Daniel Rotar

August 21, 2020

The Future of the MacBook Pro (2020 & Beyond)

Daniel Rotar

August 21, 2020

The MacBooks are changing. Apple is on the verge of completely revolutionising the computing industry, not just in terms of the Macs, but also in terms of CPU Design.

We made a video back in June in which I talked about the switch to ARM in detail, so definitely give that video a watch if you want to learn more about the CPU itself. But here, I’ll be focusing on the future of the MacBook & MacBook Pro. We’ve had a ton of recent leaks that give us a glimpse at what Apple is aiming for with these devices, so without any further ado, here is The Future of the MacBook Pro (2020 and Beyond).

As most of you probably know already, Apple is ditching Intel in favour of their own Processors. Apple are already using their own Chips in the iPhones and the iPads so it makes a ton of sense to also use their Processors in the Macs, as that way they will have an entirely unified system.

So, what benefits will we get from this transition and how will these affect future Macs?

Performance

The most recent iPad Pro has shown us what Apple’s Chips are capable of.

The biggest improvement that we’ll see is when it comes to the Performance. Apple’s A12X Processor, the one that’s inside the 2018 iPad Pro, is already more powerful than the 2020 MacBook Air and the baseline MacBook Pro. In fact, we even did a full video comparing the 2018 iPad Pro with the 2020 (high-end) 13” MacBook Pro in real-world tests such as Video Editing. The MacBook Pro exported a five minute, 4K60 timeline in 7 minutes and 27 seconds, while the iPad Pro only took 2 minutes and 52 seconds. Now, keep in mind that this was on a Tablet that was using a two year old Processor and didn’t even have a Fan. It was passively cooled and yet it was significantly thinner than the MacBook Pro, which had a Fan and was using Intel’s latest 10th Generation Processor.

By Apple using a modern and more powerful A-series Chip, specifically designed for the Mac, they could significantly improve their Performance over even the iPad Pro.

GPU and Memory

The use of SoC’s in Apple’s smaller devices greatly reduces latency between the separate components.

The second change would be when it comes to the GPU and of course, the Memory.

On regular computers, such as a Desktop PC or a Laptop, the CPU, GPU and RAM (or the Memory) are all separate Components which are slotted into the Motherboard. The GPU, for example, uses a PCIe Interface to communicate with the CPU. The only problem here is that there is quite a bit of Latency when it comes to the CPU accessing the data from the GPU, which is determined by the speed of the PCIe Slot. Smartphone Processors, since there’s not that much room inside, actually combine all of these Components onto one single Chip, which is called a ‘System On a Chip’ (SoC).

This is what Apple is using in their iPhones and iPads. Since the CPU now has direct access to the Memory and the GPU, the Latency is greatly reduced and therefore the overall Performance is greatly increased. I’ve had a look through Apple’s developer presentations for their upcoming transition to Apple Silicon and there was no mention of the GPU. In fact, Apple was even talking about how much they can improve the Performance by building an SoC inside their Macs. What this means is that we would not be getting any separate GPU options inside future MacBooks. This makes me wonder…what about the different SKU’s?

SKU’s

Well, if we take a look at the Macs, there are many different CPU models that you can choose from. The MacBook Air has three CPU options: an i3, i5 and an i7. But, the MacBook Pro has four options with the first two being Intel’s 8th Generation Chips, while the last two are Intel’s 10th Generation Chips. So, how many SKU’s will Apple have, when it comes to the next-gen Macs? If we take a look at the iPhone, Apple only releases one CPU model every year and all iPhones have that exact CPU model.

On the iPad side, we do have the X variant, which does pack more GPU power than the non-X variant that we get inside the iPhones. The last X variant that we got was back in 2018, so these do take a while to make and we only get those on the iPad Pro’s as the regular iPads still use the exact same Chips as the iPhones do. I think it’s pretty safe to assume that for the MacBooks at least, Apple will either have one SKU or two, at most.

The use of SoC’s will limit the amount of SKU’s and likely follow a pattern similar to the current iPad Pro’s.

My prediction is that the MacBook Air would be using the exact same Chip that the iPhones use, the Apple A14, and whatever comes next. While the MacBook Pros will be using a more powerful version of that to give them the “Pro’ name. Not only that, but I predict that the 13” and the 16” MacBook Pro would be identical in terms of the performance and the only advantage that the 16” model will have, would be when it comes to its Display Size, just like we have on the iPad Pro’s right now. We have two models, the 11” and 12.9”, both with the same Performance and the only difference being the Display size.

So, what about the RAM? Well, since the CPU would now be an SoC, it would be very difficult for Apple to give us multiple RAM options when we configure our MacBooks, like we get now. I believe that the MacBook Air would come with, like I said, an A14 Processor but more RAM than the iPhones do. Possibly 16GB of RAM, while the MacBook Pro’s would come with more than that. Maybe the 16” would come with 64GB of RAM by default and the 13’ would come with 32GB, that would be the one and only RAM option. As we know from the iPhone and the iPads, Apple’s Processors are extremely efficient in terms of Memory, and so is iOS, so you won’t need as much RAM as we have on the Intel Macs now.

Design Changes

The next big change that this transition would bring, is when it comes to the Design. As Apple’s Processors are an entire SoC, you’re saving up a ton of space inside as there’s no need for a separate GPU and Memory. Not only that, but Apple’s Processors are also Fan-less. While Apple might add a Fan to some of their Macs to increase the Performance even further, by overclocking the Processors, the idea here is that they don’t necessarily require a Fan. Instead, they can use that extra internal space for a bigger Battery or a slimmer Chassis.

We sat down and brainstormed how Apple could design such a MacBook from scratch. This is our vision as to how we think Apple could realistically design a future MacBook now that they’ve made the transition to their own Processors.

We’ve modelled our own Concept of what we think these new MacBook Pro’s will look like.

We’ve designed the Display so that it matches the aesthetic of the iPad Pro. This means a uniform Bezel that also features curved corners which actually match the Design style of the upcoming macOS Big Sur. We’ve also made the Bezels a bit thinner than on the iPad Pro as we do think that those are indeed a bit too thick. This new MacBook Pro Design is finally in line with the modern 2020 Laptop Designs. The Aspect Ratio is still 16:10 and we’ve also added FaceID into the top Bezel as this has been recently leaked to be coming in all next-gen Macs moving forward. FaceID on a Mac makes so much more sense than having a TouchID Sensor.

Now onto the Body. You can probably tell that this looks incredibly thin and that’s because we’ve actually used the same Body size as the iPad Pro. That means a thickness of only 5.9mm and a chassis that’s symmetrical and flat, so no more wedge shape MacBook Air style Design. We’ve added a USB Type C Port on each side and in case you’re wondering, these are indeed Thunderbolt 3 Ports, which are supported by the new USB 4 standard. So, Apple would not be losing Thunderbolt 3 by switching to their own Chips. We’ve also added two Speaker Grills on each side, with the same Design style as on the iPad Pro.

