Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles - This is the 2020 MacBook Air, and it is a very very good laptop. Is it enough to make you switch from Windows? Maybe not, but it is in my opinion the best Mac they've made in years. For a very very long time, when someone would ask me which premium laptop they should buy, the MacBook Air was the default answer for me. And the reason this became the default is actually really straightforward. Apple absolutely killed it with this second generation MacBook design. Not only was the actual design itself incredibly thin and light but it really nailed the fundamentals of a laptop. So the build quality, top-notch. Battery life was some of the best on any laptop you could get. Keyboard was good, Trackpad was world class, performance was decent, the SSDs were snappy. I mean really even here in 2020, this old MacBook Air really only falls flat on the screen side and well it's a little slow now but it's really not that bad especially considering this is seven years old now. So when Apple finally decided to put the old MacBook Air out to pasture and instead replace it with an all-new model in late 2018, it was a big step forward, but this laptop still has its fair share of issues. So there's a lot of things I really like here. The Retina display is an absolutely massive leap over the last generation MacBook Air, Retina, 2560 by 1600, 16:10, I mean there's a lot that's good with this display. Some of the things though, not so hot. I will say given the fact that most Windows laptops have definitely switched to touchscreens at this point, that the lack of a touchscreen feels a little bit odd on the MacBook Air these days, although to be fair Apple's pretty much making the iPad Pro a computer now, so I guess that's kind of irrelevant. But there are actually some legitimate criticisms of this 2018 MacBook Air. First and foremost, the butterfly keyboard. So I will freely admit that I am in the camp that I actually don't think the butterfly keyboard was that bad. While yes, there's not a lot of travel, and while yes, it was absolutely plagued with many many reliability issues. But for me, it wasn't the worst keyboard in the world. Something that actually did bother me a lot more than that however, was the performance. This MacBook Air was, I don't wanna say slow because it certainly wasn't, but it was a little bit pokey, right, you only had a single dual-core processor as low-wattage, it just didn't give me a lot of confidence in the performance. But it was of course a very expensive laptop. Which brings us to this, the 2020 MacBook Air which claims to solve pretty much all of those major downsides of the last gen model. Here we go. All right, so we have the MacBook Air. Of course it only comes in 13-inch size. I know that they used to sell the 11, and that was always my favorite. But I feel like the 13 is probably the better option for most people. So physically, especially on the outside, this is basically completely identical to the last generation model. But, it smells fresh. Oh, I forgot, the new MacBook is always just immediately turn on the second you open the lid. Wait, here comes the real test. Oh, that's like a real keyboard. So this does take advantage of the magic keyboard, something we'll take a look at a little bit later. But it's pretty much the same as on the 16 inch MacBook. Feel like I haven't done like a legit unboxing of a Mac in a long time. You still get Apple stickers, right. - [Ken] Yeah, you literally just dropped them. - Where? Oh, okay, you know put this on your Samsung Galaxy S20 ultra. - [Ken] Wait, they're silver. - Oh, see, we would have completely missed this. Normally, I just skip by the unboxing 'cause who cares. We get Silver Apple stickers. - [Voiceover] It's a built-in screen reader called Voiceover. If you know how to use Voiceover, press Command-- - Then we do still have the same tiny 30 watt USB-C power adapter as well as our USB-C cable. Now of course, it should be no surprise that this MacBook has exactly two ports. Pair of Thunderbolt based USB-C port or Thunderbolt 3 based USB-C ports. We do still have the headphone jack but hardware-wise, the MacBook Air is not really all that different besides that sweet keyboard. Isn't that cool? Josh can you like when I do that, can you like play a harp sound like Mighty Car Mods. (harp music) Probably the most noticeable change with a 2020 MacBook Air is the return of the magic keyboard. Although return is not quite accurate, and as you can see here, I have all three of the most recent MacBook Airs. The 2020 model with the magic keyboard, the 2018 model with the butterfly switch as well as the older school MacBook Air with the much-loved old school keyboard. What did they call the old one? They just call it the keyboard. - [Ken] Yeah, no, there was no name for them. - I don't think they had a name for it. Okay, cool, good, I'm not crazy (laughs). So it's the original keyboard. Yeah man, this thing absolutely holds up. So it has just sort of good key travel, good feel, that thing is solid. I mean, I'm definitely biased here. This one still feels okay to me but again I never really mind these keys that much. However, this is gonna be the real test. I like this a lot. You know what, I actually think I like the 2020 MacBook Air keyboard most. The magic keyboard feels good, it feels like a nice blend honestly of the old-school MacBook Air keyboard and the butterfly switch. It's kind of in the middle, it's certainly a lot closer to the old school. But you know what, let me give them a big thumbs up here. This feels a lot better, I think everyone can agree, even me was a little bit biased than the 2018 MacBook Air. Yeah, I mean just, it's so much more travel. And of course you have to keep in mind that the 2020 MacBook Air does have Touch ID, you also have the inverted T layout, really, I think two things that most people appreciate. And what you don't have is a touch bar. I again, I think I'm a little bit biased here 'cause I don't really mind the touch bar but I do feel like most people will prefer the full-size Escape key and everything being sort of as you remember it. Especially if you're upgrading from an older MacBook Air, this should feel right at home. So when it comes to the webcam on the MacBook Air, it is fine, I don't think anyone would consider this to be high quality but it's good enough for a video call. But what they have improved this year are the actual microphones. So the MacBook Air has three microphones built in. And as you can hear, well, it might not sound amazing, and actually is pretty significantly better than most laptops. I mean quite as good as the 16 inch MacBook Pro but they're definitely doing some really good work here on the audio front. Speaking of audio, according to Apple, these speakers are not only 25% louder but deliver double the bass. - [Austin] I'm Austin.