Should i buy 2020 macbook air?

[Ryan Kukreti]

Hey guys my name is Ryan, and i am a student. So i was thinking of buying the new macbook air just for some basic tasks like media consumption checking email, writing documents, youtube and all. I have seen many reviews including linus's one, and i clearly have no problem with the performance and design whatsoever, but the only thing that had me concerned was the thermals, so i wanted to know whether my macbook will hold up or not. I wont do anything heavy ofcourse just basic stuff, anyways....

[Oshino Shinobu]

It's a lot of money for a light use machine. 

 

Not worth it if you ask me. Something like a Dell XPS 13 would serve you just as well, if not better, for a lower cost. 

[Jumballi]

Buy iPad instead, literally covers all the bases you just asked and it only costs $350.

Invest the rest into a new desktop/upgrade for your current desktop. 
 

As apple is a closed ecosystem, your current mac should still be a killer machine and far from ewaste, try to get it through your first year and then ask if you need an upgrade(spoiler: most college students don’t)

[marmour]

8 minutes ago, Ryan Kukreti said:

 

If its just light use I'd save the cash and go for something cheaper like the Huawei Matebook 13

[Spindel]

Wait until after June 22

[Ryan Kukreti]

You are right but I am a little biased here...I never had macbook so really wanted to buy this one , have been using windows since the beginning, I just wanted to clarify whether it will overheat or not

[Oshino Shinobu]

2 minutes ago, Ryan Kukreti said:

You are right but I am a little biased here...I never had macbook so really wanted to buy this one , have been using windows since the beginning, I just wanted to clarify whether it will overheat or not

Won't overheat with what you're doing. 

 

It will work well for what you want. Whether you should buy it is really up to you if you're willing to spend the money. 

[Ryan Kukreti]

12 minutes ago, Spindel said:

Wait until after June 22

for what?

 

[Ryan Kukreti]

8 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Won't overheat with what you're doing. 

 

It will work well for what you want. Whether you should buy it is really up to you if you're willing to spend the money. 

alright thanks

 

[5x5]

25 minutes ago, Ryan Kukreti said:

Hey guys my name is Ryan, and i am a student. So i was thinking of buying the new macbook air just for some basic tasks like media consumption checking email, writing documents, youtube and all. I have seen many reviews including linus's one, and i clearly have no problem with the performance and design whatsoever, but the only thing that had me concerned was the thermals, so i wanted to know whether my macbook will hold up or not. I wont do anything heavy ofcourse just basic stuff, anyways....

The macbook air has no cooling whatsoever apart from a thin piece of aluminium on top of the CPU. It reaches 100*C in almost any use case since the heat cannot be dissipated quickly enough so it builds with anything remotely demanding (including high res video playback). It's a horrible design which WILL fail sooner than any other device on the market simply due to extreme heat and board warping.

[gloop]

1 minute ago, 5x5 said:

The macbook air has no cooling whatsoever apart from a thin piece of aluminium on top of the CPU. It reaches 100*C in almost any use case since the heat cannot be dissipated quickly enough so it builds with anything remotely demanding (including high res video playback). It's a horrible design which WILL fail sooner than any other device on the market simply due to extreme heat and board warping.

Can confirm it is noisy as well. My father has it and just idling at the desktop with no applications open the fan is clearly audible. 

[aisle9]

27 minutes ago, Ryan Kukreti said:

You are right but I am a little biased here...I never had macbook so really wanted to buy this one , have been using windows since the beginning, I just wanted to clarify whether it will overheat or not

I had never owned a MacBook before, so last December, I went out and dropped $1,100 on a brand new MacBook Pro 13". Within 24 hours, I'd returned it because holy crap that was a bad idea. A few months later, I spent $220 on eBay for a 2012 MacBook Pro 13" Unibody, and I've used that periodically and enjoyed having it around. If this is going to be your first MacBook, I strongly recommend buying a used one off of eBay instead, seeing if you like it, then buying a nicer one if you do. If you don't like it, you've got a $200-400 machine that will be easy to resell for roughly what you paid. If you buy brand new and don't like it, you've paid $1,100 after tax for a machine that's going to be worth $800-900 when you go to resell it.

[Spindel]

11 minutes ago, Ryan Kukreti said:

for what?

 

Apple hosts a developers (WWDC) conference on June 22.

 

Currently it is expected for them to reveal a move from Intel x86 CPUs to their own ARM CPUs in their computers. 

 

What this actually will mean has been hotly debated on the internet for a while now.

 

But what is expected is that Apples ARM CPUs should be as good (some say better) performance as Intels CPUs but att a lower power level (=less heat). 

 

By the usage you state you will not be impacted by the potential risk of application compatibility issues that might ensue from a CPU architecture switch. So if they announce a ARM laptop on WWDC this might actually be something that is worth getting for you. 

 

 

I am a mac user (iMac) at home (sadly have no other option at work than a regular windows laptop) and my personal belief is that a switch to ARM is a good thing and I will probably order a iMac or Mac Mini the first day they are announced with ARM. 

 

But currently people have really strong opinion about this on the internet and some people will probably correct me and tell you that a switch to ARM is the end of civilisation.

[spartaman64]

thats the heatsink on the macbook air and its nowhere near the fan which appears to be cooling a ribbon cable. you think that wont have overheating problems LUL

[harryk]

52 minutes ago, Ryan Kukreti said:

Hey guys my name is Ryan, and i am a student. So i was thinking of buying the new macbook air just for some basic tasks like media consumption checking email, writing documents, youtube and all. I have seen many reviews including linus's one, and i clearly have no problem with the performance and design whatsoever, but the only thing that had me concerned was the thermals, so i wanted to know whether my macbook will hold up or not. I wont do anything heavy ofcourse just basic stuff, anyways....