The Trackpad is shorter now, as the Body is shorter as well, thanks to the Bezels being so thin now. This is how we designed it, but of course Apple could easily make the Display taller, maybe change the Aspect Ratio to a taller 3:2 Panel, just like on the Microsoft Surface Laptops, and have more room for the Trackpad in that case.

Colour-wise, we’ve kept Apple’s classic Space Grey and Silver colours but we’ve also added a brand new Matte Black colour, which I think looks amazing. I really hope that Apple gives us a darker colour option for this new generation as that’s definitely something that I would personally be going for.

For more Concepts and behind the scenes, be sure to check out our secondary ‘ZONEofCONCEPTS’ accounts on Instagram & Twitter.

When it comes to the Keyboard, obviously we have a Scissor Mechanism here but we have made the keys a bit thinner than on the current MacBooks, just to make it look better. Apple can easily keep the same thickness or just have the Keys deeper so that they travel more while also keeping this fairly thin Design, from the outside. The Touchbar is pretty much the same as before, so no changes here. The separate Escape Key is there, as well as an individual Backlight for each of the Keys. Apple, if you like what we’ve done, just get in touch.

Do let me know what do you guys think of our Design and if you want to see more of our concepts, it would be amazing if you could subscribe and also give us a follow on our ‘ZONEofCONCEPTS’ Instagram & Twitter pages.

But, which MacBook is this? Is it the 12”, the Air or the Pro? Well, here’s what I’m thinking. Since Apple will have their own SoC now, and they’ll likely only have one or two SKU’s at most for these, they could unify the entire lineup, Design-wise. What I mean by this is that they could easily just call this the new MacBook, then have this in a 12” 14” and 16’ size, with the 14” and the 16” sizes being the MacBook Pro variant. These would also come with that more powerful A Series Processor that I mentioned, while the 12” would come with the same Chip that we have in the iPhones.

Personally, if I were Tim Cook, this is what I would do. I would create this beautiful singular Design, that would be instantly recognisable as a MacBook Design, and as use that for the entire lineup. Let me know in the comments what your thoughts are on this are.

Battery Life

Another big improvement that the new MacBooks would feature thanks to the switch to Apple Silicon, is the Battery Life.

Most MacBooks from 2010 have claimed to offer a 10 hour Battery Life, which is exactly what the iPads have claimed since the original iPad came out in 2010 too. Personally, my iPad lasts me for about seven hours, while my MacBook Pro lasts me for around five hours.

Apple leaker ‘KomiyaLeaks’ tweeted a few details about an upcoming 12” MacBook. I’ll get into these in just a bit, but probably the most surprising thing here is the Battery Life, which is now expected to be up to 20 hours. So, in real world usage, if we go by the iPad’s Battery Life, this should now translate into around 15 or so hours of actual usage, which is a pretty gigantic jump from the current five or so hours that I was personally getting. We’ve also had a leak on a supposed MacBook Air Battery, likely the new MacBook Air. This Battery is very similar to the one that we have on the current model, just with a brand new model number on it.

Unified OS

The next big advantage of this transition, is a unified OS. Apple has already announced that iOS apps will now be able to be run natively, on the Mac. Meaning that you can run all of your favourite Apps, including ones that have zero optimisation, such as Instagram for example, directly on the Mac with no tweaking needed.

Apple has even demoed Final Cut Pro X and even Maya, running on a Mac Mini with an Apple A12Z Processor, the same Chip as in the 2020 iPad Pro, which is almost identical to the 2018 iPad Pro’s A12X Processor. This also means that iOS devices, such as the iPhone and the iPad, could easily run Mac software. Final Cut Pro X on the iPad is likely to be a possibility. In fact, Jon Prosser even stated a few months ago that XCode is actually coming to the iPad. This also makes me think that Apple could potentially add Touch-Screen support to the Mac, which would make a ton of sense as the iPad did get Mouse & Keyboard support. Also, macOS Big Sur does bring the Control Centre amongst other features, which are all Touch friendly.

More Frequent Updates

I also expect to see more frequent updates to the Mac as Apple would not have to wait for Intel to release new Chips anymore. Instead, they can move the Macs to a yearly update cycle, just like they already do with the iPhones.

Lower Prices

Since Apple will be designing their own Chips, the prices of future Macs could in fact go down. ‘KomiyaLeaks’ reported that the new 12” MacBook would cost $800, making this the most affordable new MacBook that Apple has ever released. But at the same time, all the savings could go into Apple making these devices even better, so it’s not 100% guaranteed that the prices will indeed go down.

In terms of what to expect in the near future, we’ve seen quite a few reports that we would see either a 12” MacBook or a new MacBook Air by the end of the year. Some reports even mention Apple releasing a 13” MacBook Pro with the same exact Design that we have now, just with an Apple Processor. Komiya reports that the Butterfly Keyboard will be coming back, which I personally don’t buy. He also reported that there is no Apple Event planned for October, which is where Apple would unveil these new Macs, so they could indeed be delayed until next year. What we do know for sure is that Apple is indeed planning some major redesigns with pretty much all of these upcoming Macs, including the iMac.

Daniel Rotar

July 10, 2020

Reviews

macOS Big Sur Review - A New Era for the Mac!

Daniel Rotar

July 10, 2020

Reviews

Just like with iOS, watchOS and iPadOS, Apple also releases a new version of macOS every year at WWDC, in June. Last year we had macOS Catalina, which was filled with bugs and stability issues, some of which still haven’t been fixed. I was honestly expecting the next macOS version to just be a stability improvement, over Catalina.

Since we didn’t had any leaks on the next version of macOS at all, pretty much the entire tech community was assuming that this would be a very small update. But instead, macOS Big Sur is actually the biggest macOS update that we’ve had in years snd probably the biggest update that macOS has had since the introduction of macOS X, in 2001.

So, without any further ado, here is my experience with macOS Big Sur!

Ok, so by far the biggest change that we got with macOS Big Sur is the new design. Unlike iOS, which usually gets a decent set of improvements every single year, macOS is a bit more conservative. For example, all versions of macOS, from macOS 10.0, to macOS 10.9, have looked almost identical.

But in 2014, Apple released macOS 10.10 (Yosemite). This was the biggest design change that the Mac ever got, at least up until that point. Gone was the skeuomorphism that Steve Jobs was a big fan of, as now we got the same design language as on the iPhones and the iPads with iOS 7, back in 2013. A design that featured a heavy emphasis on transparency, 2D effects and simplicity. I was actually a big fan of this design, I literally had zero issues with it, but I always felt like it could be improved. And it was!

With macOS Mojave, in 2018, we got Dark Mode. This was one of my favourite macOS features ever and now with macOS Big Sur in 2020, Apple has redesigned macOS pretty much entirely again.

