Worth upgrading i3 2020 MacBook Air to M1?

[Quotenfrau]

You may want to invest in an inexpensive laptop cooling stand / pad.

Thanks. Do you have some example links / products? I don't know what you mean.

I identified Stage Manager as very CPU hungry. After disabling that, it's much better

 

[chrfr]

Hmmm... That's too bad. Which model does she have?

I was considering a used 2020 i5 MBA for my young kid since performance is not a big concern, just OS support. Usage would be surfing, online interactive websites, Zoom, Messages, and simple stuff like that. (We have older less powerful Macs which handle that workload just fine.) M1 is a consideration too, but the M1 MacBook Airs are considerably more expensive. The (much) longer battery life of M1 would be a bonus, but isn't mission critical as it will be mainly used at home.

Yeah, the performance of the 2018-2020 Intel Airs is pretty poor; the M1 is a much better computer.
For your kid's use, why not just get an iPad? They'll do Zoom, Messages, and browsing just fine.

 

[James_C]

Thanks. Do you have some example links / products? I don't know what you mean.

I identified Stage Manager as very CPU hungry. After disabling that, it's much better

Well it looks like you found the culprit.

This appears to be the most popular Cooiling Pad on Amazon in the UK, at least you get the idea. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooling-HA...+pad+for+macbook+air,aps,84&sr=8-1-spons&th=1

 

[EugW]

Yeah, the performance of the 2018-2020 Intel Airs is pretty poor; the M1 is a much better computer.
For your kid's use, why not just get an iPad? They'll do Zoom, Messages, and browsing just fine.

They have iPads already, but some of the interactive websites don't work properly on the iPad. Also, the online web-based Google applications sometimes act funky on the iPad.

Again, performance isn't an issue. My other kid uses a 2015 i5 13" MacBook Pro and it isn't taxed at all for those applications. But the fan coming on all the time would be irritating.

Geekbench 5 scores:
2015 MBP i5-5257U: 800/1758
2020 MBA i3-1000NG4: 1076/2300
2020 MBA i5-1030NG7: 1180/3794

 

[James_C]

Hmmm... That's too bad. Which model does she have?

I was considering a used 2020 i5 MBA for my young kid since performance is not a big concern, just OS support. Usage would be surfing, online interactive websites, Zoom, Messages, and simple stuff like that. (We have older less powerful Macs which handle that workload just fine.) M1 is a consideration too, but the M1 MacBook Airs are considerably more expensive. The (much) longer battery life of M1 would be a bonus, but isn't mission critical as it will be mainly used at home.

She has the i5. I would avoid the 2020 MBA, keyboard is not great, they tend to run hot. The M1 MBA is night and day a much better machine. Better Keyboard, silent, much quicker than the March 2020 Intel variant, much longer battery life. The early 2020 Intel MBA is one to avoid. Apart from that Apple is moving to Apple Silicon now which is likely to mean in the not to distant future, new Mac OS releases will be Apple Silicon only (although security updates will be available for a while longer).

 

[EugW]

She has the i5. I would avoid the 2020 MBA, keyboard is not great, they tend to run hot. The M1 MBA is night and day a much better machine. Better Keyboard, silent, much quicker than the March 2020 Intel variant, much longer battery life. The early 2020 Intel MBA is one to avoid. Apart from that Apple is moving to Apple Silicon now which is likely to mean in the not to distant future, new Mac OS releases will be Apple Silicon only (although security updates will be available for a while longer).

Interesting. Other people have said the keyboard is similar, aside from differences in the function keys, since both are scissor.

 

[chrfr]

Interesting. Other people have said the keyboard is similar, aside from differences in the function keys, since both are scissor.

The 2020 keyboard on the Intel Air is the scissor one that's virtually identical to what's in the M1. The 2018 and 19 keyboards are the terrible butterfly versions.
In spite of the benchmarks, the 2015 Pro feels faster than the later Airs do. The cooling system in the Pro is much more effective and will better keep the system cool and running at rated speeds, and will be quieter in normal use.

 

[James_C]

Interesting. Other people have said the keyboard is similar, aside from differences in the function keys, since both are scissor.

Sorry my mistake, I thought it had the old butterfly keyboard. Please ignore my keyboard comment. The other points are valid though. Heat issue is real, my daughter complains that the fans come on when she is streaming movies.

 

[EugW]

Sorry my mistake, I thought it had the old butterfly keyboard. Please ignore my keyboard comment. The other points are valid though. Heat issue is real, my daughter complains that the fans come on when she is streaming movies.

Well, that's unfortunate. My wife's 2017 i5-5350U MacBook Air's fan never comes on, including with video streaming. It probably is only 720p though.

 

[James_C]

Well, that's unfortunate. My wife's 2017 i5-5350U MacBook Air's fan never comes on, including with video streaming. It probably is only 720p though.

Yep - easier iterations of the MBA are fine. My wife had a 2015 MBA which lasted many years until I got her a M1 Air last year. The Early 2020 variant is one to avoid.

