You might assume we spent the whole weekend playing Animal Crossing (and you wouldn’t be totally wrong), but we had a few other things on our plate, too: we’re amassing medical ventilator repair information to keep as many of those in service as possible, and we took a peek inside the new MacBook Air and iPad Pro. More on the iPad Pro to come, but for now let’s discuss this new MacBook Air, its many small changes, and its exciting new keyboard.
To set the stage, let’s rewind to 2015. A peaceful time, when one could leave the house or visit a neighbor, should they feel so inclined. Walking onto a literal stage back then: Tim Cook, followed by Phil Schiller, presenting the resurrected MacBook to (brace yourself) an in-person gathering of humans. They showed off an all-new keyboard, a no-compromises improvement over the scissor switches that had been in older laptops forever—the butterfly keyboard. It just so happened to also slim the MacBook down to measure a vanishingly thin 13.1 mm (at its thickest). The rest, as they say, is history.
Fast forward to today. You haven’t left your house in a week, we’re still working out how to perform a teardown without leaving our homes, and Apple has released a new MacBook Air with an updated Magic Keyboard, like the one we saw on the 16” MacBook Pro last year. Notably, that new keyboard has only added half a millimeter to the thick end of the new Air—the new wedge slopes from 4.1 mm to 16.1 mm. Is that increase all keyboard though? And, if it is, does that really matter? Let’s dive in.
First order of business: yep, that’s them! These “Magic” a.k.a. scissor keys have proven, so far, to be considerably more reliable than the Butterfly variety. No silicone barrier needed here! Let’s see what other improvements have been made.
Pentalobe screws and two clips hold the back cover down. Inside, things look familiar, with a few notable differences: a larger heatsink over the new processor, and a new cable configuration between the logic board and the trackpad. Oh, and the speakers appear to have grown screws—a superior method of securing things, in our opinion.
Bottom (Gray): MacBook Air 2020
That new trackpad cable configuration pays dividends! Where last year the trackpad cables were trapped under the logic board, they are now free to be disconnected anytime—meaning trackpad removal can happen as soon as the back cover comes off. And since the battery rests under these same cables, this new configuration also greatly speeds up battery removal by leaving the logic board in place. That’s two very tasty birds, one stone, for those of you counting. This is one of those happy (but all too rare) occasions where we can identify a hardware change from Apple that’s squarely aimed at improving serviceability in the existing design. Sometimes they do listen!
The speakers are still held down with relatively-friendly stretch release adhesive—with the added bonus of screws this time. Maybe Apple is coming over to our side, risking a bit of screw rattle for a mechanical alternative to a sticky situation? And once again, the battery (same model number and specs as last year) sits on stretchy pull-tabs, too.
Speaking of sticky situations: While the rest of the world waits for this Magic Keyboard to come to the smaller (14-inch?) MacBook Pro, we’re still waiting for this stretch-release adhesive to make its way into any other MacBook. The difference between a battery repair in one of these MacBook Airs and a battery repair in any MacBook Pro made after 2012 is a smelly outpouring of solvents and up to two hours of additional disassembly and cleanup, thanks to their ultra-aggressive battery adhesive. Even though we’ve got some good things to say about this adhesive, it’s important to note here that we much prefer the use of screws—especially in larger devices like laptops.
That leaves us with the two boards: one logic, and one key. The latter won’t be going anywhere, thanks to the rivets that hold it in place, but the difference between the butterfly keyboard and this Magic one is—you guessed it—about .5 mm.
More than anything, that 0.5 mm illustrates the sheer unnecessary-ness of the five painful years that Mac fans spent smashing on unresponsive butterfly keyboards. Knowing that Apple’s thinnest-and-lightest notebook accommodates a scissor-switch keyboard so gracefully makes us wonder what it was all for. We understand as well as anyone the urge to fix things, but Apple’s insistence on reworking and re-reworking the troubled butterfly design came at such a high cost—financially, environmentally, and to the Mac’s reputation—and for what? We’ll probably never know all the factors that led to the creation and persistence of the butterfly keyboard, but this Magic keyboard is a reminder that sometimes the difference between usable and unusable, or repairable and unrepairable, can be as small as half a millimeter.
