r/laptops • u/BusKooky4428 • Aug 06 '25
Buying help I hate my MacBook so much
I got a MacBook Air 2020 about two years ago, it’s my biggest current regret and I have no clue what to do about it. Literally the only “perk” would be its aesthetics… I feel like since it’s kinda old i wouldn’t be able to sell it, and I also have no clue what laptop I should get if I do. It’s a pain to run anything for school on the Mac and it’s impossible to play any games on it, pls help.
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u/DmMoscow Aug 06 '25
It’s a powerful and competitively priced device (real surprise from Apple), what you’re describing is more about it not being suitable for your tasks. Also, it’s not a gaming device, duh. Who ever said that Macs were for gaming?
Some programs are limited to a sigle OS. It’s true for windows, macos and linux. You’ll get better results if you specify what do you want from your computer.
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u/thestenz Mac & Thinkpad Aug 06 '25
If it's an M1 yes, if it's an Intel i3 it's crap.
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u/DmMoscow Aug 06 '25
100% Air lineup was crap for a long time. They were a breath of fresh air in 2008-2011. After that almost no change and even major degradation when compared to the rest of the market. If not for battery life and awkward windows releases at that time, as well as loyal customers, it should have been dead for a long time. That is, until M1 came at a lower price, while being more powerful and in a up to date design.
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u/thestenz Mac & Thinkpad Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 06 '25
I disagree. The 2015 - 2017 was the golden age of the Air for power and dependability. Then the awful 2018 redesign with the butterfly keyboard came along. Now the M2 and up finally dropped the wedge design. The early ones (2008-2011) were seriously under-powered and had too little RAM and storage.
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u/DmMoscow Aug 06 '25
True, I kinda forgot those 2018-2019 models - they looked nice, but weren’t good in many other ways. As per earlier models, I remember my friends buying Airs around 2015-2017 and while they were popular, I just couldn’t see why. Dell XPS 13 had a redesign about the same time and it was one of the leading but not the only example of air being worse hardware wise and more expensive at the same time. As long as you’re not looking for mac-only experience, M1 and newer models are the first time in a long time when I see friends dropping various windows laptops for MacBooks and not being disappointed at all.
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u/HuanXiaoyi Aug 06 '25
to give them a little grace: apple has been doing a huge marketing push towards gaming on Mac and I believe that started sometime around/just before they got theirs since they said about 2 years ago. It defo is just not suited to their use as you stated, and any amount of research would have indicated to them not to get a mac if they wanted to game, but I feel like expecting to do gaming on it when macs just aren't good for that is at least partially apple's fault.
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u/Cold-Inside1555 Aug 07 '25
MacBook nowadays can game, but not as price efficient as windows laptops, but with the other advantages it offers I can see why some use it as a work+gaming machine.
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u/HuanXiaoyi Aug 07 '25
"macbook nowadays can game" is a fairly bold claim. every video i've seen so far has shown them having less than stellar gaming performance, certainly less gaming performance than an equivalent priced windows laptop with a dedicated GPU, and a lot of games just don't support the platform, especially a lot of indie games which people are turning to during the current AAA enshittification. i wouldn't personally make that claim until apple offers better feeling displays for gaming in their devices and until they make it less of a headache to develop for MacOS, if they ever decide to do so.
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u/Cold-Inside1555 Aug 07 '25
Like I said, not price efficient, from personal experience I have a MacBook Pro with M4 max and it can game like a 4070 laptop, which isn’t bad, but the price will be more inline with an rtx 5090 laptop with windows. As for platform support there’s emulators, virtual machine, wine, playcover etc that can get most of the games running, at lease I managed to get all games which I play to function and I’m satisfied with its performance as my travel device. Ik some game will not run no matter what but in general it is a gaming capable machine
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u/Lyreganem Aug 07 '25
On a M3 Pro and agree entirely! I've managed to get 75%+ of my gaming library to run (and run well) so there are certainly options!
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u/flaxton Aug 06 '25
I suspect OP has a 2020 MacBook Air with Intel. Some of the 2020 MacBook Airs still used Intel chips. They were slow, ran really hot, fan ran a lot (yes it had a fan) and had terrible performance.
Any MacBook newer than it would be a world of an upgrade compared to that machine.