Essentially, we get an even more iOS like look with things such as Control Centre, the Notifications and Widgets panel from iOS 14 as well as System Toggles that look exactly like they do on iOS. I’m actually a massive fan of this Design. I think it looks absolutely gorgeous, however I do have some concerns that I want to raise, which hopefully Apple will address by the time macOS Big Sur releases to the public.

My first concern is the Contrast. On the current macOS Catalina, all the top bar Elements are perfectly visible. Everything looks pretty great, I’ve never had any issues identifying UI Elements. However, on macOS Big Sur, UI Elements are all over the place. The Contrast is almost entirely gone on the top bar, making everything barely even readable. Not only that, but Apple has also added more space between the Icons in the top bar. This means that for people like me, who have a ton of Icons there, many of those Icons would not be visible anymore due to the extra spacing required.

My second concern is the Control Centre. So, I do like how it looks and how it works a lot, you can even control the Screen Brightness from there and even things such as the Keyboard Backlight, which I think is absolutely brilliant as it just looks and behaves so much like iOS. I wouldn’t normally have a problem with this, if the device had a Touchscreen but…it doesn’t.

Whether this means that Apple will release TouchScreen Macs in the not too distant future, we do not know. But what we do know is that Big Sur behaves a lot like iOS and while using Big Sur with a mouse, it just doesn’t feel right.

Having a UI designed for Touch Input can have its’ upsides and downsides.

Now, speaking of the Control Centre, there are a lot of things that I like about it. For example, having the Control Centre means that you no longer need individual Icons in the top bar for things such as WiFi or Bluetooth. You can now keep all of those in the Control Centre, which does mean that you can indeed clear up a lot of space out there. But, probably my favourite thing about the Control Centre is that you can even drag elements outside of it and onto the top bar. So, if you ever wanted to have, let’s say, ‘Do Not Disturb’ Mode or even AirDrop in the top bar, that is now possible. On iOS, you can have third party apps in the Control Centre, I am predicting that this will also be possible later on, in macOS.

Next-up, Widgets are absolutely brilliant. They look and work exactly like they do on iOS 14, meaning that you can just add different sizes. These can be Small, Medium or Large and they’re fully interactive. My only complaint here is that I wish you could place them on the Desktop as well, rather than having them constrained in this separate Widget Panel. Essentially, just like you can on iOS 14, I think that being able to just drag them out of the Widgets Panel and onto the Home-Screen would be ideal, especially on a Mac, since you have a much larger Display, compared to an iPhone.

Notifications have also been tweaked. Rather than getting a massive list of all of your Notifications, they are now grouped into a stack which you can then expand to access all of them. Again, I just wish that they worked like they do on iOS or iPadOS. On iPadOS for example, you just bring the Mouse to the top portion of the screen and the Notifications Panel drops down. Apple is aiming for consistency between macOS, iOS and iPadOS, so I think it would be great to have Notifications work in the same way as they do on Apple’s other platforms.

My third concern is when it comes to UI Design. If you take a look at Finder, you can probably tell that it’s been completely redesigned. The Buttons are all in the window to the right, while the Side Panel alone is on the left and we have no control in that one at all. I really do like the way this looks, but the spacing is completely off.

So what about Calendar? The Spacing is completely different from Finder and System Preferences. Speaking of which, why is it still called ‘System Preferences’ and not ‘Settings’, like it is on iOS? I could keep adding to that list. For example with Siri, while it has indeed been redesigned on iOS and iPadOS, on macOS it still uses the same exact look as it did in macOS Catalina. There are many things left that Apple needs to polish, by the time macOS Big Sur releases.

Concern number four, are the Icons. In Big Sur, Apple decided to completely redesign the System Icons to essentially bring them more in line to iOS and I couldn’t agree more. I don’t know why we didn’t have identical Icons until now. But the problem is that they look atrocious. For example, while some Icons look identical as to how they look on iOS, like Calendar, Notes & Reminders, some Icons have this 3D look to them. Some examples include Messages, Mail, Face-Time and App Store, they also have an inner shadow.

The Icons are inconsistent in design, something I hope is addressed before release.

I’m honestly not a fan of this Design, I think it looks pretty bad, especially if you take a look at the System Preferences Icon or that horrid Battery Icon. These icons look like when you add Drop Shadow and Bevel & Emboss in Photoshop, if you know what I’m talking about. I wouldn’t necessarily be that critical of them, if they were all consistent, but they’re not. It looks as if each of these Icons was designed by a completely different person and none of these people were ever in touch.

Finally, my last concern is the Launchpad. First of all, why is it still called the Launchpad instead of the App Library like we now have on iOS? It’s essentially the exact same thing. Anyway, my problem here is that it’s still as painful and as slow, when it comes to organising your Apps. On iOS, you can indeed drag multiple Apps at the same time and place them in Folders. On macOS, you have to do it one by one, which is just a pain to do with a Mouse and even more so when you have loads of Apps installed, like I do.

Now, there are a few smaller features which I did find to be really cool so, here are a bunch of those features. I really do like how every UI Element has curved corners now, this also means that everything just looks off, when you look at the straight corners of the actual Display on your Mac. Because of this and the fact that the iPhone and the iPad both have curved corners, I do believe that the next Macs, starting with the new 14” ARM MacBook Pro, will indeed come with curved corners as well.

Also, remember that Battery Life indicator which also told you exactly how many hours of Battery Life you had left? Well, Apple removed that a while ago but now this seems to be back in Big Sur, which is great. The scheduling feature, which has been buried deep down into the Settings, is much more visible in the Battery section. You can even see your Battery Usage for the past day or week, just like you could for a number of years on iOS.

Everything about Big Sur just looks cleaner, but it’s not perfect.

Safari now lets you see how much websites track you. I’m pleased to say that we only use Google Analytics for tracking, so ‘ZONEofTECH.com’ is pretty tracker free, unlike many other websites out there. Speaking of websites, Safari now lets you watch Netflix in Full 4K Dolby Vision. Up until now, it was limited to 1080p.

Also iOS 14 does indeed support 4K Video playing on YouTube, albeit you have to be watching a 4K HDR Video, as you don’t really get the 4K option on non-HDR content. But, I am assuming that this will be fixed and it seems likely that we would also be getting 4K support in YouTube on the Mac as well with Big Sur, when it releases.

Speaking of Safari, you can now customise the Safari Home-Screen quite significantly. So now, not only can you customise the content that it displays by selecting and deselecting categories of items, but you can also have a custom Wallpaper in Safari, just like you can in Chrome. Apple will now be including the Safari Extensions in the AppStore and we also have a brand new API, which should make it much easier for Developers to develop and port their extensions from Chrome, into Safari. Safari is finally becoming more useful and I’m extremely happy with that.

I should also point out that I’m absolutely in love with the new Mail App. The UI has been cleaned up substantially and all the controls are now on the top right, with the left being reserved for the Side Panel, just like in Finder. This design actually reminds me a lot of Outlook, which actually had one of the very best designs for a Mail App.

