Refreshed 2020 MBP vs. 2020 Air: what you get for an extra $300

[satchmo]

Apple has just refreshed the 13" MB Pro. All models are getting the magic keyboard and bigger SSD in the base model, like the 2020 MBA.

The lower models stick with the 8th gen processors. The $1799 model gets 10th gen processors.

I'm interested in a config with quad-core 10th gen processor / 512GB SSD / 16GB ram. In case some of you are, too, here are your options:

	2020 13" MB Air	2020 13" MB Pro
price	$1499	$1799
processor	1.1GHz quad-core 10th-gen Intel Core i5 processor, Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz	2.0GHz quad-core 10th-gen Intel Core i5 processor, Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz
RAM	16GB 3733MHz LPDDR4X memory	16GB 3733MHz LPDDR4X memory
SSD	512GB	512GB
ports	Two Thunderbolt 3 ports	Four Thunderbolt 3 ports
battery life	up to 11 hours	up to 10 hours
weight	2.8 pounds	3.1 pounds
camera	720p FaceTime HD camera	720p FaceTime HD camera
display	400 nits	500 nits, P3 wide color gamut
wifi 6?	no	no

I like the MB Air form factor better and dislike the Touch Bar, so I ordered the 2020 model when it was announced, got it 3 weeks later.

My unit ran much hotter than the 2018 MB Air I was hoping to replace. When doing day to day tasks, the 2020 with 10th-gen quad-core i5 model was no faster than my 2018 Air with 8th gen dual-core processor. When doing processor-intensive tasks, the 2020 model was also no faster than the 2018 model, because the 2020 model got very hot and throttled down.

I loved the typing experience on the 2020 Air and I like the true-tone display (which my 2018 Air doesn't have but the 2019 Air does).

I decided to return the 2020 Air and wait to see what the 13" MB Pro refresh looked like. I'm glad I did, and I ordered the configuration above.

For an extra $300, I'm getting a brighter display with P3 gamut, an extra 2 Thunderbolt ports on the right side so I can plug things into either side, and faster performance due to a much faster processor and better thermals. That's worth $300 to me.

I know some of you aren't concerned about the thermals or have a 2020 Air and aren't having a problem with thermal throttling. I'm happy for you, truly. (Though, are you sure your machine is offering better performance than the 2019 Air?)

For those that have concerns about the 2020 Air's thermals, take a look at the newly refreshed 2020 13" Pro. Yes, it's more expensive. But for some of you, what you get for the extra money might be worthwhile.

It would be interesting to add the iPad Pro 12.9" into your matrix to see how it stacks up.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Apple - good lord - give up on the frickin' TouchBar already please.

At the very minimum, make it optional everywhere now that you've engineered the new keyboard to include the one thing everyone does actually want - the TouchID part in the top right.

 

[kittycat40]

I've not been keeping up with wifi advances.

What specific quantifiable impacts to your usage would Wifi 6 provide?

Wi-Fi 6, explained: how fast it really is

The next generation brings more than just faster speeds.

www.google.com

 

[deeddawg]

Wi-Fi 6, explained: how fast it really is

The next generation brings more than just faster speeds.

www.google.com

Thanks. Nice read.

Which wifi6 router did you buy and did you find a big improvement over your prior one?

 

[AirBud]

The Air has a better GPU capable of driving a 6K display, better battery life, and is a bit lighter, but you are correct that in all other respects the base 13" Pro is better.

The crazy thing to me is the 2020 MBA can drive a 6k external monitor but the base 2020 13” MacBook “Pro” can’t.

I think it’s clear Apple is selling the 13” pro to “prosumers” (like the iPhone 11 “Pro” which i have). Actual professional work is going to be done on a 16” if not on a desktop.

Everything that can be done on a 13” MBP can be done on a MBA.

 

[oghowie]

The Air has a better GPU capable of driving a 6K display, better battery life, and is a bit lighter, but you are correct that in all other respects the base 13" Pro is better.

Hmmm, did not know about the 6K display capability. Will have to do more testing once the MBP arrives.

 

[fuzzywolf]

Oh apple... you deviant moneygrabbing sob.

I had finally made up my mind and ordered a mba 256/16/i5 for 1532$ the other day. Still kinda worried about the heating. I love my macbook air 2013 that never makes a sound, is cool and has awesome battery life. but are starting to
be a bit on the low end side when doing things like android studio etc. (especially since its core i5 1.6 with 4GB ram).

Im a bit of a multitasker with normally having 5-8 tabs in chrome/safari, youtube, spotify and some programming stuff going on in the same time. And now they come along with something that suits me alot better. BUT i love the Tear shape of the Air. It is soo nice when you have the laptop in your lap and want to type some.

An top tier mbpro 13 with 512/16/i5 10th gen would cost me 2300$ and once your there your not far from mbp16... xD

Damn you apple why couldnt you just connect that damn heatpipe on the processor in the air, it would be an amazing piece of hardware perfect for my needs. Ended up cancelling the air order and are awaiting reviews/comparison videos to make up my mind

 

[Dozer_Zaibatsu]

Right, but the MBP chip is higher wattage and has better cooling so still runs faster than the 10th gen in the Air. Less concerned about performance and more about heat really.. I don't use pro applications but do a lot of multitasking with Excel, Safari, Mail, MS Teams and a RDP and if I move between apps frequently the temps on my air get into the 90s with fans at 6,000- 7,000 RPM.

