Ended up switching up to a MBP, which is still in use today.
Anybody have any experience with today’s hw? With Apple silicon/arm, were they able to fix the over heating issues; or was the internal chassis redesigned to improve airflow?
[0] https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/macbooks/m3-macbook-air...
It's far faster than my top-end Intel MBP was. I haven't seen it struggle with anything yet.
I've found that where I used to take my iPad to do things (on the couch, in the car, etc.), now I take the MBA, because I might as well have my full computer setup. I've found I'm using my iPad a lot less overall.
I've been using Mac laptops since 2005, and it's easily the best I've ever had.
It's actually annoying that the MBPs are so much bigger and heavier for so little of an improvement in real-world usage (for non-gaming, non-video-editing tasks). They seem last-gen in comparison.
Personally I think the tradeoff is awesome for almost everyone. If you are a high powered user, a laptop fan pad is cheap and will prevent the 33% speed loss of throttling.
There's people who mod these laptops by bridging the heatsink to the case. It improves speed significantly. But it also makes the case uncomfortably hot under heavy use. I think this is a fine tradeoff Apple picked, to not optimize for speed. This is an Air. It should be very performant for most, just not under enduring load. I certainly would not call this an overheating issue.
The hardware also "feels" better to me. I had issues with the keyboard and video connection with the Intel MBP that I have not had with the 2020 M1 MBP which gets carried in a backpack pretty frequently.
Now with M series, the Airs are quite nice and usable for most people. I'm typing this on a stock M1 Air and it's been perfect for non-professional usage (ie, hobby stuff).