 

[Bazza1]

Bear in mind that the M1 is now 2 year old technology - and given Apple's penchant for creating OSs that require newest possible tech for all the bells and whistles (their hardware outlasts their OSs) - I'd rather suggest that you keep an eye on their online Refurb and Clearance site for a M2 instead.

 

[chrfr]

The Early 2020 variant is one to avoid.

The 2018 and 2019 versions are equally poor performers, but also have the faulty butterfly keyboard so they're even worse than the 2020 Intel.
Apple doesn't call the 2020 Intel Air an "early 2020", it's just the "Retina, 13-inch, 2020".

 

[EugW]

Yep - easier iterations of the MBA are fine. My wife had a 2015 MBA which lasted many years until I got her a M1 Air last year. The Early 2020 variant is one to avoid.

The 2018 and 2019 versions are equally poor performers, but also have the faulty butterfly keyboard so they're even worse than the 2020 Intel.
Apple doesn't call the 2020 Intel Air an "early 2020", it's just the "Retina, 13-inch, 2020".

Yes, I went from looking at the 2015 MacBook Pro and 2015/2017 MacBook Airs last year on the used market, directly to the 2020 models this year, specifically because of the butterfly keyboard.

I have a 2017 MacBook and while it still works perfectly, I don't like the keyboard feel, even though it's miles better than the 2015 MacBook's keyboard feel.

I'm still trying to get a handle on the used pricing here, but it seems that for the 2020 MBAs, a rough guess would have the Intel models about CA$200 / US$150 less here. IOW, the M1 models probably cost about 25-30% more on the used market. I guess for the hardware and OS support advantages for M1, that's worth it.

Bear in mind that the M1 is now 2 year old technology - and given Apple's penchant for creating OSs that require newest possible tech for all the bells and whistles (their hardware outlasts their OSs) - I'd rather suggest that you keep an eye on their online Refurb and Clearance site for a M2 instead.

Were you talking to me or the OP? In either case... The M1 MBA will likely get macOS support for a bit longer than its release date suggests considering that it's still being sold now, but probably not too much longer. So maybe only a year less than the M2 MBA, and probably not two years less.

 

[James_C]

The 2018 and 2019 versions are equally poor performers, but also have the faulty butterfly keyboard so they're even worse than the 2020 Intel.
Apple doesn't call the 2020 Intel Air an "early 2020", it's just the "Retina, 13-inch, 2020".

The MBA was never a powerful machine until the M1 variant. @EugW was specifically asking for a suitable laptop for his kid and performance was not a concern. I 100% agree that the Butterfly keyboards were horrible, I was unfortunate to purchase the 2016 MBP with the first gen Butterfly and the dreadful Touch Bar. However the 2020 Intel MBA was particularly renown for throttling and overheating due to poor thermals, significantly worse than the prior versions.

Ineffective cooling system in new MacBook Air causing problems

The 2020 MacBook Air looks like a great computer, with impressive specs and an attractive price, but reports of the laptops overheating, loud fan noises and other problems have led to calls for Apple to improve the cooling system

www.macworld.com

 

[James_C]

I'm still trying to get a handle on the used pricing here, but it seems that for the 2020 MBAs, a rough guess would have the Intel models about CA$200 / US$150 less here. IOW, the M1 models probably cost about 25-30% more on the used market. I guess for the hardware and OS support advantages for M1, that's worth it.

I know you are struggling with budget, but the M1 Air is not just an incremental upgrade, but a huge upgrade from the Intel MBA it replaced. There is a very good reason why the second hand Intel MBA are going so cheap... $150 extra is definitely worth it to get a laptop that will last many years.

 

[EugW]

I know you are struggling with budget, but the M1 Air is not just an incremental upgrade, but a huge upgrade from the Intel MBA it replaced. There is a very good reason why the second hand Intel MBA are going so cheap... $150 extra is definitely worth it to get a laptop that will last many years.

Not really struggling with budget... but sorta... in the sense that I'm struggling to wrap my head around spending the cash on a machine that's just gonna get used for stuff like Google Classroom and low budget educational web games. 😛

Maybe the better solution might just be to give him my 2017 12" MacBook. I don't use it much anyway, and it's fanless so no fan noise. However, I suspect he'll destroy the keyboard sooner rather than later since he is bad with crumbs. 😕 Or maybe he'll be satisfied with my 2014 8 GB Core i5 Mac mini when I upgrade to an M2 / M2 Pro Mac mini.

Anyhow, thank you everyone for the advice. Unless it's absolutely dirt cheap, I will avoid the 2020 Intel models, and will keep my eyes peeled for a good M1 MBA deal.

 

[jdb8167]

Well it looks like you found the culprit.

This appears to be the most popular Cooiling Pad on Amazon in the UK, at least you get the idea. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooling-HAVIT-Laptop-Cooler-Lighting/dp/B00NNMB3KS/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=10UC5UNTT41MI&keywords=Laptop+Cooling+pad+for+MacBook+Air&qid=1667484124&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIyLjk0IiwicXNhIjoiMC4wMCIsInFzcCI6IjAuMDAifQ==&sprefix=laptop+cooling+pad+for+macbook+air,aps,84&sr=8-1-spons&th=1

I bought this one: Coolertek USB Powered Laptop Cooler. It worked well and was reasonably quiet but not silent like they claim. I bought it on a whim to do some testing of my M2 MacBook Air to see if it would improve performance under load—spoiler, it does. I haven't used it since I did the testing but it was only $20.

