Amazon.com: Late 2020 Apple MacBook Air M1 Chip (13 inch, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) Silver (Renewed Premium) : Electronics

I recently migrated to Apple after many years using a wide variety of PCs running Windows or Linux. I decided to make that move after Apple's introduction of the M1 processor, which has been proven to be an excellent hardware platform. Now. of course, the M2 has been released, but, depending on your needs, the 2020 Macbook Air with the M1 will save you some money while still delivering outstanding performance and some of the most attractively and perfectly manufactured hardware. You can search the Internet for professional reviews of the Macbook Air, but I feel confident you'll find plenty to verify what I'm saying.The Retina display is beautiful. The sound system is superior to any other laptop I have owned or used. The battery holds up all day under typical use, and I can verify that the battery holds its charge well for at least a week while the notebook is powered off. The Apple OS (Monterey) is smooth and fast, and I was able to learn my way around in it quickly. When you need help, a Google search will yield tons of tips quickly, or you can avail yourself of Apple support.I will say that the Air is a little short on USB ports, lacks a built-in card slot, and, of course, is not equipped with a touchscreen. However, I have run a USB hub from one of the two Thunderbolt ports, and there seems to be enough power to support my flash drives and card readers...even a portable DVD-burner. As far as a touchscreen goes, I have that on a Dell laptop I run Linux on, but I never use it...guess I'm a mouse or touchpad guy.The aluminum housing is beautifully machined and finished, the keyboard has a very nice touch, the battery seems to charge quickly, and the Air is light at under 3 lbs.One last thing! I have been a heavy user of both Google and Microsoft services, and I have found that Apple provides ample support for integrating those services into the Mac environment. I run Google's Backup and Sync and Microsoft's OneDrive with no problems. My AVG subscription allows me to use my antivirus software on both Mac OS and Windows machines.I have no regrets for this purchase. Actually, the Air was my 3rd M1 Mac. I also have an iMac and a Mac Mini. They all work together very well!

I have two MacBook Airs (MBA), a 13" and a 11, both with the previous form factor (the wide, body colored bezel around the screen, 1280x800 resolution) and this new 13" MBA improves upon it in every way (almost) and makes it nearly perfect.Good:- SCREEN looks great! 2560x1600 resolution is bright and sharp and looks good with the thin black bezel. I usually don't go above 50% brightness.- KEYBOARD is good. Some have mentioned that it still sucks, but I find it much better than the older MBAs that I own and better than say, the Magic Keyboard. Even with a thin silicone keyboard cover I find the typing experience to be much better and I can type faster and with fewer mistakes.- BATTERY LIFE is fantastic. Haven't done any real testing yet and obviously it depends on a lot of factors (wifi usage, video streaming, HD vs 4k video viewing/processing/etc., screen brightness, type of app being used, etc.) but for my usage (mostly web browsing, video viewing on YouTube, accessing VPN for work (Citrix, EPIC), etc., it has been great. Easily tops 10 hours and super impressed so far.- LOOKS GREAT. Love the newer (I know that the actual exterior design is a few years old by now) design, looks and feels great. Form factor is nice and it is a reasonable weight.- NO FAN. That's awesome, as it not only stays quiet all the time but you also do not need to worry about blocking any fan vents on the bottom or back of the case while you have it on your lap. Pretty amazing really for a laptop to have no fans.- PERFORMANCE. It works great so far on what I have used it for, which is not terribly a lot, but it is what it is for a laptop using Apple silicon for the first time. For just day to day use and things like Chrome, Office (Word, Excel), Citirx, EPIC, etc., it has been super smooth and fast. Have not tried gaming yet but do not have high hopes given it is the base model with 7-core GPU. Also, things like start up are noticeably faster with the M1 versus my 2020 iMac 27" (top end) with Intel chips.- TOUCH ID is great still. Works very fast and the button does not get greasy (which makes it not work well) like the old iPhone home buttons. On the other hand, it should really have Face ID at this point.- APPLE ECOSYSTEM is great as usual and a real reason to get this MBA. Apple Watch easily unlocks it (so you do not really need Face ID if you have the watch). You can easily send/receive files using AirDrop or cast using AirPlay. And so on and so forth.- BIG SUR comes preinstalled but you need to update to get 11.0.1.NOT GOOD:- WEBCAM still sucks. Still low resolution and just does not look good in FaceTime, Teams, etc. Shame that Apple is so slow to upgrade webcams on the Macs (the 27" iMac FINALLY upgraded to 1080p front cams only a couple months ago... I got one and it looks so much better than this MBA's camera).- ONLY 2 PORTS. Sad that this thing has only 2 USB-C ports (that cover thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1, charging, DisplayPort). Given that it is used to charge, it leaves only one USB-C port for other use, pretty lame. I wish they had squeezed (I think it would fit) a USB-A port so that I could plug in my wireless mouse USB-A dongle as I have never liked any bluetooth mouse, or at least one more USB-C port.- NEW TECH (Apple silicon) means the M1-optimized apps are still being rolled out, e.g. Photoshop still not available at release.- BATTERY still cannot be removed, no surprise here, but means that like all Apple mobile tech it will have a useable lifespan determined at least partly by the non-removable battery. Easier to have an iPhone's battery replaced than a MBA I would imagine but hopefully it maintains a high level of performance for 4 years at the minimum.OVERALL:A few negatives (mostly the webcam) but enough significant improvements that this MBA is really a no-brainer for anyone needing a non-power notebook compute, especially if s/he is already in the Apple ecosystem. Love it so far!

This little laptop is SO good. The keyboard feels phenomenal, I cannot tell there are any pixels on the screen, and the battery has never died on me. The screen was weird, but since it was under warranty Apple replaced it for free. The build quality is excellent. The solid metal construction simply cannot be broken under normal use. It's great for school and home use. The only issue with gaming is that it overheats, and of course, not very many games are available on the Mac, so not the computer's fault. This is a 10/10 laptop would recommend it to anyone else looking for a small, portable, and powerful laptop.Speaking of power, this thing FLIES. It handles any task I throw at it. I tried video editing the other day, and it handles my 4K timeline so easily.Final rating:Build quality: 10/10Keyboard: 10/10Display: 10/10Gaming: 8/10Performance: 10/10