Should I repair my MacBook Air 2020 or buy a new one?

I certainly would not pay more than £100 to repair any computer as you are just throwing money at old tech and you don't have any guarantee that it will last.

I would continue to use it as long as it works but don't put anything on it that isn't backed up on an external drive or the cloud.

When it finally gives up the ghost you can think about a new Mac.

Do you really need a laptop because for under £600 you could get an M4 mini that would blow the socks off any laptop . . . you would need a 27" monitor (£110 upwards) and a mouse and keyboard (under £20 for the pair) . . . throw in a Logitech webcam for another £20.

If you have any plans on upGrading to macOS 26 Tahoe to be released sometime this Fall in N. America or Winter in AU.

Specifically, this computer would not allow this MBA to move beyond macOS 15 Sequoia

You may consider your Needs versus you Wants, which are not always one and the same thing

OS - macOS Tahoe 26 - Apple

• MacBook Air with Apple silicon (2020 and later)
• MacBook Pro with Apple silicon (2020 and later)
• MacBook Pro (16‑inch, 2019)
• MacBook Pro (13‑inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports)
• iMac (2020 and later)
• Mac mini (2020 and later)
• Mac Studio (2022 and later)
• Mac Pro (2019 and later)

Correction

Fall in N. America would normally be Spring in AU

You may also consider.

Any new version of macOS after version 26 will drop support of Intel based computers

About the Rosetta translation environment | Apple Developer Documentation

Best you move forwards to the Apple Silicon machines of your chose and needs

To " Future Proof " this machine

Dig deep for a very large SSD Configuration and add as much Unified RAM as you can afford

Both SSD and Unified RAM are soldered to the motherboard.

Ian R. Brown wrote:

I certainly would not pay more than £100 to repair any computer as you are just throwing money at old tech and you don't have any guarantee that it will last.

The OP was talking about a potential repair bill of 800-1200 Australian Dollars (roughly i£381 – £572, or $519 – $779 USD).

On the Australian Apple site,

• A M4 Mac mini with 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD is A$1,299
• A 13" M4 MacBook Air with 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB is A$1,999 (new) or A$1,699 (Certified Refurbished)

In other words, repairing that Intel-based notebook might cost nearly 60% as much as replacing it with a 13" M4 MacBook Air from the Certified Refurbished store. And we know that the Intel-based MacBook Air isn't in line to get macOS 26 Tahoe, whereas a M4-family Mac would have years of updates ahead of it.

If you have important info on your MBA ensure you back it up as it may not give any warning if it does fail.

Ian R. Brown wrote:

Do you really need a laptop because for under £600 you could get an M4 mini that would blow the socks off any laptop . . . you would need a 27" monitor (£110 upwards) and a mouse and keyboard (under £20 for the pair) . . . throw in a Logitech webcam for another £20.

Not sure what that means. An M4 Mac mini would certainly not "blow the socks off" an M4 MBA, MBP or iMac.

dialabrain wrote:

Ian R. Brown wrote:

Do you really need a laptop because for under £600 you could get an M4 mini that would blow the socks off any laptop . . . you would need a 27" monitor (£110 upwards) and a mouse and keyboard (under £20 for the pair) . . . throw in a Logitech webcam for another £20.

Not sure what that means. An M4 Mac mini would certainly not "blow the socks off" an M4 MBA, MBP or iMac.

I think that Ian meant to write something like "would blow the socks off any Intel laptop".

That would certainly be applicable to OP's mac.

Thanks for supporting me Luis but I knew the OP had an M1 and I still stand by my comments.

The best Geekbench scores of the M1 MBA are around 8,500 whereas the M4 mini is around 15,000 and its speed will never be throttled by overheating . . . unlike the MBA.

I think that's a pretty big improvement.

Plus the M4 comes with double the RAM of the M1 MBA.

I was referring to the OP's current computer.

Ian R. Brown wrote:

An M4 compared to her M1 MBA.

The OP stated…

"The MacBook Air is 13-inch, 512GB and running on 1.1 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 processor and current MacOS is Sequoia 15.5. ". That is not an M1. The Intel 2020 MBA was made from 3/2020 to 11/2020 when the M1 MBA came out.

Plus you stated, "Do you really need a laptop because for under £600 you could get an M4 mini that would blow the socks off any laptop", which clearly isn't true since there are now M4 laptops.

Good to see you are paying attention.

I used to make deliberate mistakes when teaching my class of nine year old kids to check they wrestle listening/watching and to encourage them to challenge people in authority.

So I could tell you I was doing the same here but unfortunately I wasn't . . . ☹️

To be perfectly clear, what I should have written is that for under £750 you can get a fully functional M4 mini which will probably be a tad faster (or even much faster during throttling) than a comparable MBA and with a massive screen around twice the diagonal.

So if a laptop is not essential, that alternative would be a no-brainer but I was a bit pushed for time.

PS. Plus you still have a working monitor, webcam, keyboard and mouse should your computer die.

FWIW, a new 13" M4 MacBook Air with a 512 GB drive would cost nearly $1600 AUD at a minimum. If money is not an issue a new M4 MBA will certain outperform your current one.

Had he said that, it would have made sense.

An M4 compared to her M1 MBA.

PUZZLE: A moment ago I noticed that this thread is in the MBA forum . . . one that I have never consciously visited. So did it start in the Sequoia forum and has it been transferred here?

" Moderation Team " handy work