The Calendar App has been redesigned as well, but I am still not a big fan of the Pastel Colours. I’ve always preferred the look of Google Calendar, maybe that’s just me. The Messages app also got a new Design, which brings in more in line with the iOS version, not just in terms of looks, but also in terms of its functionality.

Hopefully further support for more Apps comes in time.

So overall, I am a massive fan of how macOS Big Sur looks but like I’ve mentioned before, there are quite a few things that just need to be more polished and I’m really hoping that they will be by the time macOS Big Sur releases.

But in the end, macOS Big Sur isn’t just a massive visual upgrade, it is also a gigantic upgrade under the hood. It is the first version of macOS to fully support ARM Processors, which is the reason why Apple has also called it macOS 11. This lays the foundation of all future Macs that will feature Apple Processors. Speaking of that, Windows will not be supported.

Just as a final note, some of you are probably wondering what is the performance is like? Well, unlike iOS 14, which I actually ended up installing on my own personal iPhone just because of how stable it was, I just could not do the same with macOS Big Sur. This was not necessarily because of stability issues, but mostly because of a number of my Apps that just don’t work on Big Sur, without receiving an update.

Google Drive File Stream, which we use a lot for our work here, does not work at all. Mailbutler, a great tool that I use with the native Apple email App does not work either as well as a few more.

These apps will only get updated closer to macOS Big Sur’s release, so I still have to wait a few months until I actually get to use it. Apple hasn’t really told us an exact date for when macOS Big Sur will be released. I would predict the end of October, as COVID has delayed pretty much everything. But I don’t think it would be any later than that though.

Daniel Rotar

July 3, 2020

News, Things You Didn't Know

The Future of the Mac - Explained!

Daniel Rotar

July 3, 2020

News, Things You Didn't Know

Every once in a while, usually once per decade or so, there is one big change that happens in tech that affects everything. Not just that, but it also affects our everyday lives.

A good example would be the introduction of the first iPhone back in 2007, which literally changed how future Phones looked and functioned to this very day. Samsung’s Flexible Display Technology from 2011 allowed us to have the Foldable Smartphones that we have today, with many more to come in the future. Tesla’s Autopilot has redefined, and will continue to redefine, the car industry. Now…there is another big change just around the corner and this time, it’s all about the Processor.

So, get ready for a bit more of a technical video and have those snacks ready and enjoy!

Up until 2006, Apple Macs were using PowerPC Processors. PowerPC were a type of Reduced Instruction Set Architecture Processors, which were created in 1991 by, ironically, Apple, IBM and Motorola. This was also known as the AIM Alliance.

The whole idea behind PowerPC Processors was for them to be affordable to the average consumer, rather than for high-end business computers. Additionally, they were intended to not just be very powerful for the average user, but also allow Programmers to very quickly and easily write Code for them. This was all good. From 1994 up until 2006, Apple had only been using PowerPC Processors. But at WWDC 2005, Steve Jobs went on stage to make a big announcement. He announced that Apple will be moving from PowerPC Processors, to Intel Processors.

The main reason for this was ‘Performance per Watt. He said that PowerPC Processors gave Macs around 15 Units of Performance per Watt, whereas Intel was giving them 70 Units, almost five times as much. This is why Apple switched from PowerPC, to Intel Processors. Intel’s Chips were more powerful and also consumed less energy, meaning that their machines could be thinner and more portable, which was very important back then. Devices back then were not as thin and portable as they are now.

Apple’s Processors haven’t always come from Intel

Now, switching to a new Processor, especially when it has a different Architecture, is extremely difficult and PowerPC and Intel were both based on a completely different Architectures. PowerPC CPU’s were based on the POWER Instruction Set Architecture, whereas Intel CPU’s were based on the x86-64 Architecture. What this means was that they were speaking completely different languages.

This also meant that every single new program had to be re-written from scratch, but macOS in itself was not capable of running on Intel Processors unless of course, they had a Translator. That Translator was called Rosetta, named after the stone that helped us translate Ancient Egyptian, as the top half of it was written in ancient Egyptian, whilst the bottom half was written in ancient Greek. Anyway, Rosetta translated PowerPC instructions into x86-64 instructions, which meant that most, but not all programs that were developed for the PowerPC era, could actually run on Intel based Macs without the need for a full re-write.

It wasn’t perfect, just like when you’re translating between two different languages, some expressions just won’t translate that well. So, while PowerPC Apps could run on Intel Macs, Native Apps that were designed for Intel Macs first would always run better. That transition actually went very smoothly and fast forward 14 years and up until this point, Apple has kept on using Intel Processors in all of their Macs.

However, Apple is now switching from Intel, to their own Apple Series of Processors and this change will be even bigger than the last one.

Why?

Why switch? Isn’t Intel the market leader when it comes to CPU’s? They are in terms of sales, but they’ve been having some serious issues in the last few years.

You see, the way a CPU works is that they have these tiny Transistors that can pass electrical current through them, which the CPU then reads as one’s and zero’s. Modern CPU’s have billions of Transistors and the smaller and thinner these are, the faster they can pass the current through and therefore, the faster the CPU. It’s like driving a car from NY to LA to deliver a package, compared to driving from your house to your neighbour’s house, to deliver the same package. Obviously, the package will get to your neighbour’s house much faster as the distance is smaller, CPU’s work in the same way.

Apple will soon be making Processors with Transistors that are only twice as thick as Human DNA.

The size at which the Transistors inside a Processor are measured at is just in a few Nano-Metres. Intel has been using a 14nm manufacturing process and just to give you an idea of how thin those Transistors are, a human hair is around 90,000nm in thickness. A single strand of human DNA is 2.5nm. Intel’s has been manufacturing transistors at 14nm, which is pretty incredible. But, Intel has been releasing 14nm CPU’s since 2014 and they’ve been trying to switch to 10nm, the next step in the manufacturing process, since. They’ve only been able to do it in 2019.

Apple, on the other hand, switched to 10nm in 2017, two years ahead of Intel. Not only that, but Apple has since switched to 7nm in 2018 and will switch to 5nm in 2020, with the upcoming Apple A14 Processors. Apple is already three generations ahead of Intel when it comes to the manufacturing process. To be more accurate, TSMC is, they are the actual manufacturers for Apple’s CPU’s. Additionally, AMD is also manufacturing on a 7nm process now, being two generations ahead of Intel.

Intel launched 10nm in 2019, but even now in 2020, only ‘Y’ & ‘U’ Series Mobile CPU’s come with it. Desktop and high-end Laptop Processors, such as the H-Series that you would find on a 16” MacBook Pro for example, those are still based on a 14nm process.

