new model? It was quite a noticeable difference before!

"The air and the pro both have 13.3in LED-backlit displays with IPS technology at a resolution of 2560x1600 making them 227ppi. The only difference now is that the Pro boasts a 500nit brightness level and wide colour (P3), but does not quote these for the Air."

 

[Mitch1984]

Anyone know or reckon if it will be faster than MacBook Pro 13" from the end of 2016, given this one is 4 years newer.

 

[bchery21]

Price decrease plus increase in storage is the best combo.

 

[Mainsail]

So, I think I know the answer to this question, but if my 2019 MBA needs a lower case replacement, would I get the new scissor mechanism or just a replacement of the 2019 KB? My guess is the later.....but, not sure.

 

[Mac133]

Anyone know if this is still the same with the new model? It was quite a noticeable difference before!

"The air and the pro both have 13.3in LED-backlit displays with IPS technology at a resolution of 2560x1600 making them 227ppi. The only difference now is that the Pro boasts a 500nit brightness level and wide colour (P3), but does not quote these for the Air."

I think it is. You can compare them at apple website and for air there is no p3 and it is still 400nits. I guess they did this on purpose because 13 2019 would be dead if they had the same display.

 

[Falhófnir]

Anyone know or reckon if it will be faster than MacBook Pro 13" from the end of 2016, given this one is 4 years newer.

Given that's a dual core and the i5 and i7 versions of the Air are quad core I would imagine at least multi core performance will be quite a bit better. The single core score might be comparable, a little better or a little worse.

 

[rmoliv]

I don't get it. Why is an overall better computer cheaper than the previous models? I can only think that Apple was overcharging customers.

 

[azentropy]

Nice spec update and nice price point. However it is a disappointing it is still $200 to upgrade from 8GB to 16GB RAM.

 

[Zdigital2015]

they can do what they did to the Mini and call it and “update”

There is no point this late in the 2019 iMac's lifecycle and that's hardly what the OP is asking for in his post. The iMac is long overdue for new industrial design and unless Apple is saving it for the ARM/Arm switchover, there is a good chance we'll see it this year...but if that occurs, it won't be until Apple has Comet Lake-S CPUs in-hand which are likely to be unveiled by Intel in early-April, as they have been in the past. Covid-19 makes any prognostications tricky, so I will add that qualifier.
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I don't get it. Why is an overall better computer cheaper than the previous models? I can only think that Apple was overcharging customers.

Feel free to send them extra cash you have lying around if you think the new pricing is too low.

Jeez, do you people think before writing? Never mind, I already know the answer...

Here's the answer you want...APPLE ARE THE DEVIL!!!

 

[Mattsasa]

Also a very balanced line-up: dual-core i3 with 4MB cache, quad-core i5 with 6MB cache, quad-core i7 with 8MB cache. Incredibly fast LP-DDR4 memory and Iris Plus Graphics!

For those wondering, I think they put the i3-1000G4, i5-1030G7 and i7-1060G7 in this generation. These are 10nm CPU's with a 9 watt TDP.

I am wondering about this. Are you sure the i5 and i7 are the lower TDP processors?

the i5 couldn't be the 1035G4 or 1035G7. and the i7 couldn't be the 1065G7?

The clock speeds listed on apples website to not match up with the clock speeds for the processors you listed.?

 

[rosyapple]

It's now Iris Plus so should be better than the horribly anaemic HD 617 - likely closer to the 15W MacBook Pro than the outgoing Air... actually are these 15W chips? I don't think Y chips have Iris, or at least they haven't done til now.

So is this Intel Iris Graphics card good? Can I play WoW at at least 30FPS on it?

 

[carlos700]

The Ice Lake Benchmark Preview: Inside Intel's 10nm

www.anandtech.com

Ice Lake really seems to do well with IPC and I think these machines (adequately cooled) are going to give the current 13" a run for its money at best, at worst, they are a huge step up from the prior dual-core Whisky Lake i5.

 

[Metrosey]

I wish they'd have a 32GB option on this thing...

IceLake supports 32GB, but I don't think they'd use 32GB on their Air series. The 14 inch Pro will have 32GB support.

Apple’s Tech Specs webpage lists the 2020 MacBook Air has 802.11ac (WiFi 5). Was there somewhere else that stated it has 802.11ax (WiFi 6)?

Icelake supports WiFI ax, so if anything, Apple decided not to use it or it's an error on their website.

 

[turbineseaplane]

So what's the weak point here?

(relatively speaking I mean)

Screen quality?

 

[robjulo]

I’m considering this as my next upgrade. I’ve been using my iPad Pro as my ”laptop”. I may switch back to this rather than upgrading to the new iPad Pro.

Thoughts/opinions from anyone in the same boat?

 

[darkslide29]

I have read people say over the last year, if you're going to spend MacBook Air money, you might as well go MacBook Pro for a little more. Does this make the MacBook Air more appealing? Looking for my girlfriend who is somehow still using a MacBook Pro 13" 2011 and wants to upgrade this year. She isn't a power user, but I've been hesitant to recommend an air if she wants her computer to last 5+ years.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I’m considering this as my next upgrade. I’ve been using my iPad Pro as my ”laptop”. I may switch back to this rather than upgrading to the new iPad Pro.

Thoughts/opinions from anyone in the same boat?

What do you "do" with your laptop?

The answer lies within.
If you're hamstrung by iPad OS, then it's a no brainer.