MacBook Air
The best Mac for most everyone... is back!
The new MacBook Airs are up to twice as fast as the old models
From £999 FROM Apple, apple.com/uk FEATURES 1.1GHz dual-core Intel Core i3 processor, 8GB 3,733MHz memory, 256GB storage SSD, Intel Iris Plus Graphics, 2x Thunderbolt 3 ports
Much of the March 2020 MacBook Air is based on the October 2018 model, so let’s start things off with what’s not been updated. First, the bezels. Unlike the 16in MacBook Pro, this MacBook Air update doesn’t do anything to push the screen out any further towards the corners. And… that’s unfortunate. A lot of Apple’s competitors have gone edge-to-edge, and doing so allows for a bigger screen in the same size casing, which is a win for everyone.
It’s also still standard sRGB gamut, not the wider P3 gamut of the Pro, so that’s something for photographers to keep in mind. The new Air also has the same T2 chip for real-time encryption and Touch ID. No T3 yet or Face ID, which just seems inevitable for these machines.
If Apple is saving all that up for the next big redesign (or the still-mythical MacBook ARM), when that day finally comes, we hope it comes with the Face ID camera from the iPhone, because the 720p one here is so inferior. Especially now when we’re all living on FaceTime, Skype, Meet and Zoom.
There are still two Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, and they’re still both on the same side. We get that it’s more efficient to engineer them that way, but the MacBook Pro allows you to plug in on either side, and that’s much missed on the MacBook Air.
Magic Keyboard
The new MacBook Air swaps out the old controversial butterfly keyboard for the new Magic Keyboard. Introduced with the 16in MacBook Pro last autumn, it has new keycaps and domes with more travel, that lock out at the top to maintain stability, but use scissor switches to restore reliability. And, somehow, that manages to balance the best of both keyboard worlds. It also brings back the inverted T-shaped arrow key layout that’s so much better for touch-typing. The keyboard feels great – a massive improvement that’s a pleasure to use.
Here, with the new MacBook Air, Intel has finally delivered 10th generation Ice Lake mobile chipsets on their new Sunny Cove architecture and, at long, long last, their new 10-nanometer process. That should translate into more power efficiency, or faster, cooler operations for everyone.
Unlike last time, when there was only one mid-range option, because the other options Intel was providing at the time weren’t really much of an option, this time you can choose between an i3, i5, or i7. This means for the first time, you can get a MacBook Air with a quad-core processor.
Apple says that makes these new MacBook Airs up to twice as fast as the old models, with up to 80% better graphics performance, thanks to the integrated Intel Iris Plus Graphics GPU.
With display stream compression, that’s enough to drive up to a 6K Pro Display XDR, if a tiny laptop and massive screen is really how you want to roll.
We edited a 4K Raw video on this MacBook Air. And, well, while we’d still use the 16in MacBook Pro for the horsepower and speed that comes with it, for the first time ever, an M-class Intel Mac didn’t choke to death on our videos. And that’s something. It did take the Core i5 model roughly 2.5 hours to render colour-graded, 4K Canon Raw Lite video out to ProRes 422. That’s about 5x longer than it takes the Core i9 16in MacBook Pro.
With up to 2TB of storage on the new models, you can even keep a few of those videos on the machine. Or, more realistically, a ton of smaller holiday or social videos.
Now, if video isn’t your thing, the new baseline MacBook Air now starts at 256GB, which should be at least manageable for people who do more casual computing or store most of their big or numerous files on the cloud.
Battery life is rated at 11 hours of web surfing, 12 hours of TV app playback. This should mean you easily get a full day’s work out of the Air, although obviously carrying out more intensive tasks, such as rendering video, will have an impact.
Sound upgrade
Apple dove deep into computational sound with the HomePod, and has been amping up every speaker and mic with the resulting technology, including, now, the ones on the MacBook Air.
The mics aren’t what Apple calls “studio quality” like the 16in MacBook Pro – but they’re certainly good enough for audio or video chats if you don’t have your headphones handy. Same with the speakers. They’re not quite up to the 16in MacBook Pro’s industry-leading level, but they’re way better than before.
Apple pegs the numbers for the speakers as twice the bass and 25% more volume. In other words, this MacBook Air is boomier and louder. The speakers are also clearer to our ears. And they support Dolby Atmos playback and Apple’s own spatial audio technology.
The new MacBook Air kicks off at £999 for the base model. That’s the price that catapulted the second-generation MacBook Air into becoming the laptop for the mainstream. The one you saw in every classroom, coffee shop, and at every press event.
The Airs have all cost a little more than that at launch, of course, but as savings kick in at scale, they drop them down. It’s taken 18 months for the Air to get back under a £1,000 – that’s something that the 12in MacBook never managed to do.
When you combine that £999 starting price tag with the MacBook Air’s build quality, macOS, and all the free software that comes with it, it just provides a ton of value — and value that lasts for years.
And, if performance is just as valuable as portability for you, you can now spec the new Air out to £2,249, fully loaded, giving a better range of options for a wider range of customers.
So, If you have an old MacBook Air or 12in MacBook, even the old 13in MacBook Pro, and you’ve been waiting to upgrade, then wait no more. This is very much the new MacBook Air you’ve been waiting for.