Even if you take a look at the 10nm ‘Y’ & ‘U’ Series Processors, not even all of the models are based on the 10nm process, some are still 14nm CPU’s. It’s so horribly confusing. The whole point of Intel’s 10th Generation Processors was to finally switch to 10nm, but they’ve only done that on around 20% of their 10th Generation CPU’s, the rest are still 14nm. AMD Processors now out-perform Intel quite substantially and they even do it at a lower price.

Not only that, but Apple has improved their own Processors so much, that even the 2018 iPad Pro now out-performs most Laptop Processors from Intel. The iPad Pro has significantly better performance than a 2020 baseline 13” MacBook Pro, it’s even better than the higher-end model. The iPad Pro is also significantly thinner than a Laptop and it does not even have a Fan in it, it is all passively cooled, whereas Laptops need to have gigantic Cooling Systems.

The new iPad Pro is a great example of what Apple can achieve with their own technology.

These are the two main reasons why Apple wants to move away from Intel. They want better Performance and they want that Performance at a lower power consumption than at what Intel offers, which means that they can make way more portable devices with a significantly better Battery Life. Imagine having an iMac that’s as thin as an iPad Pro, or a MacBook Pro that lasts for 20 hours, or more, on a single charge.

But, there is one more reason why Apple wants to switch now. Unlike 2005, when they were just looking for better performance at a lower power consumption, Apple now has the iPhone and the iPad, none of which they had back in 2005. Those devices also run on Apple’s own Processors, which means that Apple can now unify their entire line of devices and have any APPS run on the iPhone, the iPad and on the Mac natively, with no changes in the code required. This means that you’ll be able to run any iPhone App directly on your Mac including Instagram, Facebook Messenger or basically anything.

Moreover, Mac Apps such as Final Cut Pro X and Logic Pro X will also able to run on iPhone and iPad. In fact, Apple even showed FCP X running on a Mac Mini with an Apple A12Z Processor, the same Processor as in the iPad Pro 2020. While it did have 16GB of RAM, compared to the 6GB on the iPad, and the CPU was likely cooled too, it could actually play three streams of 4K ProRes with effects at the same time, without dropping any frames at all. A 16” MacBook Pro can run around 11 streams of 4K ProRes, which is quite a bit more, this would also be ProRes RAW. But, keep in mind that the A12Z is just a Tablet Processor. Apple already mentioned that they’re working on multiple variants of their own CPU’s to be used in Macs, which Apple hasn’t really showed yet.

However, they did show us this graph that compared their Processors to the current devices that Apple is offering. Whilst Apple’s range is quite big, we can indeed tell that they are developing Laptop Processors that are just on par with Intel’s lowest-end Desktop Processors, while also having less power consumption than Intel’s current Laptop Processors .That equates to a 12” MacBook or a MacBook Air with a 20 hour Battery Life, having more performance than the regular iMac. Now, if we take a look at the upper part of this graph, we can see that Apple’s even aiming to make Processors better than any Desktop Processors that Intel has now, with just a bit more power consumption than a current Laptop.

These are very bold claims but I do believe that they can pull this off, especially if we take a look at what they’ve already achieved with the iPad alone.

Ok, so now that we’ve covered the ‘Why’, what about the ‘How’?

How?

To help this transition, Apple is bringing back Rosetta. Credit: Apple

MacOS Big Sur, which is coming out later this year, will be the first macOS that has been developed for both x86-64 Intel Processors and ARM Processors (ARM being the Architecture that Apple’s using for their own Chips). Apple will be using the same Rosetta tool that they used back in 2006 to switch from PowerPC to Intel, which is now called Rosetta 2 and will translate x86-x64 Code, into ARM code. This means that you’ll still be able to run all of your Intel software on future ARM Macs.

Native apps will still run much better, FCP X was a good example and Apple has also shown Photoshop as well as Lightroom, which were both running extremely smooth. Lightroom was able to open up a massive library of RAW photos without any lag or slowdown whatsoever. On the Mac, I always get the beachball and some lag here and there whenever I do that, so that’s crazy.

When?

You’re probably wondering, when is this transition going to happen and how would you be impacted?

We could soon be looking at one unified system for the Mac line-up.

Well, Apple has said that this transition would take two years. Meaning that by the end of 2022, we should have an Apple Processor in every single Mac that Apple sells, from the MacBook Air, all the way up to the Mac Pro, which is nuts. ARM CPU’s have never been designed for sustained workloads but it seems that this concept has been proven wrong, ‘The Verge’ reports that Japan has developed a supercomputer using ARM Processors and it turns out that this is now the fastest computer in the entire world, with it also being 2.8 times faster than the previous most powerful supercomputer in the world. So, ARM is definitely looking very promising.

Now, Intel based Macs will still be supported for a number of years, but if you do plan on getting a Mac now, I would highly highly advise you to wait until the end of the year when Apple would be releasing their first Mac with an Apple Processor. Ming-Chi Kuo says that it will be a new 13” MacBook Pro. I’m fine with that, so I can’t wait!

MacOS big Sur

I just want to touch a bit on macOS Big Sur. This is really the biggest software update since macOS Yosemite, which changed up the design significantly from the previous design language that macOS Mavricks used. ‘Big Sur’ is an even bigger change as it adds a ton of elements from the iPhone and the iPad, to macOS. We even get things such as Control Centre and the same iOS-style Toggles.

While I do really like this design a lot, it kind of looks like it was made for Touch Input first because, well, it was. The iOS UI was made for Touch Input rather than Mouse Input. So, the fact that Apple’s adding the exact same design language and the same UI style makes me think that maybe we will see a TouchScreen Mac in the not too distant future. That would be pretty amazing.

I wouldn’t exactly call this a ‘Unified Design’. Credit: Apple

The start-up sound is back, which is quite interesting to see, alongside a ton of design elements from iOS. These include the Notification Panel and the indicator that shows amount of battery you have left in hours, is now back. They’ve also just cleaned up the entire UI a lot.

I do have two main concerns regarding Big Sur’s design. Firstly, the UI elements and how they just don’t feel right, they were designed for Touch Input. My second concern is the Icons. Apple is calling this a unified design, but they don’t look the same. They all have this weird shadow that is on the inside, very strange. We don’t have this on iOS and it just looks as if different Icons were designed by different people. The ‘Reminders’ Icon has no shadow at all, whereas the ‘Messages’ Icon does. Hopefully Apple fixes this by October, when macOS Big Sur is said to be released to the public.

Anyway, I’m definitely looking forward to the future of the Mac and this transition will shape the entire tech industry. It will end up forcing more companies to innovate into the Mobile CPU space and of course, forcing Intel to do something about their CPU offering because at this point, AMD is ahead and it seems like Apple is now ahead as well.

Daniel Rotar

May 7, 2020

Reviews

MacBook Air (2020) - Full In-Depth Review! (After 3+ Weeks of Use)

Daniel Rotar

May 7, 2020

Reviews

Every few years, every few decades, there is this one product that completely changes everything. A product that’s so new, so innovative that it breaks the boundaries of what we believed was even possible, one of those products was…the MacBook Air.