IMO the MacBook Air is the best student laptop, if you can afford it and like macOS. I would not concern myself with thermals etc. as it is not a performance machine. But if you need it to, it does work for heavy computational tasks and will get hot but despite all the fear-mongering it will not kill the machine unless you're doing that for many hours every day, in which case a MBA is not the right tool for the job. Unless something has changed with the newest model, for lightweight daily tasks the MBA will operate in zero-rpm mode (aka no fan) most of the time.

 

Some general Apple buying tips:

- Use your student discount via the Apple Education store

- If you can wait a few weeks Apple usually launches its Back To School Promotion in early July

- Check out the Apple Refurbished store for the best deals on Apple computers. Apple's in-house refurbished computers go through a rigorous refurbishment and testing process and can be considered better than new.

- I recommend also looking at the entry-level MacBook Pros as they are almost the same size as the MBA but with more power and better cooling

[PeachGr]

If you buy, but the 4 core

[5x5]

20 minutes ago, PeachGr said:

If you buy, but the 4 core

So it can overheat faster?

[5x5]

25 minutes ago, harryk said:

IMO the MacBook Air is the best student laptop, if you can afford it and like macOS. I would not concern myself with thermals etc. as it is not a performance machine. But if you need it to, it does work for heavy computational tasks and will get hot but despite all the fear-mongering it will not kill the machine unless you're doing that for many hours every day, in which case a MBA is not the right tool for the job. Unless something has changed with the newest model, for lightweight daily tasks the MBA will operate in zero-rpm mode (aka no fan) most of the time.

 

The fan is always on - zero-fan mode doesn't exist on the new airs due to the doubled heat output over the 2018/2019 models. Additionally, the heat WILL cause problems as running at 80-100*C near constantly (as it can't even remain under 70 at idle) will cause the motherboard to warp and bend and thus the solder joints of most components around the CPU will start to fall apart. The 2020 air won't last for more than two years in most cases. Feel free to mark my words and ping me again in 2022. The laws of physics aren't imaginary.

[PeachGr]

Just now, 5x5 said:

So it can overheat faster?

All with heat the same, but if you have more power, it will run many tasks with lower power each.

Overheat shouldn't be your concern, Apple made those laptops to run like that intentionally. They will last for years and you will have them in your feet or desk and you will never feel those 95°C. 

[5x5]

2 minutes ago, PeachGr said:

All with heat the same, but if you have more power, it will run many tasks with lower power each.

Overheat shouldn't be your concern, Apple made those laptops to run like that intentionally. They will last for years and you will have them in your feet or desk and you will never feel those 95°C. 

Apple haven't made the laptops to last years - if they had, they wouldn't be running them beyond safe thermal limits specified by INTEL (you know, the ones who MAKE the processor and DEFINE what is safe and what is not).

Also - the chassis on the air gets hot - really hot. That's definitely something you feel. You know what else you feel? When the CPU runs at 800MHz max because it's cooking itself to death and destroying the motherboard in the process

Also - 2 cores at 3GHz are faster than 4 cores at 800MHz in this case. Feel free to look it up.

[PeachGr]

3 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Apple haven't made the laptops to last years - if they had, they wouldn't be running them beyond safe thermal limits specified by INTEL (you know, the ones who MAKE the processor and DEFINE what is safe and what is not).

I have never ever seen a dead processor (without overclocking) and people do unreasonable stretch tests to that. 

It has an awesome sound, really good screen, good battery, good looks, good keyboard.

The guy asks a student laptop, not powerhouse to run PS and cinebench all day.

It will be fine to read Google sheets, watch a movie, do some typing.

You choose the wrong place to do hate speech

[Ryan Kukreti]

wow this is quite hard to decide, i might wait a few days for wwdc, but how could apple be so dumb? i mean all they had to do was connect a heat pipe from the fan to the CPU as simple as that, this could very well have been a great laptop(personal opinion). As of now i will put myself on hold and wait for a few days. Even if i end up buying macbook air 2020 it would most probably be the base one(i3 processor).

[Spindel]

5 minutes ago, Ryan Kukreti said:

wow this is quite hard to decide, i might wait a few days for wwdc, but how could apple be so dumb? i mean all they had to do was connect a heat pipe from the fan to the CPU as simple as that, this could very well have been a great laptop(personal opinion). As of now i will put myself on hold and wait for a few days. Even if i end up buying macbook air 2020 it would most probably be the base one(i3 processor).

Becase that design probably has an ARM CPU in mind. 

[5x5]

39 minutes ago, PeachGr said:

I have never ever seen a dead processor (without overclocking) and people do unreasonable stretch tests to that. 

It has an awesome sound, really good screen, good battery, good looks, good keyboard.

The guy asks a student laptop, not powerhouse to run PS and cinebench all day.

It will be fine to read Google sheets, watch a movie, do some typing.

You choose the wrong place to do hate speech

The thing that dies first is the board - the reason is the CPU itself. The board waps due to heat which causes the solder joints to fall apart.

Also, on a funny side note, dead CPUs in Apple laptops are actually not uncommon as evident by the fact that Louis Rossmann has received several of those.

[Ryan Kukreti]

would ipad pro be a better option over this?