Speaking of repairable, how does this MacBook Air fare on our repairability scale? Well, it’s gained a point over the previous generation, tying it back up with the older models. Keep scrolling for our full breakdown.
The MacBook Air 2020 earns a 4 out of 10 on our repairability scale (10 is highest).
+ Re-routed trackpad cables mean that trackpad and battery replacements are available from the get-go and easier than ever.
+ Many other components (fan, speakers, ports, etc) are modular and easy to access.
+/– Apart from the pesky pentalobe screws, the MacBook Air opens about as easily as any
– The keyboard, though more reliable, is still integrated into the top case, requiring a full teardown for service.
– Soldered SSD and RAM are a real bummer in a laptop at this price point.
We’ve still got an iPad Pro in the queue, but we may come back to take a closer look at this Air’s Logic board. What are you looking to see more of? The larger heatsink? Any other hidden updates we missed? Let us know!
Teardown Update: Our friends at Creative Electron got their hands on a MacBook Air as well and put it through their signature X-ray treatment!
A few cool things to zoom in on:
- Metal stabilizers underneath the wider keys (like the space bar) on the keyboard
- Tiny ribbon cable running up behind the display to connect the FaceTime HD camera
- Magnets in the speakers, trackpad, and fan
- More magnets in in the lower case and above the display to keep the laptop shut
- Hinges! Neither hinge appears to be equipped with the new lid angle sensor we found in the 16″ MacBook Pro last year (see this X-ray for comparison), but it’s hard to be certain without a more thorough investigation. Stay tuned!
73 Kommentare
Apple always with this bull### of making people pay and get locked without future upgrades!! That’s ridiculous…
ROGERIO REALTOR - Antwort
Would love a look under the heatsink if possible. It seems Intel has developed an especially small package for Apple. Any other differences in the logic board would be cool to look over as well.
Suchir Kavi - Antwort
I agree with the fact that Intel has produced a small 10nm package with the 10th gen but you need to know that countless 2018 airs failed due to passive cooling and I dont see a reason as to why this one wont fail either.
Devashish Vaidya -
“Passive cooling?” There’s a fan there. It’s speed is determined by several different thermal sensors. The fan will suck cool air across that large heat sync.
Jeremy Wedel -
It is passively cooled. The fan takes heat from the bottom, and blows it to the back, doing absolutely nothing. Most likely there for a placebo effect.
Tuuletin Kissa -
Are you seriously complaining about sodered SSD and RAM at this point?! It just makes sense. MB Air buyers aren’t bout to upgrade their RAM or storage! Not to mention sodered options are faster and typically more reliable than removable options.
Nevan - Antwort
You can replace soldered hard drives and RAM?
Brian -
Parts fail. Especially storage devices. When they do, you don’t want to be forced to throw out the computer.
And when the computer fails, you want to be able to remove (for physical destruction or use in another computer) the storage device before you turn over the computer for recycling.
And you’re wrong about people not upgrading RAM or storage. The only reason Mac users don’t do this is that it’s been physically impossible for many years. Apple is simply trying to make sure you pay them up front for your RAM and storage instead of a third-party vendor (e.g. Crucial or OWC) who will charge a lot less.
shamino -
If RAM, CPU or storage fails, all of the logic boards are completely trash. This website is about repairability, is that difficult to understand? If RAM only costs $50 and 15 minutes to double and you really need it, people will upgrade. Apple’s design does not promote this. There is no evidence that a socketed design is inherently less reliable, they are made to be used 1,000+ times. Apple deserves the low score.
dllemm -
Soldered SSD-s are an abomination and need to go. Especially nowadays that SSD-s only provide 600-1000 write cycles.
Mostly the same with RAM, although I can - at least in theory - imagine good quality RAMs that serve for 10 years.
Andras Soltesz -
You can be all for upgradability and repairability and still understand that there are tradeoffs with certain technologies. The new MacBook Air uses LPDDR4X memory, which is not available in DIMMs and offers significant advantages both in terms of memory bandwidth (which is critical to GPU performance) and power efficiency. For this class of device, LPDDR is absolutely the right choice. The benefits greatly outweigh the downsides.
