Wow, thanks for clarifying this. I’ve never seen one in the wild either. Must have been a short run before the M1 air was released.

2020 should receive OS upgrades for another 3 years.

Also apple has never made an i3 air. There was an m3 MacBook which was older, I believe support for these has now ended.

For college/university absolutely 100%. 8gb is also enough providing you don’t plan on extensive machine learning or multiple VMs.

For professional developer use I’d opt for a pro 16gb.

Don’t buy older than 2017, it’s no longer supported and really old/dated hardware.

General advice in the Mac space is don’t buy an Intel Mac.

You can pick up M1 airs for as little as $749 new or $500 used. This will be supported until at least 2027 and be perfect for the needs you described.

Simply no. It’s a five year old laptop, they’re littered with issues/faults and Apple is killing support as soon as they can.

General rule on this sub “Do not buy an Intel Mac”

If you need a laptop get the M2 Air now. M1 air would be fine to be honest and save you a tonne of money.

M3 doesn’t exist and may not come out for 4-6 months, long time to wait if you need a laptop.

The fact you are asking reddit and you haven’t specified requirements I would say no.

The Mac for you sounds like an m1 air. You can frequently get these for $700-750 new and they are fanless/thin like the og 12".

Apple won’t do a 12" again. While I loved it personally the majority did not, with the air 13" they don’t need to and it just fragments the lineup further.

As for a $700 new Mac, apple also won’t do this. Apple operates like a fashion brand, Apple won’t lower the value of the brand Mac to this low beyond what they ever have. If you went to an apple store looking a Mac at $700 they would have the perfect product for you, an iPad air with a keyboard.