On March 18, Apple held a public event. In online mode. The heroes of the event were two Macs – the most powerful (theoretically) MacBook Air in the entire history of this brand and Mac mini (updated quite a bit), and 11.0- and 12.9-inch iPad Pros, with a new processor and support LiDAR technologies (as the good old lidar has designated Apple). All of them, even Mac mini, deserve attention and are interesting. Mac’s predict big changes in predictions that are already coming true, so let’s start with the MacBook Air.
MacBook 2020 is very different from the previous generation
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Outwardly, it is exactly the same as its predecessor, 2019. Only one difference, new Macbook air 40 grams heavier (1.29 kg instead of 1.25). The design, the screen, the painting options offered to the buyer and the extremely concise set of connectors on the case (3.5 mm analog audio output and two USB-C / Thunderbolt 3 connectors) are all as before. The main and long-awaited innovation is not striking, but looking closely you can see it.
it “Magic keyboard”, Magic Keyboard. With a new “scissors” type of gear, almost exactly the same as the 2017 MacBook Air. The experiment on living people ended happily, returning to the old. They wanted to give the butterfly mechanism another chance, but the trials of its last “improved version” were the last for it. And even if this were the only change, getting rid of insects (a butterfly mechanism) would be enough to increase sales. But inside the new MacBook Air has changed, and most likely for the better, a lot.
MacBook Air 2020 Features
Since time immemorial, the set of configurations of the “household laptop” has been unpretentious and even dull. As if the buyers of the most affordable line of apple laptops were considered not quite full-fledged representatives of Homo Sapiens. The configurations differed from each other in the volume of flash memory soldered into them, price and a set of options. The set of options for the cheaper option was limited to reduce its price. In the online store, sometimes only in the “expensive” configuration, it was possible to choose an SSD with a larger capacity, to choose a “more powerful processor”, with a performance almost indistinguishable from the processor in the basic configuration. The last representative of those immemorial times was sold in the Apple online store until March 17 this year. Now everything is grown-up.
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New MacBook Air is very good looking
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There are two options, as before. They, as in ancient times, differ in the volume of SSD-drives. In the cheap version, which now costs (excluding taxes and fees) 89,990 rubles, by default, 256 GB of flash memory are soldered.
В модели 2019 года самый дешевый вариант стоил 104 990 рублей, в его составе был SSD всего в 128 ГБ.
As part of the most expensive (for 119 990 rubles) initial configuration of the MacBook Air 2020, a 512 GB SSD. The increase in the volume of drives is not yet available in Russia. But if ordered in the USA, then in the cheap version the memory will cost $ 200, 400 and 800 (for 512 GB, 1 and 2 TB), in the expensive one – $ 200 and 600 (for 1 and 2 TB). But the list of options includes not only larger drives.
MacBook Air 2020 processor and memory
Cheap and expensive options are different processors. In the first of them – a 2-core Core i3, in the second – a 4-core Core i5. The number of actually working cores (virtual) is twice as large. The clock frequency of both processors is the same, and at first glance depressingly small – 1.1 GHz. According to Apple, one of these processors “2x faster than the processor on the MacBook Air 2019” Alas, at the moment, the results of independent research are not new.
Both of these processors integrate an 11th generation Iris Plus GPU with 48 work units. Which provides, again, according to Apple, an 80 percent increase in graphics performance. Better, cooler, more powerful – without test results, all this is abstract and imperceptible. There is something really tangible: the MacBook Air supports 6K displays. For instance, with Apple Pro Display XDR. Apple did not disclose exactly which modifications of Intel Ice Lake are used in the new product, but it is computable, read about it in the next section.
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I want to buy a new MacBook Air for the sake of the keyboard alone
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There is something else in the MacBook Air that concerns everyone: no matter which option was originally selected, you can choose a real monster instead of the processor included in the basic configuration. Quad-core Core i7, with a clock frequency of 1.2 GHz, in turbo mode – 3.8 GHz, in the integrated graphics of which 64 work units. In a cheap version, installing a monster will cost $ 250, in an expensive one – $ 150. In a cheap version, you can also install a 4-core Core i5 for $ 100.
RAM size in the new MacBook Air disappointed: in both cases, by default, 8 GB of RAM (LPDDR4X 3 733 MHz) is installed, which can be increased to 16 Gigabytes, paying $ 200. Процессор, оперативная память и SSD-модули намертво впаиваются в материнскую плату и замене не подлежат.
Apple T2, the security chip, still reads data from the media and writes it to it, simultaneously encrypting them with keys known only to it. Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ax) and Bluetooth 5.0 (in the 2019 model – Bluetooth 4.2). FaceTime-camera is the same, 720p.
What chip is in the new MacBook Air?
With a probability of 99%, these are Core i3-1000G4 (or i3-1000NG4), Core i5-1030G4 (or i5-1030NG4) and Core i7-1060G7 (or i7-1060NG7). According to one version, the letter “N” added to the designation indicates processors specially designed for Apple. There are other versions. Below I will use only the NG-version, which corresponds to reality with the greatest probability. Another option is also possible.
- i3-1000NG4 – 2 cores, 4 control threads, clock speed 1.1 GHz, turbo boost 3.2 GHz, third level cache – 4 MB, Iris Plus with 48 work units;
- i5-1030NG4 – 4 cores, 8 control threads, clock frequency 1.1 GHz, turbo boost 3.5 GHz, third-level cache – 6 MB, Iris Plus with 48 work units;
- i7-1060NG7 – 4 cores, 8 control threads, clock frequency 1.2 GHz, turbo boost 3.8 GHz, third level cache – 8 MB, Iris Plus with 64 working units.
How do you like the novelty? Will you take it? Tell us in the comments and in our Telegram chat.
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