The SSD controller is part of the T2 chip which is on the logic board and proprietary to Apple. The value proposition of T2 based storage is much more variable depending on the individual user. I don’t think anyone would argue about the performance, and the complaints about security primarily center on it being excessive. The main problem is that Apple’s SSD pricing isn’t competitive and there is no option for less-expensive aftermarket upgrades of internal storage. An SSD failure requiring a logic board replacement is also a serious drawback.
repoman27 -
Please EXPLAIN how soldered SSD and RAM makes any sense to any buyer of a computer. Are you saying it’s not possible to Apple’s competent engineering department to incorporate removable storage and memory (even if they are non-standard)? I’d easily take +2mm (or whatever) is necessary to help future-proof this device. What users end up with, even if they initially splurge to max out the machine, is an appliance with a built-in expiration date. Something that’s completely unnecessary in the computing world. Why shouldn't I be able to re-purpose a machine in the future, for an elderly family member, or a young student? Generally, it's just RAM requirements or storage concerns... speed is often not a factor for some users.
emphasys -
Then why does Apple offer upgrade options? And why should MacBook Air buyers have to replace their whole computer if the SSD fails?
[citation needed]
The kernel of truth is that certain types of laptop RAM (definitely LPDDR4x and perhaps LPDDR4) aren’t available in SODIMM packages, so they must be soldered down. But for SSDs, there’s no difference brought about by the form factor. It’s still NVMe on top of PCIe 3.0 x4, no matter what form factor you put it in.
Edit: also, even if soldered options are more reliable than replaceable modules, they can still fail, and then you can’t replace them!
Ben -
Soldered RAM? Yeah, that’s kind of understandable at this point. Manufacturers have been doing this for years now, and honestly designs this size have to go a bit out of their way to accommodate even a SINGLE DIMM slot. In a design using Ice Lake, dual channel RAM is also highly desirable with the Gen. 11 Iris Graphics, just as it is on AMD’s designs. However, I must disagree on the storage front. SSDs should NEVER be soldered in any case in which it can be avoided. At this point in time, if ANYTHING happens to this laptop that prevents it from booting, most Mac users can kiss their data goodbye. I cannot emphasize enough how the majority of computer users have no form of backup whatsoever, or how often we have older Mac and PC users alike only being saved from a liquid spill or drop by the fact that their drives are removable. Frankly, with how reliable and how small M.2 SSDs can be manufactured at this point, there is no good design-reasoning behind soldering them.
Pixie -
This module will NOT be able to dissipate the heat for the quad core i5.
darthsidious2008 - Antwort
But yet here we are.
jridder -
how can you be sure about that?
leartzajmi -
Hence the low promised base clock. We all knew this was going to be a Y series processor, and it dissipates just enough to make the base clock claim.
tipoo -
It’s only a 10W chip shouldn’t be that hard I think.
Stephen Law -
I agree with you. No full fledged processor deserves to be passively cooled. They had the same design and 2018 airs and they failed left,right and centre. I dont see as to why these new ones wont die the same way. Louis Rossmann actually talked about this
Devashish Vaidya -
@ Devashish Vaidya: Respectfully, your notion of “full fledged processor” is entirely arbitrary. The MacBook Air does have a fan, which by definition makes the cooling system active rather than passive. You also claim that the 2018 MacBook Air “failed left, right and centre” yet this appears to be anecdotal and not supported by any actual data suggesting trends in annualized failure rates.
repoman27 -
dual core i3 will be fine, but the quad core i5 and i7 can be hot. Even though it's rated as low TDP processor, but the turbo boost can produce more heat. That is, this laptop can only run at the base clock most of the time. Upgrading to i5 and i7 is just a waste of money.
darthsidious2008 -
Look at that diminutive circuit board… There is no way you can fit two DIMM slots on that thing. If you want to upgrade the SSD get the Dell XPS 13. IF you want MacOS get the Air. But spluge that extra $100 for the Quad-core i5. It’s worth every penny.
Eric - Antwort
I’d like you to take a closer look at the inside of the bottom case panel! The air channeling from the fan across the CPU heat sink looks interesting and was wondering what the air flow is.
malhal - Antwort
I’m also very interested in seeing how the airflow runs over the logic board and CPU heat sink. +1 on this request.
