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Apple MacBook Air (2020) Review: Return to Form
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Quote:
[Image: VSr26YgJjGHXnMot2WEs8G-1200-80.jpg]

The new Apple MacBook Air hias an excellent keyboard and great speakers, but isn’t as powerful as Windows rivals.

Quote:Our Verdict

Apple’s MacBook is a return to form as a chic, premium laptop for everyday use with great speakers and an excellent set of speakers, though it falls behind Windows PCs in performance.

For

Excellent keyboard
Strong build quality
16:10 display
Chic design
Detailed top-firing speakers
Long battery life

Against

Limited ports
Lackluster webcam
Not as powerful as comparably priced Windows rivals

The MacBook Air refresh you’ve been waiting for is here. Following last year’s 16-inch MacBook Pro, the 2020 MacBook Air ($999 to start, $1,299 as tested), finally has a keyboard we can recommend again, thanks to comfortable and clicky scissor switches. The new laptop also has all-day battery life and great speakers. But the MacBook Air’s new processors, Intel’s Y-series Ice Lake chips, aren’t as powerful as the ones you get in comparable Windows price for a similar -- or even lower -- price.

Design

he MacBook Air is as svelte and recognizable as ever. The 2020 update hasn’t brought changes in the aesthetic department. Our review unit is gold with a reflective Apple logo on the lid polished to a mirror sheen. (If you prefer something a bit more subtle, it’s also available in space gray or silver). A small notch in the front makes it easy to lift the lid with one finger.

Apple’s 13.3-inch, 16:10 display is a bit taller than some competing notebooks, which makes for a taller screen. That’s surrounded by a black bezel that’s thin, except for on the top. Most Windows-based laptops that have that thick a bezel on top fit an infrared camera for facial recognition, but the MacBook Air doesn’t.

The deck is the same gold color with a spacious touchpad, a pair of top-firing speakers and, the star of this year’s design, a redesigned keyboard with scissor switches and Touch ID.

Port selection is sparse, with a pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports on the left side and a headphone jack on the right side. The laptop starts at 0.6 inches thick, but tapers down to just under 0.2 inches, so there’s a sacrifice made for thinness. You can use either of the two Thunderbolt 3 ports for charging.

At 2.8 pounds and 12 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches, you can take the MacBook Air anywhere in a backpack and barely notice it’s there. It has some stiff competition in the Windows PC space there, though, in the Dell XPS 13 (2.8 pounds, 11.6 x 7.8 x 0.6 inches) and Acer Swift 5 (2.1 pounds, 12.5 x 8.3 x 0.6 inches).

Specifications

CPU
Intel Core i5-1030NG7
Graphics
Intel Iris Plus
Memory
8GB LPDDR4-3733
SSD
512 GB PCIe NVMe SSD
Display
13.3-inch, 2560 x 1600, 16:10, True Tone Display
Networking
802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0
Ports
2x Thunderbolt 3; 1x Headphone jack
Camera
720p Facetime camera
Battery
49.9 Wh
Power Adapter
30W
Operating System
macOS Catalina (10.15)
Dimensions (WxDxH)
12 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches / 304.8 x 213.4 x 15.2mm
Weight
2.8 pounds / 1.3 kg
Price (as configured)
$1,299

Productivity Performance

We reviewed this year’s MacBook Air with an Intel Core i5-1030NG7, a 10W Ice Lake processor with four cores and eight threads. The CPU has a base frequency of 1.1 GHz with boost up to 3.5 GHz. That CPU was paired with 8GB of RAM and a 512GB PCIe-based SSD. What this means for those who don’t focus on the specs is that it can handle most types of everyday computing, but don’t expect to do any serious video editing on this.
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