Originally introduced back in 2008, the MacBook Air was the thinnest Laptop in the world. It was so thin, that Steve Jobs even took it out of an envelope and the audience was amazed! Not only that, but the MacBook Air ended up giving birth to the UltraBook category of Laptops that we have now. Those very thin, light and portable Laptops that tens of millions of people own.

Aside from being extremely thin, the original MacBook Air was extremely innovative in many other ways. It had a multi-touch Trackpad that supported the same gestures as the iPhone that was introduced a year prior. Gestures such as pinch to zoom, rotating a photo with two fingers, swiping with three fingers from one Home-Screen to another and much more. It removed the Disc Drive and featured the smallest HDD ever, in a Laptop, alongside the ability to upgrade that to a Solid-State-Drive, making the MacBook Air the world’s first Laptop to come with Flash Storage.

However, the First Generation MacBook Air was flawed. The low power Intel Core 2 Duo Processor and that painfully slow 4200rpm, 80GB HDD alongside the lack of any Ports aside from a single USB 2.0 Port, a micro-DVI Port and a 3.5mm Headphone Jack made it quite unpopular at first. All that and the insanely high $1800 starting price point, which back in 2008, that was a lot. Then, just two years later in 2010, Apple released the Second Generation MacBook Air.

This one featured a new tampered design without a pop-out slot for the Ports. It added a second USB Port on the other side, it dramatically improved the performance, thanks to Intel’s new Core 2 Duo Processors. Also, Apple now included Solid State Storage as standard on all models of this MacBook Air and dropped the price by $500, bringing it down to $1300. Not only that, but Apple also released a smaller 11-inch model, which I actually happened to have, a few years ago. This generation, the Second Generation design, was what Apple sold for the next eight years, up until 2018. I mean sure, we did get improvements in terms of performance and higher capacity Storage options, but the design has remained unchanged.

But then in 2018, we got the big new Third Generation, which finally updated the design to bring it in line with the MacBook Pro’s, which got a big update in 2016. The 12” MacBook, which was re-introduced in 2015, with that space grey thin design, sparked this new generation of MacBooks. This was the biggest update that the MacBook Air line has ever received as we finally got a Retina Display, that Butterfly Keyboard from the MacBook Pro’s, which ended up being very controversial, and we also got multiple colour options such as Space Grey & Gold, aside from just Silver. In 2019, we got a very small update to the 2018 model, with a slightly improved Butterfly Keyboard mechanism and a True Tone Display, but that was mostly it.

Now, we have the 2020 model, which I’ve been using for quite a few weeks now and I’m very comfortable giving you my full In-Depth Review on it. This was a pretty long intro, so without any further ado, here is my In-Depth MacBook Air 2020 Review, covering the Design, Display, Keyboard & Trackpad, Camera, Microphone & Speakers, Performance, Battery Life and finally, Value!

Design

Starting off with the design, I have to say, Apple Laptops are definitely my favourite and the MacBook Air is no exception. Just like the 2018 model, it is made out of a single piece of Aluminium and it comes in three colours, which are Space Grey (the one that we have) as well as Silver and Gold. If you’re planning on keeping your MacBook Air for many years, you should be aware that the Space Grey and the Gold colours have coatings on top of the Silver Aluminium. This means that if they scuff, they will reveal the Silver underneath it. Therefore, the Silver model is the most durable over-time. I’ve always taken really good care of my MacBooks and I only have a few minor scuffs on my 2015 12” MacBook and my 2017 MacBook Pro but, if you do want to get the Space Grey model, and you take very good care of it, you should be fine.

The MacBook Air still features the same teardrop shape design, where the Body gets thinner towards the front and thicker towards the back, with pretty much no body flex at all. This is really one of the sturdiest Laptops that I have ever seen. It’s pretty much a tank in terms of Build Quality, nothing to complain about here.

For a Device with ‘Air’ in the name, this is pretty bulky.

But, something that definitely shocked me when I took it out of the box, was just how heavy it was. I’m coming from a 15” 2019 MacBook Pro, and I’ve used a 12” MacBook for years before that as a secondary MacBook, and the MacBook Air is very heavy compared to the 12”. It’s 1.29kg, compared to the 0.92kg of the 12” MacBook. So, if you’re coming from a 12” MacBook, the MacBook Air will feel extremely heavy. If you’re coming from a MacBook Pro 13”, you probably won’t even be able to tell the weight difference as the MacBook Pro 13” weighs 1.37kg, so they’re both extremely similar. So, while the MacBook Air is currently the lightest Laptop that Apple sells, as the 12” MacBook got discontinued, it is not as light as you would expect it to be, considering its’ ‘Air’ branding. Also, fun fact, the 2020 MacBook Air is now 40 grams heavier than the 2018 and 2019 models.

Fun fact number two, the 2020 MacBook Air is also thicker this year, coming in at 1.61cm at its thickest point, compared to 1.55cm like the 2018 and 2019 models were. I’ll explain why the 2020 MacBook Air is thicker and heavier, later on.

But overall, design wise, I am extremely impressed. My only two complaints here is that I wish the MacBook Air was lighter and the Bezels were thinner. When comparing the MacBook Air against something like a Dell XPS 13, there’s a gigantic difference in terms of the Bezel sizes. The MacBook Air looks more like a 2016 Laptop, than a 2020 one. I really do hope that Apple updates the Bezels with the next model, because it’s already starting to look quite outdated.

Display

Speaking of the Bezels, let’s talk about the Display. We have a 13.3” Display, which is very comparable to a lot of Windows Laptops. But, we do have a 16:10 Aspect Ratio, meaning that the MacBook Air, just like all the other MacBooks, has a taller Display compared to most Windows Laptops. I absolutely love this. Having more vertical screen-real estate is great for reading articles or for when you’re writing text. Some Windows Laptops, like Microsoft’s Surface Laptops or the new Dell XPS 13”, have started adding a 16:10 Aspect Ratio, but most manufacturers unfortunately didn’t.

In terms of Resolution, we have a 2560x1600 Resolution Display, which at 227 PPI, I cannot see any Pixels on this from the regular viewing distance. It’s an incredibly sharp Display, text looks like printed paper, it’s just a joy to look at. On the Windows side, we don’t really have Laptops with a 2K Display, it’s usually either 1080p or 4K. I find that 4K is overkill for Laptops. They’re very sharp, but 4K consumes a lot of power and the Sharpness from the regular viewing distance is almost the same as 2K. With 1080p, it does offer the most Battery Life, but I can easily tell that the Display isn’t as sharp and text is a bit too blurry for me, on a 1080p 13” Display. So, 2K is definitely the sweet-spot here and I really do hope that more manufacturers start adding such Displays, even on the Windows side as well.

