Models that are barely passable, at the time of purchase, given their AI push and its RAM needs (on Macs)
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Walmart Selling MacBook Air With M1 Chip for $649 Starting Today
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Models that are barely passable, at the time of purchase, given their AI push and its RAM needs (on Macs)
You are confirming my point that the MacBook Air 2020 is the oldest MacBook Air supported in Sequoia. That does not bode well for support unless you’re jumping to OpenCore Legacy Patcher or Linux.
Anyone who might want to have a passable, fully featured, macOS experience say... next year?
They will care
Many markets outside the US - such as EU and UK - mandate a limited repair/replace warranty for 5-6 years after sale - which that would be difficult without a supported version of MacOS, even if it's not the latest one. That's reflected in Apple's own definition of vintage and obsolete products and their typical MacOS support cycle.
Remember - Apple only discontinued the M1 Air this March and it won't turn into a pumpkin until the last MacOS to support it stops getting critical updates.
It's a good machine. I'm typing on one now (except with 512GB). Does day-to-day stuff just fine.
It’s a good deal for normal folk. For the nerds they would not dirty their hands touching such a low spec device
Not true, there was an intel MacBook Air released in early 2020 which is supported.
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I have a friend who got a base model of the M1 air for college and they only replaced it recently due to wanting more storage to work with multi gigabyte art project files. The only “swap” problem was files constantly downloading and deleting from iCloud Drive due to lack of space. They said they never even noticed it slowing down, and they use art programs, blender, and rarely close their tabs in safari all at once. The M1 air is an amazing machine for people who don’t hammer their computers, it just will probably not be a super long lasting one at this point. Good for a parent or grandparent imo.
The 2014 Mac mini was supported all the way up to Monterey, and Monterey is still good for the rest of this year. So that would be from the ten years from release, and six years from when they stopped selling it.
So I would expect that six years from this year, or at worst six years from last year. The real issue is how much of the AI hype will work on that hardware configuration. Then again, do you care?
My M1 MBA still does everything I want it to do.
This is a good deal for those who do basic and simple things, not for the MR nerd. And there are plenty folks out there who are doing just basic things …
This is a good deal for those who do basic and simple things, not for the MR nerd. And there are plenty folks out there who are doing just basic things …
Good point. I didn’t realize there were 2 Airs from 2020.
I have this exact model and am happy with it but truly doubt it will be supported in a meaningful way in 3 years.
My first laptop was a macbook core 2 duo in 2006. It was $999. This is a great option for students. It might only be "supported" for 5 more years, but it will last much longer. I have since spent many more dollars on Apple products. This is a gateway product.
It took until this year for there to even be a preconfig MacBook Air with 16GB on sale, and the iMac with more than 8GB is still BTO only. We are going to be in an 8GB world for a while longer, even if them getting cut from sale is approaching. They’re not going to just immediately drop the majority of their customers from support.
Apple released OpenELM as open source. We need not speculate abou the hardware needed to run it.
It runs fine on an iPhone.
This is a good deal, people here acting like the M1 chip sucks or something. I have a base M1 Mac mini and I do all my editing for my YouTube channel, photography, and graphic design on it with no problems. There is nothing wrong with the chip and the price is an excellent entry point for people wanting to get an inexpensive Mac.
Given that Apple is still selling the iPad 10, which has the A14, which is using the same process and cores and NPU as M1, plus the fact that the A10, A12 and A13 are still supported, I think it’s still going to be a long time before the M1 becomes even close to dated.
Also, consider the fact that even though the M1 was *first* released in 2020, it was still being built into new products in 2022 with the iPad Air.
Keeping this in mind, it’s unlikely to lose support until 2027 at the earliest, and that’s worst case scenario.
They certainly are. Walmart wouldn’t commit to selling old stock. Apple is still making them for education customers. Doesn’t mean it’s a good buy though. Apple was selling 2017 iMac through 2021. The people that bought it in 2021 now find it won’t support Sonoma.
MacBook Air (early) 2020 was Intel - the M1 was late 2020 - and it will likely still be supported by Sequoia through to mid 2027 - it's not even certain that it won't be supported by MacOS 2025 - and it's pretty unlikely that the (late) 2020 M1 Air won't be.
Mac OS Big Sur (rel Sep 2020) was supported with updates until 2023.
Mac OS Monterey (rel Oct 2021) is still supported - will probably be dropped this fall.
Sequoia will most likely get the same 3 years of support.
We don't know how long Apple Silicon machines are going to be supported but they don't have the same diversity of technology or need for 3rd party driver support as the Intel ones did - ASi is mostly different permutations of Apple-designed hardware.
For that matter, it's looking like the M3 models are going to have the shortest shelf-life at all - the late 2020 M1 was only discontinued this March, while the M4 Air is rumoured to be arriving in the next 6 months or so (which will see the demise of either the M2 Air, the M3 Air or both...)
But, yeah, M1 MacBook Air might become obsolete sooner than a newer model which is probably one reason why it is being sold at 40% discount...
I replaced my Macbook air M1 this weekend for good
with a MacBook Pro 2012
due to the software (mt Lion) being easier, no intrusions and fluid to use compared to Monterey OS.
which was an improvement from Sonoma and Ventura.
The minor annoyance are not with the Macbook air M1 or Monterey,
just the programs like MUSIC, TV Photos and icloud and everything
since they are designed to use THEIR media.....not mine.
so when in mid august after my month hiatus from "2024",
i will install VCL-Fireox-FOOBar to replace those programs.
Incorrect, the Intel Air released in March 2020 is still supported.
They’re right. It’s not that good of a deal considering it only has a couple of years of OS updates.