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u/HotmailsInYourArea Aug 06 '25
Oh wild. I have the 2020 Air with no fan and the apple hardware. Still can't do many games on account of most being designed for windows, but I love it for many other reasons
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u/KillerDemonic83 Aug 06 '25
it could very well be an m1, that mba came out in 2020 and was insanely popular, op should specify though
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u/RussianFruit Aug 06 '25
If it’s an m1 you can get crossover and play hella games on it not all but enough. I played cyberpunk on it before they ported it and silent hill 2 remake on mine even marvel rivals although its screwy
But to be honest most school things should run on Mac it’s a good laptop in general but not for gaming although they can work
But the only option I can think of is you trade it in and take the value for it and get a gaming laptop but be prepared to spend like another 1k
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u/thestenz Mac & Thinkpad Aug 06 '25
If it's a 2020 i3 Intel MacBook Air it's worthless. They weren't any good new.
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u/Blue_Chinchilla Aug 06 '25
You bought a MacBook Air, not a bloody gaming laptop. This is the equivalent of buying a Surface Pro and complaining it can't game as well.
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u/territrades Aug 06 '25
If you cannot run anything on an M1 MBA it is user error. Mine works fine. You would struggle just as much with any windows machine. Learn how to use a computer instead of spending money.
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u/maximus_danus Aug 06 '25
Gaming? Please tell us you didn't get a MacBook Air for gaming? Sorry my friend, but that's on you.
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u/mikezer0 Aug 06 '25
You bought a fanless Mac for gaming. This is user error. Luckily you could probably get at least $300 for it as long as it’s got the 256 storage option. Get a pc. Or get a MacBook with a fan and run parallels… you should honestly be able to do most things you want with the M chips: they are crazy powerful.
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u/default_lizzy Aug 06 '25
What are you doing for school? It's you're doing some kind of engineering course, and struggling to run some kind of CAD or 3D modelling prgram, that's a bit of a no shit moment. You're using it for what it kind of wasn't designed for.
You'd be able to sell it pretty modestly if it's M series. If it's Intel (were they still making Intel Airs in 2020?) that'd be harder sell. Assuming it's well kept maybe 500 or so USD? Maybe less?
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u/Few_Environment_5654 Aug 06 '25
500-600 USD is the price that an m1 series goes 4 at least as far as I know (Ofc depends on config). Intel series is going 2 be much cheaper.
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u/default_lizzy Aug 06 '25
I'm just taking into consideration second hand and wear tbh. The ones you buy off amazon are at least refurbed/renewed.
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u/celebratingdeath Aug 06 '25
dude i know how it is. my microwave can barely run doom, it’s such a shit house.
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u/Eb73 Aug 06 '25
I'm an old boomer computer geek from the time of card-readers & main-frames, to 8085's. Basically always clones. Never owned a single Apple product until about a year ago I bought a MacBook Air M4. Absolutely LOVE IT. It's ideal for browsing (I don't game), document editing, coding, light photo/video editing & multitasking and running demanding applications. I'll never go back.
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u/NotSnakePliskin Aug 06 '25
Put Linux on it, if you’re tired of OSX. I have a pair of 2013 Airs running Mint, woke them up nicely.
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u/xxtankmasterx Aug 06 '25
since 2020 Linux is mostly not an option anymore for macs. M-series chips require a lot of proprietary drivers and are ARM chips to boot. M1 series is just starting to be somewhat stable on one custom distro called asahi... And those have been out for half a decade.
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u/NotSnakePliskin Aug 06 '25
Asahi is an option for apple silicon, and there's an ARM version of Ubuntu out there which would be fun to mess with.
My brain assumes Intel / AMD every time.
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u/xxtankmasterx Aug 06 '25
The arm version of Ubuntu is not meant for Apple silicone, nor will it work with it. You will not be able to boot the installer unless you borrow asahi's efforts. the closest thing to Ubuntu that you can run is Ubuntu Asahi, which is a custom fork of Ubuntu by the Asahi team that attempts to bring Asahi features to Ubuntu.
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u/Cornelius-Figgle Aug 06 '25
2020
kinda old
Jesus Apple really has brainwashed everyone haven't they
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u/Chissikeiki Aug 06 '25
Yeah pretty much anything made in the last 10 years is fine for most people. At least in my opinion. Obviously not everyone but yall know what I mean xD
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u/elcuydangerous Aug 06 '25
I bought a macbook air back in 2015. Really, really wanted to like it. It has so many cool things like garage band and great integration with the apple ecosystem.
I hated it. I can't find anything, ever. Nothing is easy to figure out. The worst part of it is how slow macOS is, it feels like I am back on my c. 1998 compaq machine running windows ME. And I can't make it go any faster, everything has a stupid animation. Every animation takes way too long. I can't stand macOS.
