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

Hello Apple community,

I recently had my MacBook Air 13-inch Retina 2020 model serviced as I was experiencing some intermittent graphics flashing across screen and wanted to find out how detrimental they might be to the performance of my device. I was told that I need to replace my logic board, touch ID and battery (performance at 77%/optimal range between 80-100%).

As a result, I am not sure if it's worth me getting a new MacBook or having the repairs done, as repairs will cost me between $800-1200 AUD, so could buy a new computer with that kind of money. I've had the MacBook for 4.5yrs now and no problems other than the strange graphics that flash very rarely, so I'm not sure how much more life the device has in it (not an expert!) hence want to make sure I invest in the right choice e.g. repair or replace.

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.

Any advice would be very helpful, thank you!

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Replacement of Logic Board/Touch ID/Battery

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 15.5

Posted on Jun 23, 2025 12:26 AM

Top-ranking reply

Servant of Cats

Level 8

37,211 points

Posted on Jun 25, 2025 7:03 AM

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.

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

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