Tyler Cruickshank -
Also interested in hearing more about the thermals. It would be fascinating if you could point a heat imaging camera at the internals, and run some heavy-duty software on this and the older models, see if there are any differences.
Branton DeMoss - Antwort
And still have s hitty “cooling” system…
User user - Antwort
I can’t forgive the heatsink separately even considering it’s bigger now. I just can’t. You put a fan or you don’t but this? this is bullshit.
Blue Mark - Antwort
Why is that any differet? Air got pushed/pulled by the fans make it pass through the heat sink, in this case air still passes through heat sink from the right to the left, just like every single other active cooling system, kinda similar to server coolers, and IMO more intuitive too, in servers the heat sink sits directly above the cpu, with fans usually in the middle some distance away from the heatsink, it basically pushing air through the entire logic board, now shrink it and reverse the airflow and you get the MacBook Air.
Stephen Law -
This is the first Ice Lake-Y platform to hit the market, and it’s an off-roadmap, BGA1044 ICL-YN system to boot. I want to see that package.
This is also the first completely new architecture since Skylake, with integrated Thunderbolt 3 and LPDDR4X support. I’d really like to see how Apple implemented the Thunderbolt redrivers / Type-C ports. If this device doesn’t merit a full teardown, then I’m really not sure why iFixit even does what it does.
And I’m also not sure why anyone is concerned about thermals. These are 9-10W chips (less than your typical ~12W tablet SoC),in a 13.3-inch laptop chassis with active cooling and essentially twice the surface area for heat dissipation.
repoman27 - Antwort
You are definitely more educated but one thing to add is that with the MacBook Air all using Intel’s 10nm chip it seems like they finally get their 10nm arch going. After so many years since broadwell, feels kinda unreal lol.
In terms of the thermals I don’t think 12W is exactly for tablet, maybe more like 2-in-1s? But still I am not concerned as I don’t see any differences by satisfying some angry commenters’ OCD of putting heatsink right beside the fan will do. The old 7W cooler works fine, the 10W updated cooler seems to be okay.
Stephen Law -
Yeah, sorry, 12 W would be closer to total device power for an iPad Pro—which is not a typical tablet, and not at all the same as the thermal design power for an SoC. Still, the 11-inch iPad Pro, a truly passive design with much less surface area, can dissipate > 10 W without letting the skin temperature exceed 40 ºC.
repoman27 -
That’s weird, the Max Tech video showed a different heatsink, strangely with no fins, but chambers drilled into it. Is this based on which processor you get? Which one is this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp5__EH3...
tipoo - Antwort
Seems like that could have more surface area actually. Makes sense that they’d reserve it for quad core models.
Suchir Kavi -
How does the fan even cool anything??? It’s not touching the heat sink.
J Jones - Antwort
Because fans don’t remove heat through conduction; their job is to move air. This one pulls fresh air through the channels in the heatsink and then exhausts it out the back of the device. This isn’t a heatpipe and radiator plus blower setup, which would be complete overkill.
repoman27 -
Repoman check out the Max Tech video comparison to the 2019 Air, strangely he found a different heatsink in the 2020 than ifixit, his was without horizontal fins but with strange chambers drilled in the vertical direction, not sure how the fan is supposed to draw air across that one.
tipoo -
The fan aids cooling by cooling the heated metal HT device that usually conducts the heat so that more heat can be transferred. Now since these devices are passively cooled, the fan is practically useless as it is no cooling the metal plate Apple placed over the processor.
Devashish Vaidya -
I feel that Apple should produce at least one laptop that is upgradeable/repairable for the ‘normal’ user. My Mid 2012 13in MacBook Pro still runs as well as ever if not better after being able to upgrade it’s HD to an SSD and increase the RAM.
It is capable of performing every task that the average user would require, not every user wants, needs or can afford the latest all singing all dancing machine that is capable of performing tasks they will never ever need.