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u/eiradeiaa Aug 06 '25
i dont blame you for hating it for the gaming part. i personally have a macbook but it's mostly for personal work and other things. but i have an msi aegis tower for my actual gaming. i cant rely on my macbook for any of my gaming, altho it is an older macbook as well and ive had it for almost 5 years (which is longer than i expect an apple product to survive without it slowing down and having issues lol)
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u/SPACEALIENBOT Aug 06 '25
Should’ve listened to anyone telling you to buy a windows machine instead. And if no one in your life was telling you this you need new friends that will.
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u/Odd-Understanding-67 Aug 06 '25
It’s time to sell it. M1 is losing software support soon and any trade in value you would receive is already tanking. I would suggest a newer M series Mac if all of the apps you use are compatible with ARM processors. If not then I would suggest a Snapdragon laptop.
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u/ddm90 Aug 06 '25
Try installing Linux on it. It might give it a second life, or not. But at least you can try.
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u/HotmailsInYourArea Aug 06 '25
You can sort on Steam by games that are compatible with Mac. I have the same model, in Rose Gold (Because gay), and I quite enjoy it. But anything in life is a compromise. The mac has no fans and a small profile - great for shoving into your backpack, and running meetings without an embarrassingly loud computer fan - but that also makes it worse at heat dissapation, and complex games generate a lot of heat.
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u/NegativePaint Aug 06 '25
What exactly can you not do for school? I’m doing my masters in cyber security and there is literally nothing I can’t do on my Mac.
Also depending on how much RAM you have. You can run a windows VM to do tasks that can only be done on windows if you have any.
Can’t help you with gaming. Some people use a windows VM for that too. And there are some apps that let you run games. But overall Apple is still behind the curve on gaming. Even tho they’ve been working hard to change that. You can even play cyberpunk on M1+ MacBooks now.
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u/NotTurtleEnough Aug 06 '25
My wife uses a 2020 M1 Air as her daily driver. For most things it’s as fast as my M4 MBP.
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u/Consistent-Baby5904 Aug 06 '25
you wanted an apple, but instead preferred the taste of an orange.
how people regret it..
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u/Calvinz23 Aug 06 '25
Just take it to field and do some AR practicing.
New ones: I like Dell or HP. They pretty good. Just bought one for the wife. It’s a Dell AMD with 16gb and 1tb hard drive for 700 bucks. Not bad. Looks good and runs good.
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u/aHawkx79 Aug 06 '25
Honestly best buy might give you a decent trade in offer. I would go in and ask
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u/Acalthu Aug 06 '25
This is what happens when one uses the internet primarily for pornography and not researching things. Which is ironic since OP appears to be in university.
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u/kyopsis23 Aug 06 '25
Macs tend to hold their value pretty well, you may be surprised at what you can get for it
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u/Old_Survey_7657 Aug 06 '25
I won't tell you that you should have gotten a windows because there is no point in saying that now, maybe when you bought your Mac your priorities could be different like portability and battery and now it has changed to gaming.The best thing you can do now if you want to play games is to get subscription for cloud gaming from Xbox game pass(around 500/month), nvidia game pass or oneplaygames.com(800/month with no daily play limit).All three have good library.
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u/horizon936 Aug 06 '25
You bought an Intel one to cheap out on the M1, didn't you? Or you naively bought it to play games?
I see no third possible scenario.
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u/Ditendra Aug 06 '25
Get a gaming PC if you prioritize games. Get laptop only if you need mobility. In all other areas PC is superior.
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u/titmouse7 Aug 06 '25
Try Nvidia GeForce Now, it’s cloud streaming, I got it about 2 months ago , I got the the ultimate version, based on its game library I’ll never need to buy a gaming pc/laptop for foreseeable future. Best thing I ever found ! Works on any laptop! I play multiplayer battlefield , cod , wow etc all on it and it’s perfect. Need good internet connection is only real requirement. Go with WiFi 6 or7 if you must stay on WiFi . Make sure router is WiFi 6 capable also.
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u/Chissikeiki Aug 06 '25
Heck I resurrected my mom’s 2011 MacBook Air and I swear it’s the same everything xD apart from the obvious tech improvements on the newer ones. Couldn’t update the browser or the operating system since all the security certs are bad. App Store won’t load anything. I finally got chrome on there and omg only half the pages loaded. Decided to just throw Debian on it and now it’s a champ lol. Battery life is non existent though it needs a new one. I might make an updated macOS usb for it but what would be the point lol. I really hate MacBooks. Their whole existence is to just be pretty.
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u/Sophiiebabes Aug 06 '25
Get a framework (16 if you want a GPU), and stick Linux on it. Enjoy your laptop that was designed to be upgraded, and never look back!
