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2020 Core i5 Apple Macbook Air Detailed Review

It’s brilliant.

Ok fine, let’s do a small Q&A no one asked for.

Doesn’t it get a bit hot and noisy under load?

It does, but it rarely happens. Actually I don’t even run tbswitcher on it. It’s not a good laptop if your aim is to run XCode or multiple Docker containers regularly, and neither is this a good laptop for editing videos in Premiere Pro. But you knew that already didn’t you?

TBH the way I use it (Safari, Photos.app, Ableton), it generally runs cooler and quieter than my 2019 13” Core i5 MBP.

So you’re saying it’s fast enough?

Yes.

Doesn’t it bother you that it only has ports on the left side?

It bothers me greatly.

How is the new keyboard?

It’s amazing. I like it better than the pre-2015 keyboards even. Hell, I like it better than my old ThinkPad keyboard. There, I said it.

Don’t you miss the touchbar?

Hell no.

How about battery life?

I don’t know. Usual estimate shows somewhere around 9 hours, but mind you, I don’t run Chrome or Electron apps on this laptop. I doubt you’d be able to get 11 hours Apple claims, but who knows. Also we’ll never be flying across continents again, so why would you care?

But wouldn’t you prefer to spend a few hundred more and get that new 13” MBP?

The thought crossed my mind, but… no. I dislike the touchbar so much that it’s unreasonable for me to spend extra money on it, and while it bothers me there are only two ports, it doesn’t bother me enough to pay for more. Performance-wise I also don’t care, because I don’t use this computer for work or any heavy workloads really.

Ok fine, should I be buying it?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