Colour wise, we have 93.3% sRGB coverage, and 70.8% DCIP3 % coverage. While this is actually very good for a Laptop and one of the very best Displays on any Laptop out right now, if you’re into video editing or photo editing and you need the most colour accurate Display, just get a MacBook Pro instead. MacBook Pro’s have 100% sRGB coverage and 98.9% DCI P3 coverage, meaning that they can display about 30% more colours than the MacBook Air.

Now, I’m not saying that you cannot edit video or photos on the MacBook Air at all, you can definitely do that without any issues. But, if photo or video editing is what you do on a daily basis, then I would look at something like a MacBook Pro, just because of that even wider Colour Gamut.

The MacBook Air has just over 400 Nits of Brightness, compared to 500 Nits on the MacBook Pro or 600 Nits on the 2018 and 2020 iPad Pro’s. Now, while that is still a very high number and one of the highest on any Laptop out there (most Laptops have around 350 Nits of Brightness), again, if you’re into photo editing and you need a brighter Display or you just like working outdoors a lot, then a MacBook Pro is a better choice. But, when indoors and in most cases, 400 Nits is more than enough for me. I almost never even max out the Brightness.

Finally, the MacBook Air also features a True Tone Display. Essentially, if you enable this in the Settings, the White Point of the Display will automatically match the light around you. Just like a piece of paper, if the lights in your room are yellow, the Display will turn yellow to match that light, making it very easy on the eyes for when you’re reading or writing. I do have to manually disable this setting every single time I want to edit a photo or a video, as I do want to preserve the colour accuracy. It does get a bit annoying having to constantly remember to do that every time you want to do any colour work. I wish Apple had True Tone automatic so that it turns off when you open up Final Cut or Photoshop.

Keyboard & Trackpad

Now, the third very important part of any Laptop, for me, is the Keyboard & Trackpad. I am very glad to say that the Keyboard has finally been improved, or should I say, completely replaced.

The troubled Butterfly Keyboard is gone, which Apple introduced with the 12” MacBook in 2015, then the MacBook Pro’s in 2016 and the MacBook Air in 2018. That Keyboard was flawed from the very start. It had almost no key travel, so it was very difficult typing on it and it broke extremely easily. Apple ended up being sued multiple times, you probably know that whole story already.

The really good news here is that we get the same Keyboard as on the new 16” MacBook Pro. This is a more standard Scissor Switch Keyboard, very similar to what we had on the Second Generation MacBook Air from 2010. The only difference being that the keys are now even more stable and they feel even better to type on, compared to the Second Generation MacBook Air. In fact, the entire 12 page Review video was fully scripted on my MacBook Air. I even scripted a few other videos on it, including the OnePlus 8 Pro Experience and about three or four more recent videos. I have to say, the typing experience on this MacBook Air is the best I have ever had on any Laptop, even better than on the 16” MacBook Pro.

A very notable improvement, with a slightly less notable Fingerprint Reader

The fact that the entire MacBook is much smaller than the 16” Pro, you don’t have this massive board of Aluminium which you’re resting your palms on. Instead, you’re typing on the entire Laptop, if you know what I mean, rather than typing on a Keyboard that’s inside a gigantic Laptop. It just feels much more comfortable. Also, the fact that you have this teardrop/tapered design makes it so much more comfortable to type on as not only is the Keyboard angled when you type on it, but it doesn’t feel as sharp and raised on your wrists as a MacBook Pro does.

Also, the arrow keys are now back to being that inverted ’T’ shape. Funnily enough, the only thing that I miss about the Keyboard from my 15” 2019 MacBook Pro, is the Touchbar. Yes, I do miss having it. I mostly used it in Word for changing some text presets or for quickly adjusting the Volume or the Brightness. I wasn’t using it a lot, but now that I don’t have it anymore, I do kind of miss it. Luckily, we do have a Fingerprint Reader built into the Power Button, which is a bit recessed compared to the rest of the keys, but other than that, I really have no complaints.

The Trackpad is outstanding as well. Trackpads on Macs have always been the best ones in the industry and this is no exception. It is a bit smaller than on the 13” MacBook Pro and way smaller than on the 15” or 16” models, but it’s still larger than on most Windows Laptops. It uses a Haptic Motor underneath it, so the Trackpad doesn’t click but that Haptic Engine gives you the impression that you pressed it, even though the glass itself doesn’t move.

Camera, Microphones & Speakers

The 2020 Air has the same Camera as the 2018 model. It’s a 720p Camera, which is far inferior to the iPad or the iPhone Camera. I know the screen is pretty thin but Apple could’ve still added a 1080p Camera there. The quality just isn’t great.

The Microphones have been improved as we now get a Three-Mic Array with Beam-Forming. The Speakers have a deeper bass as well as support for Dolby Atmos Playback.

Performance

Now, we get to move to the Performance section. This is where I have the most to say as, aside from the Keyboard upgrade, this is where the other big changes are.

First off, the 2020 MacBook Air is Apple’s first Mac to move onto Intel’s new 10th Generation Processors. They actually got released in September of last year, so not that new. Anyway, we get a 10th Generation i3, i5 and i7 mode but, don’t be fooled, this is not comparable in any way to a Desktop Class i3, i5 or i7, or even a MacBook Pro’s i3, i5 and i7. These are all Intel’s Low Powered Y Series Processors and in fact, these Chips are basically the successor to Intel’s Core M Processors, found in the 12” MacBook from back in 2015. These are all some very low power 10w Processors that don’t even require a Fan.

The big change this year is that we do get Four Cores in a MacBook Air, something that only the 15” models used to have back in the day and something that the 13” Pro added in 2018. But, if you do want the Quad-Core CPU models, those are the i5 and the i7 but not the i3. The i3 is still Dual-Core, this is the one that I have.

So which one is right for you, and should you pay extra for the i5 and the i7 models? Well, I’ll tell you straight away, don’t buy the i7 model. The performance difference between the i5 and the i7 is almost nothing, you basically get the exact same experience, for $150 less. The real question is, should you get the Dual Core i3 model or upgrade to the Quad-Core i5 model instead?

The 2020 model looks to perform very well (on paper).

Well, performance has indeed been improved from the 2019 and 2018 models, even on the base i3 model, and the Single Core performance between the two is almost identical. In fact, the MacBook Air actually scores the highest, in Single Core performance, compared to all the other Macs out there, including the 16” MacBook Pro and the Mac Pro. If you do a lot of Single Core tasks, such as word processing, browsing the web or even watching YouTube videos, you’re better off with the Dual Core i3 model as the Battery Life would actually last you longer on that one.

But if you do want to future proof it and maybe use it for a few more years, or you’re just someone that’s a bit more demanding in terms of what you do on your Laptop, I highly recommend getting the i5 model. You not only get two extra Cores for much higher Multi-Core performance, but you also get a much more powerful GPU. This is the G7 variant of the Iris Plus Graphics, which is noticeably more powerful than the G4 that you get with the i3 model. The i7 also has the G7 GPU, in case you’re wondering.