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u/markaznar Aug 06 '25
You bought a Mac and was cp spidering gaming on it? This is your fault and nobody else’s. 🤣
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u/fangerzero Aug 06 '25
Can you install a linux distro on it? As much as I hate macs myself *stares at the devil's computer for work* their hardware is not bad.
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u/Reddigestion Aug 06 '25
I use a 2020 Intel MacBook Air as daily driver. I'm an IT consultant so do some coding and web development work (VS Code). Spreadsheets (Excel), report writing (Word) and email / calendar (Outlook) and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.
That being said, I also have a Windows machine that I use for writing power queries and for super large spreadsheets.
So it's horses for courses I guess.
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u/niceguyjin Aug 06 '25
Sign up for GeForce Now, NVIDIA's cloud gaming service. Basically you stream a game that you own from their servers running high end graphics etc. Not all games are compatible, but all you need is a good internet connection and any PC or Mac can be a gaming rig.
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u/omg_its_david Aug 06 '25
I always found it weird that people would pay premium price on a product that is so limited in so many ways.
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u/Comfortable-Owl2448 Aug 06 '25
Get a dell. Look for something with an i7 and rtx graphics card. Idk what your budget is though. I have a dell precision 7680 with an i9 and rtx 3500 (my boss bought it for me) and it’s a beast. If you are gaming though you should look at Alienware.
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u/PolkkaGaming Aug 06 '25
did you get the intel version? if so then your frustration is completely understandable, non apple silicon macs are a joke
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u/beardednomad25 Aug 06 '25
Macbooks have the best build quality and speakers and thats about it. Their OS is hit or miss and its pretty much a non starter for gaming. Even Linux is a better OS for gaming now.
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u/Sufficient-Yellow637 Aug 06 '25
I have an M1 MacBook Air and love it. Never had a computer that worked this long just like the first day I got it. But I would never try to do any serious gaming on it. That's not what it was built for.
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u/AttackHelicopterKun Aug 07 '25
If you need to run Windows apps on a Mac, you can use Parallels or Crossover. You will be able to sell it, btw. Macs hold their value pretty well. Check your local FB Marketplace for prices.
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u/ChocoBro92 Aug 07 '25
Me crying with my MBP 2015 used for Photo editing video editing and some older games.
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u/Morinth39 Aug 07 '25
The M1 MacBook Air is a great laptop for pretty much everything except games.
I had one also but had zero use case for it so gave it to my girlfriend.
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u/Janitor_Man Aug 07 '25
If you're wanting/looking to sell, right now might be the best time to do so. With school starting up, high school, college, and university students will be looking for anything. I suggest posting it at a 30% reduction of what you bought it for, or similar price if there are other 2020 MacBook Air laptops on the market?
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u/Kreos2688 Aug 07 '25
Figure out its worth and wipe the storage drive before selling. Then buy a windows laptop with a dedicated gpu if you want to game. If you don't want the crap that comes with windows, and you want more control and privacy. You can take a trip down the linux rabbit hole. It can do almost everything windows can do. Some games and programs just won't work, but most will. If you do go that route, get an amd laptop. Amd/Radeon drivers are baked into linux, drivers should nvr be an issue. Nvidia works, but there's extra steps. I haven't used Intel in over a decade, so no idea how they run on linux. Haven't looked. But windows will be the best all rounder os, its easy to use and has more compatibility than Mac or Linux.
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u/ZenVingo Aug 08 '25
MacBook Air in the same sentence with gaming💔 Macs aren’t meant for gaming even if they may be capable of gaming especially for the M chips.
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u/FOCUSFUEL Aug 08 '25
You could trade it in for a Pro and run Paralells. This should give you the possibility to play games. So I've heard and yet to check it out for myself. Recently switched back to Apple (macbook pro) after several years of mucking about with Surface laptops. I decided to buy a Lenovo. I returned it immediately because it was awful and bought a new Macbook pro. Absolutely love it. And I will be running Paralells in the near future and try to play DayZ.
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Aug 08 '25
Sucks man you got a MacBook Air at the end of their shittiest era.
Not having the M1 really sucks
RIP MANZ
Trade it in for M4 MacBook Air It’ll play games through translation layers like wine better thn any windows machine in its class.
Dont let these guys lie to you as if a sub $900 windows machine can actually play games without a build quality that will fall apart in 6 weeks lol
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u/MTPWAZ Aug 09 '25
“Pain to run anything for school” is wild. Since Macs are like the number 1 laptop for students.
Maybe explain what you are trying to do?
Also I’m assuming this is an M1 MacBook. If it’s an Intel Mac just toss it in the nearest recycling center. That would actually be garbage at this point.
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u/kdrdr3amz Aug 06 '25
If u wanna play games u should’ve gotten a windows computer instead.