MacBook Air Gets New Keyboard, Ice Lake, Starts at $999

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A sub-$1,000 MacBook with the keyboard you want.

(Image credit: Apple)

Apple today updated the MacBook Air with the new keyboard found on the 16-inch MacBook Pro, as well as new processors and a starting price of $999. It's also now starting at 256GB of storage, a double jump from the previous 128GB.

MacBook Air (2020) Specs

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Andrew E. Freedman
Andrew E. Freedman
Senior Editor

Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and BlueSky @andrewfreedman.net. You can send him tips on Signal: andrewfreedman.01

6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • NightHawkRMX
    A perfect. $1000 for a thermal throttling Dual-core i3
    Reply
  • daglesj
    Wow...maybe buy a proper computer instead? I think most Chromebooks now have more power than that.
    Reply
  • NightHawkRMX
    https://www.amazon.com/HP-Touchscreen-Chromebook-Computer-Quad-Core/dp/B084C25KZD/ref=sr_1_12?dchild=1&keywords=Chromebook&qid=1584538005&refinements=p_n_feature_five_browse-bin:7817224011&rnid=2257851011&s=electronics&sr=1-12
    In fact, yes.

    Here is a $545 Chromebook that has a 4c/8t i5 and the same 8gb ram. It has a smaller SSD but included a hdd for more total storage.

    This is half the cost, performs better, and has a touchscreen, something i feel a $1000 Macbook should have.
    Reply
  • cyrusfox
    This appears to be a big win for Intel on Ice lake. Surprised really to see it as it seems all the premium designs are sticking with comet lake on mobile and pushing high clock speeds.
    Maybe 10nm is finally going to make a proper debut. Can't wait to see the teardowns on the new air, Guess ram is still going to be soldered in place, but wonder on the SSD, whether that can be swapped out or if it has some encryption locking chip that forces Only Apple storage(Latest mac pro seems to suggest apple is locking more and more of the hardware down).
    Reply
  • NightHawkRMX
    cyrusfox said:
    This appears to be a big win for Intel on Ice lake. Surprised really to see it as it seems all the premium designs are sticking with comet lake on mobile and pushing high clock speeds.
    Maybe 10nm is finally going to make a proper debut. Can't wait to see the teardowns on the new air, Guess ram is still going to be soldered in place, but wonder on the SSD, whether that can be swapped out or if it has some encryption locking chip that forces Only Apple storage(Latest mac pro seems to suggest apple is locking more and more of the hardware down).
    Previous airs had soldered SSD and t2
    Reply
  • cyrusfox
    NightHawkRMX said:
    Previous airs had soldered SSD and t2
    Lame, last air I was looking at I believe 2013, didn't have NVME but a similiar standard (early PCIE ssd AHCI weirdness) and was upgradeable with a few hoops to jump through. I shouldn't be surprised, these are just permanent configs and the masses are fine with that so I should stop caring.
    Reply