Now, something that does directly affect GPU performance, is the amount of RAM. As Intel’s Integrated GPU uses part of your RAM as Shared Video Memory. The more RAM you have, the more memory the GPU will also have, and the better overall performance you’ll get. I highly recommend upgrading to 16GB of RAM. Mine only had 8GB of RAM and my usage was pretty much maxing that out all of the time. This meant that the system felt a bit sluggish most of the time, even when I was just scripting and had a few pages open in Safari. So, 16GB of RAM is a must. Upgrading to the i5 over the i3 isn’t a must but I would suggest that as well, if you plan on using this for more than three years.

The MacBook Air now has the fastest RAM that Apple has ever put in a MacBook, this is now 3733MHz RAM, compared to the 2133MHz RAM that the 2019 MacBook Air had, or the 2666MHz that the MacBook Pro has.

By now you’re all probably wondering, how does the new MacBook Air compare to the 13” MacBook Pro? We do get what looks to be faster Processors than the Pro, we also get a much better GPU and we also get much faster RAM.

Well, I’m sorry to break it to you, but the MacBook Pro 13” is still far more powerful than the MacBook Air. Ironically, this is not because of the components, which are indeed more powerful on the MacBook Air, but because of Cooling. The MacBook Air only has one single Fan for Cooling, whereas the MacBook Pro 13” can have two Fans, if you go for the higher end model with four Thunderbolt 3 Ports. That one Fan on the MacBook Air isn’t even connected to the CPU’s Heatsink. Instead, it just randomly sits there inside the Case, as if it got disconnected and fell, because of this, thermals on this Laptop are bad.

Whenever you’re doing something more intensive, such as video editing, the CPU gets as hot as 100 degrees on the MacBook Air, that Fan doesn’t seem to help at all and the performance takes a big hit.

It doesn’t actually throttle, as the Clocks still remain above the base 1.1 GHz Clock on both the i3 and the i5, but it gets very close to that number when you’re doing some very intensive tasks, rather than staying at the Turbo Boost of 3.2 or 3.5GHz. This is the only reason why the MacBook Pro 13” can outperform it.

So, why has Apple done such a thing? Why is Apple intentionally limiting the thermal performance of the MacBook Air? Is it so that you upgrade to the 13” Pro? Not necessarily.

You see, the Y series Processor that is inside the MacBook Air is actually a Fan-less design, whereas the U series Processor that is inside the 13” MacBook Pro, is not. As per Intel’s own recommendations, the MacBook Air doesn’t actually need a Fan at all, whereas the Pro does. When Apple updated the MacBook Air in 2018 with the Third Generation design, they didn’t even have to include a Fan at all, because this is the same CPU design as the Intel Core M inside the 12” MacBook, which didn’t even have a Fan at all. But Apple decided to include a Fan in the MacBook Air, just for the sake of longevity. When Intel added two more Cores and therefore more heat, Apple decided to just stick with the same Cooling as they had the year prior.

So if you plan on doing any video or photo editing, the MacBook Air can easily handle that, even 4K video editing for that matter. It’s just that the export times would be much longer compared to a 13” MacBook Pro or not even to mention a 15” or a 16” model. If this is something you do on a daily basis, just don’t buy the MacBook Air, get a MacBook Pro instead. If it’s just occasional photo and video editing that you do, the MacBook Air can still handle that quite well.

So, what about gaming? First off, don’t buy a Mac for gaming and secondly, if you do buy a Mac for gaming, don’t buy the MacBook Air. It’s literally the worst option, for gaming, out of all the Macs that Apple sell. Again, even if the GPU is far more powerful than on the 13” Pro, because of that Fan not being connected to the Heatsink, gaming performance is pretty bad on the Air. You can play some very lightweight games such as Hearthstone, but when it comes to even Fortnite or most of the SteamGames, which are actually 32-bit games and are no longer supported, you’re out of luck.

Something that I do like a lot about the MacBook Air is that it comes with two Thunderbolt 3 Ports. Thunderbolt 3 is the fastest Port on any consumer device out there right now, with speeds of up to 40Gb/s or 5GB/s.

You can not only use this to connect to Thunderbolt 3 Docks, which gives you a ton of extra Ports by just using a single Thunderbolt 3 Cable, but you can also use it to connect to a 5K Monitor, two 4K Monitors or even one 6K Monitor. The MacBook Air does support Apple’s Pro Display XDR at full Resolution, something that ironically, not even the iMac Pro supports. This is because the iMac Pro is using an older Thunderbolt 3 Controller.

You can also use Thunderbolt to connect an External GPU for some incredible GPU performance, which won’t be throttled. In this case you might be wondering, what’s the gaming and video editing performance?

Well, in Fortnite for example, on Native Resolution & Medium Settings, the MacBook Air was averaging around 10fps. With an eGPU attached, a Vega 64 in this case, we were getting around 60fps on average. So a pretty big difference. In FCP X for example, exporting our Blind Camera Comparison, took 1h:15min without an eGPU and just 22 minutes, with the Vega 64 eGPU attached. This was with the eGPU connected directly to the MacBook Air. If you connect it to a Monitor first and then to the Air, you would get even higher performance.

Battery Life

What about the Battery Life? Well, Apple actually dropped the Battery Life from 12 hours, which is what we had in 2019 and 2018, to 11 hours.

The Battery is actually the exact same size as last year, 49.9 Watt-Hour. The increase in the thickness is only due to the Keyboard, which needed more space to travel and then, because the body got thicker, it also increased the weight. In terms of how much of those 11 hours I got, I personally only got about five to seven hours, seven hours at most.

My use case scenario on the MacBook Air was pretty light. I used it mostly for scripting & researching, so I had about 20 Tabs open all the time. I did a tiny bit of Photoshop work and I also had Slack open, which consumes a lot of Battery. With this use case scenario, I got about 6 hours on average.

Value

In the end, is the MacBook Air 2020 worth it? Well, let’s see.

Compared to the 2019 model, we get a Quad-Core Processor option, we get a better GPU and a much better Keyboard. We also get 256GB of Storage on the baseline model, compared to 128GB like we got before. You get all of this for $100 less. The new MacBook Air starts from $1000, or £1000 in the UK. This is indeed for the Dual-Core model, the Quad-Core is $100 more, but there you go, the MacBook Air was never a better deal that it is now.

So, for any casual user, I would highly recommend it. For people that want something more powerful and much better for regular photo and video editing, definitely consider the 13” Pro but don’t get one right now, because there will be a newer model, with that updated keyboard, coming out very very soon. So hold off for that model instead.

That 14” MacBook Pro that we’ve seen rumoured is likely to get released by June. If that is indeed the case, I might be upgrading, or downgrading, depending on how you put it, from my Eight-Core 2019 15”.