After the upgrade to the much improved Retina screen, Apple now takes care of two more problems of the MacBook Air with the latest 2020 model. The heavily criticized Butterfly keyboard is replaced with a conventional input and custom Intel processors are supposed to improve the performance. But does it work?

After Apple has already replaced the problematic Butterfly keyboard in the larger MacBook Pro with a conventional keyboard design, we now also get the new keyboard in Apple's smallest laptop, the MacBook Air. During our last review, we were actually not sure whether Apple will use the new keyboard for the MacBook Air because it requires more vertical space. The new model is actually slightly thicker than before, even though Apple does not really advertise this fact in the press information. At 15.9 vs. 16.1 mm (at the thickest spot), however, the difference is small and we actually prefer this development. To be honest, you cannot really notice the difference in practice, either.

Another big issue of the previous model, especially considering the high price, was the slow processor. Intel's Core i5-8210Y was an ultra-low-voltage processor with two cores and very low performance headroom. Apple wants to change that with custom processors from Intel. They still belong to the ultra-low-voltage Y-series, but are now based on the modern Ice Lake architecture, so the graphics performance in particular is increased. The default processor is still a dual-core Core i3, but you can also get a Core i5 or even Core i7 quad-core. These custom Apple CPUs have a slightly higher TDP and therefore higher clock rates. These CPUs also have smaller package sizes, even though this is not really interesting for the customer.

This leaves us with the cooling solution and how it handles the new CPU options. The SoC of the MacBook Air is once again passively cooled. Yes, there is a small fan inside the chassis, but there is no heat pipe that connects it with the heat sink. It is only supposed to improve the air flow in the chassis. As we have heard in the review of the predecessor, the small fan can get really loud (during the installation of applications or when you run more complex tasks, for example). The heat sink of the new 2020 MacBook Air is a bit bigger than before, but there is still no direct connection to the fan.

Our test unit is the Core i5 model of the MacBook Air for 1499 Euros or $1299 US, respectively. We purchased the unit in Apple's standard online shop. In addition to the quad-core processor, the laptop is equipped with 8 GB LPDDR4X-RAM and 512 GB SSD storage which should be completely sufficient for many users.

