Apple MacBook Air 2020: Near perfect
The Guardian reviewer Samuel Gibbs gives Apple’s 2020 MacBook Air five stars.
In form and function the MacBook Air is just a few shades short of the perfect traditional laptop. If you don’t want a more modern convertible, you’ll struggle to find a better consumer machine than this.
The keyboard is finally as great as the trackpad, the battery lasts long enough for a work day, it’s light but strong and the screen is beautiful, while the little things such as Touch ID work great. You also get two Thunderbolt 3 ports and a long support life.
Sure, the screen could have smaller bezels and the webcam could be better – why Apple hasn’t put its excellent Face ID into its laptops I have no idea. You can’t upgrade the RAM or storage after purchase, there’s no wifi 6 support, nor SD card slot or USB-A port, but by now most will have enough USB-C cables and accessories, and if not, now is the time to buy them.
As the headline suggests, this is a positive review. The pluses are big, niggles are minor. It squares with my long term MacBook Air experience.
I’ve used MacBook Airs for the past six years. I’m on my second one. Every member of my family now has one. They are by far the best laptop for writing and other light computing tasks. There is more than enough power for everyday users.
Price and productivity
When I write about Apple products1 there are always readers who complain about the price.
That misses a lot of context. You’re not just buying the hardware, you are buying into a different way of using computers.
Macs come with a suite of productivity software that costs extra if you buy a Windows computer.
They also come with a complete, fully realised, this is a word I hesitate to use, ecosystem.
Apple’s world is not necessarily better or worse than what you’d get with Windows or for that matter with Android or a Chromebook. But if it suits the way you work and think, the relatively small margin you pay for an Apple will pay off immediately in terms of improved productivity.
My freelance writing business quite literally took off when I switched back to Macs from Windows.
You may experience something similar. You may also experience the same kind of improvement moving from MacOs to Windows or from anything to Linux or any other operating system. This is not a one-size-fits-all world.
What my experience says does not work, is attempting to do things on the cheap. Skimping saves you dozens or maybe hundreds of dollars. Being unable to work productively will cost you thousands.
- It’s not only Apple, people say similar things about any premium hardware product ↩︎
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