This is about right. Even when not using "pro" apps, MS Office and Browsers love to CPU and memory these days. If you're multitasking with browsers, listen to any streaming content, using Zoom and remote logins, you're hammering a small laptop these days.

I had been using a Dell XPS 13 for more than two years. I bough it over the Mac because I could get a new 13" quad-core while the Macs still had yet to update. It was a workhorse. Yet that U series chip and UHD graphics really got hammered when I was trying to do work with several things going at once.

 

[KPOM]

Oh apple... you deviant moneygrabbing sob.

Damn you apple why couldnt you just connect that damn heatpipe on the processor in the air, it would be an amazing piece of hardware perfect for my needs. Ended up cancelling the air order and are awaiting reviews/comparison videos to make up my mind

Even with a better cooling system, the Air would only be slightly faster. Apple theoretically could have used the i5-1035G7 that Dell, HP, etc. use in similar machines. That would have been the chip for the base 13” Pro if Apple decided to upgrade it (which they did not). I’m a bit surprised they didn’t just have a single low-end model of the 13” Pro for $1499 with the 10th Gen i5-1035G7.

 

[fuzzywolf]

Even with a better cooling system, the Air would only be slightly faster. Apple theoretically could have used the i5-1035G7 that Dell, HP, etc. use in similar machines. That would have been the chip for the base 13” Pro if Apple decided to upgrade it (which they did not). I’m a bit surprised they didn’t just have a single low-end model of the 13” Pro for $1499 with the 10th Gen i5-1035G7.

Yeah im not that fuzzy about speed as what i will be doing is gonna be short processing periods. It would be plenty for me as long as it can stick to beeing cool.
But when you see youtubers getting it to 100degrees just by running youtube etc. on a chip that is 11watts, it should really be able to remove that without sounding like a small jetengine and reving to 7k rpm on the fan.

 

[Siriosys]

I don’t think most MBA users require 16gb of RAM.

As for 2018 vs 2020 performance, the i5 2020 (w/ the heatsink mod) has 100% better multi-core performance and 50% better single-core performance than the 2018 model.

Personally if I was using a laptop for work needs I would get the 16” MBP.

I do, but I'm running VMWare and/or Parallels.

I'm curious, what's this "Heatsink mod" you speak of?

 

[deeddawg]

But when you see youtubers getting it to 100degrees just by running youtube etc. on a chip that is 11watts, it should really be able to remove that without sounding like a small jetengine and reving to 7k rpm on the fan.

All I know is my MBA has remained cool and quiet. Don’t do much YouTube video tho, and I don’t use chrome much on macOS, so I’ve probably not Run into those VP9 codec videos that get software decoded.

It’s almost like YouTube reviewers want to generate revenue by posting controversial stuff people will click on.

 

[KPOM]

Yeah im not that fuzzy about speed as what i will be doing is gonna be short processing periods. It would be plenty for me as long as it can stick to beeing cool.
But when you see youtubers getting it to 100degrees just by running youtube etc. on a chip that is 11watts, it should really be able to remove that without sounding like a small jetengine and reving to 7k rpm on the fan.

They are exaggerating. For instance, they are deliberately overriding settings to run content on YouTube at 4K, which is more of an issue with macOS than the hardware (long story, but the Apple/Google feud extends to support for two different codecs for 4K content).

I’ve run Quicken in a virtual machine. The fan doesn’t kick in (at least at a noticeable level) unless Windows 10 decides to install an update.
[automerge]1588715070[/automerge]

I do, but I'm running VMWare and/or Parallels.

I'm curious, what's this "Heatsink mod" you speak of?

There’s a 40+ page thread in this forum. People are trying to add copper to the heatsink to connect the CPU to the case (without disrupting the fan) in order to transfer heat to the case and extract more performance. It seems like a lot of trouble for not much gain.

 

[deeddawg]

I’ve run Quicken in a virtual machine. The fan doesn’t kick in (at least at a noticeable level) unless Windows 10 decides to install an update.

My work Lenovo laptop throws its fans on dozens of time through the day just doing normal office stuff. Chrome, WMI provider host, you name it.

 

[NovaLFS]

I feel that the 2020 MacBook Pro is sorta a cashgrab. I think that as long as you buy a keyboard cover, a 2019 MBP is a much better buy. The Air doesn't have the best thermals and the 2019 Pro actually sells for cheaper once you factor in the fact that you're upgrading the heatsink, which buys higher thermal headway.

 

[tfresquezdxs]

For FYI and clarity in the USA, even if you bought something online and your past your 14 days, if your local apple store opens past that 14 days, you can still return 14 days after store reopens (special COVID-19 policy). Also if stores don't open, Apple has an unofficial policy that if you bought a macbook and then a week later they refresh it with a new model, they do a special 30 day return policy (assuming you get the new model). You just have to appease the right apple rep.

