Waiting for the 2020 MacBook Air

[iamthedudeman]

I guess Apple surprised everybody with t h we 4 cores.

 

[thadoggfather]

I guess Apple surprised everybody with t h we 4 cores.

yeah pretty wild. and made the price more reasonable

 

[1204949]

I'm more surprised they still use the crappy cooling solution as in the MBA 2018 despite now having quad cores.

(at least it appears to be the case so far)

 

[ascender]

could be a variety of reasons but it comes down to individual needs from price, not needing the power of a pro, not needing the touchbar and obviously the keyboard

im struggling as to why anyone would even get a 13mbp when the air looks exactly the same minus the obvious missing touchbar and power. this leads me to believe that the current 13inch will jump to 14inch and the air will be the sole 13inch'

i personally use a 2019 13'mbp. i love it, no issues with the keyboard and i have no reason to upgrade but the 2020 air is finally a solid device for people who dont do "pro" task. I love how apple finally dropped the 128gb base storage and didnt increase the price. what world am i living in? Apple is making moves tailored to the customer

I've got a second hand 13" MBP just here now and was waiting for the new 13/14", but I'm going for a quad core Air with 16GB RAM. I'll be honest, its a combination of price, no-Touchbar and the fact I don't need the extra power and improved screen of the Pro. Its a nice to have, but I think the Air ticks all the boxes for me and I prefer the tapered shape.

 

[AJB1971]

I guess Apple surprised everybody with t h we 4 cores.

I think a few of us predicted 4 core processors - see my post below from the 24th of January. The 2 core processor was wrongly listed as an i5 in the opening post, something which I spotted later on.

I am pleased that Apple went with a base storage of 256GB.

I think the sweet spot in the new range is the $1,099/£1,099 i5 with 256GB of storage. That will be sufficient for most users.

I could see Apple using the 2 core/4 thread i5-1000G4 in a base, 128GB version of the Air. This would be their new budget laptop, effectively replacing the old non-retina Air and it could enable them to hit a $999 price point, which would be significant for them.

When Apple launched the third generation Air in October 2018 their range of small screen laptops was complicated. They already had the 12-inch MacBook, 2nd gen non-retina Air, and the 13-inch Pros. The 12-inch MacBook and 2nd gen Air were discontinued in July 2019 and that, plus the fact that the smaller Pros are likely to be upgraded shortly, should give Apple the opportunity to redefine their range.

I expect them to offer more versions of the Air than they currently do. I think they hope it will become the mainstream choice for a lot of people, like it was in the past.

It’s worth remembering that when Apple announced the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro back in October 2016 they hoped that MacBook Air customers would upgrade to it, but that wasn’t really going to happen because it was just too expensive (It's the 1:14:40 mark) -

I do think we will see a 4 core/8 thread processor in the Air, either the i5-1030G4 or the i5-1030G7, but it could be in the version which starts with 256GB of storage. It’s probably too much to expect the i7-1060G7, but who knows, it may be an option or it could come later on.

As far as the smaller Pro is concerned, I expect Apple to drop the 128GB version. When the 16-inch Pro launched Apple moved that up to 512GB from the 256GB offered in the 15-inch version. They could also move up to 16GB of RAM, but I’m not convinced that will happen just yet.

Just my thoughts, but I’m interested to see what happens.

 

[supertiffany]

is it better to get the 16gb ram rathen than i5 because of throttling?

 

[Falhófnir]

is it better to get the 16gb ram rathen than i5 because of throttling?

That will depend if what you're doing requires more RAM, more processing/ graphics power, or neither

 

[navaira]

I am pleased that Apple went with a base storage of 256GB.

Maybe soon they'll shock us by offering free iCloud storage of 10GB!

 

[supertiffany]

That will depend if what you're doing requires more RAM, more processing/ graphics power, or neither

more into multitasking like opening multiple windows with multiple tabs and office, but that USD100 upgrade to quad core is a steal for its price and performance boost

 

[marshy]

more into multitasking like opening multiple windows with multiple tabs and office, but that USD100 upgrade to quad core is a steal for its price and performance boost

Agreed.

The i3->i5 upgrade is a steal / no brainer; much better CPU & GPU for $100.

The 8->16 RAM is more debatable (IMHO, because of the high cost), but if you're a "power multitasker", plan to do photo/video editing, and/or are planning to run one or more external 4k+ monitors, then I would definitely go for it...

[Personally, I'm a fan of RAM - I purchased the i5/16 GiB RAM / 512 GiB SSD option to replace a 2014 15.4" MacBook Pro w/ 16 GiB RAM; my daily computer is an i7 2018 Macmini with [user upgraded] 32 GiB RAM]

 

[Expos of 1969]

Agreed.

The i3->i5 upgrade is a steal / no brainer; much better CPU & GPU for $100.

The 8->16 RAM is more debatable (IMHO, because of the high cost), but if you're a "power multitasker", plan to do photo/video editing, and/or are planning to run one or more external 4k+ monitors, then I would definitely go for it...

[Personally, I'm a fan of RAM - I purchased the i5/16 GiB RAM / 512 GiB SSD option to replace a 2014 15.4" MacBook Pro w/ 16 GiB RAM; my daily computer is an i7 2018 Macmini with [user upgraded] 32 GiB RAM]

I have a 2013 Macbook Pro and this new Air (same config as you have just purchased) sounds like it could be a good replacement for me. I have one concern, that being the screen display. Having been used ti my MBP great screen will the Air screen seem quite dim in comparison?