The Road Toad - Antwort
Terrific point! And the same for me: a 2012 MacBook Pro is doing great after RAM + SSD upgrades. The new machines are really not that much better to normal office usage. That leaves the 2015 MacBook Pro as the last desirable machine in the entire MacBook line. Sad.
emphasys -
Somebody explain me how does that cooling with fan work? Fan is completly aside of CPU with no heatpipe.
Peter - Antwort
It seems more for keeping the chassis temperature in check. The processor only has a 10W TDP, if they wanted they probably could have done fully passive, but that made for an uncomfortable experience.
tipoo -
is the wifi card exchangable, e.g. exchangable to a *modern* card that is wifi 6 compliant?
cabastrax - Antwort
It’s not a card, it’s a module, and it’s soldered to the logic board. So, nope. This round of MacBook Airs missed the Wi-Fi 6 / 802.11ax bus.
repoman27 -
so, the fan… is not even connected in any way to the heatsink, basically is blowing out general air. if you know about heat transfer, your macbook air processor will burn down if you push it too hard without any additional help. my advice… if you need small form laptop, go for the 13 inche macbook pro, you will pay 300 bucks more but at least it wont burn down doing a presentation on keynote
Carlos Ernesto Pericchi Vidal - Antwort
I agree with the cooling but I do not agree with buying the current 13” model. The current model has the crappy keyboard and bad thermals. I would recommend you to wait till they release the 13” refresh, see whether they've fixed the issues and only then buy it.
Devashish Vaidya -
Again no heatpipes, no efficient way to remove heat, what a waste….
Esoel - Antwort
I’m currently using a MacBook Air 2018, and the keyboard is awful. Will Apple replace the butterfly keyboard with the new macgic keyboard if I have my keyboard fixed (I think no).
Khang Trần - Antwort
When I worked at apple, the computers we worked with, top-tier iMac desktops in 2017, would constantly break over continuous load. We ended up having to switch to PCs since the computers couldn’t handle the work we were doing, which was on Apple Maps. Apple makes pretty good software, but their computers have the same quality as they have had back in the beginning. They wouldn’t last more than a year. You are buying a Macintosh for the name, much like a Porsche. It’s overpriced, cool, and not that fast.
Jim S. - Antwort
That seems unlikely: why would Apple switch to PCs just because the load was too much for an iMac? More likely they’d switch to Mac Pros, which can handle a ton of compute load.
JohnEDee -
My Mid-2009 MBP would like to have a word with you about not lasting more than a year. While it no longer receives updates because it is considered “obsolete”, it still runs fine on El Capitan and I use it for running Wireshark on a 24/7 basis.
Tim Pease -
I’m sory to bother, but what about #flexgate. Did they fix it?
Михаил Болтовский - Antwort
can some engineer explain what is the use of this fan?
Jeremy Eden 2010 - Antwort
It was Apple that used to deliver laptops with the CPU on a dauterboard, so you could easily drop-in-upgrade the 68040 to a 603e PowerPC. People loved that. Nowadays, Apple laptops turn into e-trash the minute the SSD fails out of warranty. I cannot think of any other company that has ever taken such a sharp turn for the worse.
Simon Kowalewski - Antwort
Is there supposed to be a change with the on package integration of thunderbolt on Ice Lake?
The motherboard layout, where the shielding is, looks about the same as the previous MacBookAir, but if the TB controller is now in the CPU package, wouldn’t that change? Or are the chips by the ports just cheaper “retimer” chips? What’s underneath those shields?
Are there variations of Ice Lake that don’t include TB on the package?
David Schaub - Antwort
“Notably, that new keyboard has only added half a millimeter to the thick end of the new Air...”
The old one was 3.5mm-13.1mm and the new one is 4.1mm-16.1mm. That’s 3mm more to the thick end and 0.6mm more to the thin end.
samukontinen - Antwort
Not mentioned in the teardown. Does it still use ribbon cable for the screen? Still had flexgate which breaks when open/shut lid many times? Thanks
kenlwong - Antwort
Hey Apple. I was on the cusp of buying a 2020 MacBook Air till I read here the SSD and RAM are soldered. Nope. Hard pass my dudes. Your continued greed is noted and I’ll take my business elsewhere (not that anyone from Apple will see this or care but it feels good to speak it. Lol). More ppl need to vote with their purchases. Only way to get a soulless Corp like Apple to listen. Hit their pocketbooks.