 

[kittycat40]

I feel that the 2020 MacBook Pro is sorta a cashgrab. I think that as long as you buy a keyboard cover, a 2019 MBP is a much better buy. The Air doesn't have the best thermals and the 2019 Pro actually sells for cheaper once you factor in the fact that you're upgrading the heatsink, which buys higher thermal headway.

Well considering that most if not all the other manufacturers have wifi 6 in their 2019/2020 laptops these new macbook pros from Apple are a no go for me. Thus, the lack of wifi 6 makes neither the 2019/2020 apple laptops not a good buy.

I am so disappointed as I was looking forward to upgrading my 2016 macbook pro, but now I'll probably hold off.

 

[ayres]

I don’t think most MBA users require 16gb of RAM.

As for 2018 vs 2020 performance, the i5 2020 (w/ the heatsink mod) has 100% better multi-core performance and 50% better single-core performance than the 2018 model.

Personally if I was using a laptop for work needs I would get the 16” MBP.

What's the heatsink mod?

 

[guiguigui]

What's the heatsink mod?

In this thread we are discussing how to improve the thermals of the machine. One factor is how far is the CPU from the heatsink. There's actually a gap of around 0.3mm which by default is filled with thermal paste. The mod consists in adding a 0.3mm copper shim between the CPU and the heatsink (and using better thermal paste), which ends up as somme kind of sandwich:

CPU-thermalpaste-coppershim-thermalpaste-heatsink​

The mod basically improves the original thermal conductivity of the assembly with a pretty common solution (the shims are manufactured for this exact application, although not specifically branded for the MBA... yet!)
There are also other mods discussed, but this one seems to be the best performing and less intrusive, getting around 15% performance improvement and lower temps in general.

There’s a 40+ page thread in this forum. People are trying to add copper to the heatsink to connect the CPU to the case (without disrupting the fan) in order to transfer heat to the case and extract more performance. It seems like a lot of trouble for not much gain.

Note the mod I'm talking about above has nothing to do with transferring heat to the backplate. This idea has been discussed but, to me, it adds more problems in real use cases as the whole machine will become hotter.

*We better keep talking about the heatsink mod in the heatsink mod thread!

 

[TechZeke]

It seems like it goes like this:

Basic user that would use tablet mode most of time = iPad Pro
Basic user who wants a normal laptop = MacBook Air
Geek who cares about specs on paper and wants a basic portable computer = higher end MacBook Air or 2-TB-Port MacBook Pro
Creative Prosumer = High End 4-TB-Port 13" MBP or 16" MacBook Pro
Creative Professional = 16" MacBook Pro
Geek who just wants to spend money = Buying a MacBook Air or 13" Pro with maxed out RAM or Memory, or using a 16" MacBook Pro as a glorified Chromebook.

 

[turbineseaplane]

It seems like it goes like this:

Basic user that would use tablet mode most of time = iPad Pro
Basic user who wants a normal laptop = MacBook Air
Geek who cares about specs on paper and wants a basic portable computer = higher end MacBook Air or 2-TB-Port MacBook Pro
Prosumer = High End 4-TB-Port 13" MBP or 16" MacBook Pro
Professional = 16" MacBook Pro
Geek who just wants spend money = Buying MacBook Air or 13" Pro with maxed out RAM or Memory, or using a 16" MacBook Pro as a glorified Chromebook.

Don't forget a disturbingly large amount of general Apple users who go with:

iPhone, Watch, small iPad, large iPad, MacBook (old), MacBook (newer), iMac for occasional house usage, MBP that is a daily driver.

 

[Spinning Fan]

Don't forget a disturbingly large amount of general Apple users who go with:

iPhone, Watch, small iPad, large iPad, MacBook (old), MacBook (newer), iMac for occasional house usage, MBP that is a daily driver.

I thought you were writing about me, and it’s good to be acknowledged
Although, you forgot the Airpods (pro) for commuting.

Seriously.. , replace the iMac with a “Windows machine for occasional MS centric work” and a “vintage Mini that lives out its days as an overglorified file server” .. that sounds a lot like me

 

[mike...]

The 13" MBP is no good for me. I wanted a 13" machine with 32GB RAM, because my workload is not CPU intensive and most of my storage is networked, so either 256GB or 512GB would be fine. To get 32GB RAM on a 13" MBP is a £900 upgrade! That's because for whatever reason the base models have an 8th gen CPU which don't support it.

 

[Wakey87433]

Apple - good lord - give up on the frickin' TouchBar already please.

At the very minimum, make it optional everywhere now that you've engineered the new keyboard to include the one thing everyone does actually want - the TouchID part in the top right.

No the touchbar is a good thing they just need to open it up more. There is an increasing trend on the desktop PC side of the industry for non-streamers to add a stream deck to their setups as having customisable macro keys that are easily identifiable by images are a massive asset. Apple just have limited it too much, we should have a Similar level of customisation as the stream deck software gives us but with it being app aware and then it would be extremely useful

 

[Mopar]

Did anyone else notice the latest 13" MBP gained weight? Similar amount to the 2020 MBA with the new keyboard.