 

[magbarn]

Bear in mind that the M1 is now 2 year old technology - and given Apple's penchant for creating OSs that require newest possible tech for all the bells and whistles (their hardware outlasts their OSs) - I'd rather suggest that you keep an eye on their online Refurb and Clearance site for a M2 instead.

The M2 is more a frequency bump like 2013-2014 macbook upgrades were performance wise. The case and magsafe are the most noticeable changes. I'm pretty sure their future support isn't going to be that different. I replaced my wife's early 2020 MBA for the M1 MBA on clearance as it's heavily discounted. The early 2020 MBA fan is constantly running and noticeable even when just browsing. The only thing my wife misses about the i5 MBA is that it makes a great leg warmer during the fall/winter. The M1 MBA is always cold 😀

 

[Modernape]

Hmmm... That's too bad. Which model does she have?

I was considering a used 2020 i5 MBA for my young kid since performance is not a big concern, just OS support. Usage would be surfing, online interactive websites, Zoom, Messages, and simple stuff like that. (We have older less powerful Macs which handle that workload just fine.) M1 is a consideration too, but the M1 MacBook Airs are considerably more expensive. The (much) longer battery life of M1 would be a bonus, but isn't mission critical as it will be mainly used at home.

I had that model before I got the M1 - it was fine, but the battery would not last all day. So, if it needed recharging at the same time as a Zoom call, the fans would be so loud as to drown out the audio. The M1 of course is silent, whatever's happening.

 

[EugW]

Thanks everyone. With your advice I passed on the 2020 Intel MBA models, even though I saw some very decent deals on them. Fan noise during Zoom / Teams was a specific concern.

I may wait a bit on an M1 MBA too though. I just ordered a used M1 Mac mini and will pass down my old 2014 Mac mini (2.6 GHz i5 / 8 GB RAM / 500 GB NVMe SSD / 1 TB HD / Monterey) to the kid. That Intel machine is completely silent when running Zoom. In fact, it’s completely silent regardless of what I do (although I don’t do more hardcore stuff like edit video on it).

 

[StoneJack]

M1 and M2 are amazing chips. They run very well on Mac Mini and Macbooks, with heat, noise and power limitations and do it exceptionally well. I have not used Studio or iMac to judge the desktop M performance. Generally, for desktops recent Intel chips are very powerful too, so probably a draw here, but in notebooks anything M is very much ahead of competition from Intel.

 

[EugW]

M1 and M2 are amazing chips. They run very well on Mac Mini and Macbooks, with heat, noise and power limitations and do it exceptionally well. I have not used Studio or iMac to judge the desktop M performance. Generally, for desktops recent Intel chips are very powerful too, so probably a draw here, but in notebooks anything M is very much ahead of competition from Intel.

I just picked up an M1 Mac mini 16 GB with 1 TB SSD. My 2017 Core i5-7600 iMac 24 GB with 1 TB SSD is plenty fast for mainstream computing, but nonetheless the M1 feels significantly faster. For example, on the iMac web pages render very quickly, but on the M1 they render almost instantly. I mean we are talking fractions of a second differences, but it's not that hard to notice. The iMac is fast enough that I'd have no problem at all continuing to use the iMac as my daily driver for many years to come, but M1 is still quite impressive in comparison.

In contrast, the 2014 Mac mini 8 GB with 512 GB SSD (and 1 TB HD) I had before can be laggy with certain actions. It's fast enough for light mainstream usage, but the difference is noticeable, even against the iMac, especially if I'm heavily multitasking. Some of it is may be the RAM, but the CPU can get stressed with some video playback for example.

OTOH, on all three machines, I essentially never hear the fans come on.

The only one strange thing with the M1 I've noticed is wake from sleep delay. Not a big deal, as it only takes a few seconds on the M1, but it is often actually faster on the 2014 Mac mini and 2017 iMac. Strange considering the M1 is a clean install.

 

[Bodhitree]

That’s really odd because wake-from-sleep is pretty much instant on my M1 iMac. But I agree with you that the M1 just generally feels very quick, it’s like the latency on common operations has suddenly gone down a lot compared to its Intel predecessors.

 

[EugW]

That’s really odd because wake-from-sleep is pretty much instant on my M1 iMac. But I agree with you that the M1 just generally feels very quick, it’s like the latency on common operations has suddenly gone down a lot compared to its Intel predecessors.

Might have to do with the screen setup. I’m using a third party USB-C to dual-link DVI dongle on the M1, with a 30” Cinema Display. With the 2014 Mac mini, I was using Apple’s OEM mini-DP to dual-link DVI dongle.

It seems the screen may be waking up after the Mac actually does.

 

[JiggyJaggy]

Got to say my MacBook Air M1 is a really capable and perfect size machine. So glad I upgraded to it and can't see the need to change to anything more powerful anytime soon tbh.