JohnDoe - Antwort
Regarding the heat sink, if this machine is anything like my old Mac mini, the cooling problem is the threshold temperature where the fan speed increases. My Mac mini used to get insanely hot before I put Macs Fan Control on it. At first, I just monitored what was going on and found that up to around 180 F core temperature, the fan was still at idle speed. So I set the control software to start ramping fan speed up at 135 F and reach full speed at 170 F. Wouldn’t you know the computer stayed cool after that? If the fan would simply rev up to 2,500 RPM as the machine heated up, it would stay a lot cooler and still be really quiet.
Air is drawn in from the hinge vent, flows across the board, through the heatsink, and is exhausted out another hinge vent by the fan. I suspect that like the Mac mini, Apple’s cooling woes are due to their insistence on not revving up the fan as temperature increases. With a 10 Watt processor, increasing airflow a bit would do a lot. I should have one next week to experiment with.
Tim Polen - Antwort
To update my post now that I received my Air, I want to confirm that airflow does indeed enter the left-hand side hinge vent (when looking at the screen), flow across the logic board and through the heatsink, and gets exhausted by the fan out the right-hand side hinge vent. The fan in the MacBook Air is more aggressive than the one in my old Mac mini (2012 model) and will rev up under load.
However, Apple probably could use better thermal paste, as the air leaving the machine isn’t as warm as it could be with a core temp near 90 C. I don’t think all the heat is being drawn out of the chip and into the heatsink, as the bottom of the machine doesn’t get all that warm. With that said, the machine only slightly struggled on one task I’ve thrown at it so far, and that was downloading my 17 GB music library from iCloud on a fast connection. With basic web/office work and a podcast playing, the CPU is around 110-120 F with the fan off.
My only gripe so far is the Gold color looks like Rose Gold under certain lighting.
Tim Polen -
My friend, what dou you think about the unfamous ribbon cable …I already bought it (macbook air 2020)but im scared about it (mine has a minor like pinch in one side in the second cable from the right). thank you in advance and sorry for my english
fede -
Wait, the heatsink isn’t connected to the fan? What the f is this fan blowing? Is it just there for placebo?
apatrick - Antwort
Really great pictures capturing and detailed tear down but the script is terrible!
it’s not a real review of the engineering but more of opinionated outcry for repairability.
it would great to avoid sounding like a local car shop that got a Tesla.
Benjamin Nabulsi - Antwort
Did the display assembly change at all? I am asking because I wish to know if the 2019 model would be backwards compatible…
Were these new changes for the 2020 model:
joschwinn - Antwort
I'm extremely disappointed. Just bought one of these to run my old macbook pros programs since that one died on me. The OS isn't downgradable. I sadly am unable to return it since I copied my hardrive data over in the attempt to get my old OS on it.
Drew - Antwort
Is the 2018/2019 MacBook Air displays compatible with 2020 MacBook Air?
freddygcabrera - Antwort
I have macbook A2179 laptop.laptop have burn ic problem could you please help me to make my laptop fine.
AbhinayWaghchaure - Antwort
I have a Macbook pro (2009) and I’ve replaced the HDD with a SSD, I’ve changed the battery a couple of times and I added more RAM. My question is ¿Can I do all this upgrades to a macbook air pantalla retina 2020?
GERARD PARADA - Antwort
I like to use two lap top computers one online and the other of line with no wifi system at all. I have two Apple Mac Air 2020 Computers I love them. I want to removed the Wifi and Blue tooth ability from the hardware. How do I do this? If you have me email please shoot me back a email or comments here would be awesome. I Ove this website. I think we all should have the right to fix things and minimise the waste. You brake down was awesome. But where is the wifi/bluetooth?
Phoenix - Antwort
where is the wifi/blue tooth?
Phoenix - Antwort
Which screwdrivers i need to open this mac?
Michael Pscolovsky - Antwort
If you're only opening the case, you'll need a P5 pentalobe.
Amber Taus -
i think the macbook air is the best well macbook airs are very good tecknolegy also people should around the world should buy one
Erfan moha - Antwort