Be careful when you buy a MacBook Air: Avoid the Intel SKUs of the 2020 Air

[Redaktion]

There are plenty of discounts for the Apple MacBook Air 2020 before Christmas. However, a closer look usually reveals that it is a discontinued model with an old Intel processor. We think you should avoid these SKUs, even though you can save some money.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Be-careful-when-you-buy-a-MacBook-Air-Avoid-the-Intel-SKUs-of-the-2020-Air.510408.0.html

[qwelkj]

If you use computer for web browsing and some specific software which is proven to work on M1, yes new M1 Macbooks are superior.

You should not recomend it all the way in since you can't run succesfully many software development stuff, no docker and only ARM virtualisation. And obviously you cant run x86 virtual machines on it.

[joegalamb]

(...) you can't run succesfully many software development stuff, no docker and only ARM virtualisation. And obviously you cant run x86 virtual machines on it.

Who needs these kind of stuff is probably aware of it and doesn't choose a laptop only based on a notebookcheck article.

[TimTam]

You should not recomend it all the way in since you can't run succesfully many software development stuff, no docker and only ARM virtualisation. And obviously you cant run x86 virtual machines on it.

Tech Preview of Docker Desktop for M1 was just released yesterday. And the GA build of Docker Desktop is expected in the first quarter of 2021.

docker.com/blog/download-and-try-the-tech-preview-of-docker-desktop-for-m1

[necovek]

There would be more substance to this article if you compared the new price to other PC competitors (xps13, hp spectre...) with similar specs.

Also, at what price point would they make sense?

Sure, one can figure that on their own, but you are in the business of doing comparisons and reviews like that.

[aMootpoint]

Cmon man.  What a trash article.
Cinebench is a useless benchmark.  And you are using that as a primary reason to drive people towards M1.  This is the most superficial, uninformed and misleading article I have read this week. 
Intel Macbooks are flying off the shelf ....
Dont spread misinformation ...

[The Heretic]

Writing this on a 2011 MBA.

For most people, unless you are a pro/prosumer content creator of vids/photos/audio or someone like that, the speed advantage of a faster CPU platform is maybe not worth the cost. With the new ARM chips, it may also not be worth the disadvantage of not being able to run Windows (either in a VM or using Bootcamp) - at least for now (until commercial VMs or some other *easy* method of running Windows on a ARM Mac is made widely available).

I am a professional s/w dev who does cross platform development, and I need to be able to run OSX, Windows and Linux on my Macs. For my work, RAM capacity and SSD speed is more important than CPU speed.

For an many people who have a PC at work and a Mac at home, being able to run Windows is important (I gave my kids a Mac Mini and they only run Windows on it).

So, being able to get a somewhat slower Intel based Mac, for less $, may be an advantage that outweighs the CPU speed of the ARM Macs.

[_MT_]

For most people, unless you are a pro/prosumer content creator of vids/photos/audio or someone like that, the speed advantage of a faster CPU platform is maybe not worth the cost...

I imagine people usually don't buy an Air to do heavy lifting. The performance is a nice bonus, but it's really the battery life that is of primary interest to me. It's really shame Apple didn't use a more efficient display.

Yes, you've got to keep in mind that native software is still coming and emulation might not be perfect. It's the first generation. But Apple is pretty good at driving developers to support new platforms. Anyone committed to Mac should get there sooner or later. If you're running on it only macOS, I think you can make the leap of faith. Unless you really need some obscure software where it's doubtful they'll support M1 anytime soon and you don't want to take risks with emulation.

I believe there is work being done on bringing x86 virtual machines to M1, but who knows when it will be available, how well it will work, what the performance will be like. Technically, it's feasible. But you need to build an emulator and that's not trivial. So, at this point, if you need x86, you should stick with x86 (but I would probably look for MBP13 for SW development and the like). There is also the Windows on ARM which will probably come officially at some point. Whether that's useful depends on whether what you need runs well enough on it.

While I use virtual machines a lot, emulated ones are of little interest to me. Fortunately, I write my software to be easily portable (of course, it gets more difficult with platform specific APIs). Even if I currently use only one platform. Exactly because it doesn't tie me to it. If I want to run something on an x86 machine, I can just connect to it remotely. And if I'm in a cottage in the middle of a forest with no connection to the Internet, I can just bring a box with me. You might get away with something the size of NUC. Often, I can get away with postponing the testing on another platform - develop on one and then just verify it works as well on another later. That way, I don't need constant access. It depends on what you do. I sometimes travel with three or four computers (not counting tablets). Besides questions from other travelers, looks from security personnel and squeezing into weight limits for carry-on baggage (as you don't want to check-in computers), it's not a problem for me.