The Apple MacBook Air 13 (M1, 2020) is a laptop that features Apple's M1 SoC (System-on-Chip). It's very easy to carry around due to its compact size, and its battery easily lasts through a typical 8-hour workday. It has a good keyboard, an excellent touchpad, and a great webcam for video calls. It doesn't get overly hot, and it remains completely silent under load due to its fanless design. It can handle light workloads and even some heavy ones, but it does throttle due to thermal limitations, and its integrated GPU struggles in graphically intensive tasks. Unfortunately, there are only two USB-C ports, so you'll likely need to carry adapters.
There are two models of the Apple MacBook Air; they mainly differ in graphical performance. Our unit has the 7-core GPU M1 SoC, and you can upgrade to a model with 8 cores if you need more GPU processing power. Both variants start with 8GB of shared memory, which should be enough for most people. However, we recommend that people working with many browser tabs open simultaneously or running memory-intensive applications opt for 16GB. The storage is also configurable, from 256GB to 2TB.
Our Verdict
The Apple MacBook Air is great for students. It's a thin and light laptop that's easy to carry around, with a battery that lasts through an entire day of light productivity. It has a good keyboard, an excellent touchpad, and a bright, sharp screen. Its M1 SoC is powerful enough to handle most student workloads, and it's completely silent thanks to its fanless design. It only has two USB-C ports, though, so you'll likely need to carry dongles.
- Exceptional build quality with a full aluminum body.
- Compact and lightweight.
- Battery can last through a full 8-hour day for light productivity.
- Keyboard feels good to type on and is easy to adapt to.
- Large and responsive touchpad.
- Only two USB-C ports.
The Apple MacBook Air is mediocre for gaming. Its M1 SoC easily handles games from the App Store. However, its integrated GPU struggles in graphically demanding games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Borderlands 3, and it throttles under load due to thermal constraints. Also, very few games outside the App Store are optimized for the ARM-based M1 SoC, which means some games might not run properly.
- CPU can handle fairly heavy workloads.
- Completely silent due to its fanless design.
- Most games aren't compatible with macOS on the M1 SoC.
- CPU throttles under load and integrated GPU can't handle graphically intensive tasks.
- Not user-upgradeable.
The Apple MacBook Air is good for media consumption. It has excellent-sounding speakers that get very loud and a high-resolution Retina display that produces a sharp and colorful image. The screen gets bright enough to combat glare, and it also gets very dim to provide a more comfortable dark room viewing experience. Its color accuracy is superb out of the box, but blacks look gray in the dark due to its relatively low contrast. Battery life is great for video playback, and the power adapter is easy to carry around should you need to give it a small charge to get through the day.
- Compact and lightweight.
- Excellent up-firing speakers.
- Bright, high-resolution screen.
- Blacks look gray in the dark.
The Apple MacBook Air is decent for use as a workstation. Its M1 SoC can handle fairly heavy workloads, but because it's a fanless device, there are some slowdowns when performing demanding tasks for an extended period due to thermal limitations. Likewise, its integrated GPU can do some heavy-lifting, but it might stutter a bit in graphically intensive applications. Unfortunately, it only has two USB-C ports, and it's impossible to upgrade any components after purchase because everything is soldered on.
- CPU can handle fairly heavy workloads.
- Completely silent due to its fanless design.
- Fast storage drive.
- CPU throttles under load and integrated GPU can't handle graphically intensive tasks.
- Only two USB-C ports.
- Not user-upgradeable.
The Apple MacBook Air is good for business use. It feels exceptionally well-built, with a thin and light design that makes it very portable. The M1 SoC has enough processing power to handle most productivity tasks, and you can easily get through an 8-hour workday on a full charge. It has a good keyboard, an excellent touchpad, and a great webcam for video calls. It only has two USB-C ports, so you might need a dock or adapters to connect peripherals or an external display.
- Exceptional build quality with a full aluminum body.
- Compact and lightweight.
- Battery can last through a full 8-hour day for light productivity.
- Keyboard feels good to type on and is easy to adapt to.
- Large and responsive touchpad.
- Only two USB-C ports.
- Not user-upgradeable.
Changelog
- Updated Dec 07, 2023: Converted to Test Bench 0.8.2.
- Updated Nov 03, 2023: Converted to Test Bench 0.8.1.
- Updated Jul 12, 2023: Added mention of the Apple MacBook Air 15 (2023) as an alternative with a bigger screen in the Screen Specs section.
- Updated Oct 18, 2022: Updated the review to properly state that this laptop has a 13.3" screen as opposed to the marketing size of 13"; this hasn't resulted in any score changes.
Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the 13 inch Apple MacBook Air (M1, 2020) with 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD storage. There are two M1 SoCs, one with a 7-core GPU and another with an 8-core GPU. The 8-core model will perform better in graphically demanding tasks, but it starts with 512GB of storage, while the 7-core model starts with 256GB. You can see the various configuration options in the table below.
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Our display and performance results are only valid for the configuration that we tested. If you come across a different configuration option not listed above, or you have a similar MacBook Air 2020 that doesn't correspond to our review, let us know, and we'll update it. Some tests, like black uniformity and color accuracy, may vary between individual units.
You can see our unit's label here.
Popular Laptop Comparisons
The Apple MacBook Air 13 (M2, 2022) is the successor to the Apple MacBook Air 13 (M1, 2020). The 2022 model is a better device overall, with a more powerful SoC, a slightly larger display, and a better 1080p webcam. The M2 MacBook Air has an additional MagSafe charging port, which frees up one of the USB-C ports, but like the M1 MacBook Air, it can only support one external display.
The Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M1, 2021) is much better than the Apple MacBook Air 13 (M1, 2020); however, they don't target the same audience. The MacBook Air is a thin and light ultraportable designed for light to moderately intensive workloads, while the MacBook Pro is a much more powerful mobile workstation designed for demanding tasks like video editing and 3D rendering. The MacBook Pro 14 has a much better display as it's larger, brighter, and sharper. It also has Mini LED backlighting to provide local dimming, and it supports ProMotion, which makes fast motion appear smoother and helps extend battery life. The MacBook Pro has a higher-resolution webcam, wider port selection, and a faster storage drive. The MacBook Air's battery lasts longer for light productivity, but its battery life for video playback is shorter than the MacBook Pro's.
The Apple MacBook Air 15 (M2, 2023) is better than the Apple MacBook Air 13 (M1, 2020) in almost every way except for battery life, as the M1 MacBook Air's battery lasts about five hours longer. The 15-inch MacBook Air has a newer, sleeker design, a larger and brighter display, and a better 1080p webcam. It also has a MagSafe charging port, which frees up the USB-C you would otherwise need to charge the laptop, and its M2 SoC is faster.
The Apple MacBook Air 13 (M3, 2024) is a newer version of the Apple MacBook Air 13 (M1, 2020), though two generations apart. The 2024 model is better overall; it has a brighter display, a better webcam, and a faster M3 SoC. It also has a MagSafe charging port, which frees up a USB-C that you would otherwise need to charge the laptop, and it can output to two external displays, albeit with the laptop closed. Its battery life isn't quite as good as the M1 model for light uses, but it's much better for video playback, thanks to the addition of an AV1 decoder.
Test Results
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