2020 Device Recommendations

This year has been great for technology at varying price points. I stay up-to-date on these things so you don't have to.

Laptops

MacBook Air 2020

Under $400

• Acer Aspire 5 with Ryzen - AMD Ryzen chips offer great bang-for-buck performance with great integrated graphics.
• Asus Chromebook or any Chromebook with 4 GB RAM+ for under $400. Chromebooks have gotten very capable with older processors and a lightweight operating system. You use your phone for most things.

Under $700

• Google Pixelbook Go (Chrome device) - a beautifully designed Chromebook with great performance.
• There are several Windows laptops in this price range, but you'll want to make sure it is a 9th or 10th gen Intel processor or the new AMD Ryzen chips for better performance.
• Look for a used 2015 Apple MacBook on eBay

Under $1200

• Apple MacBook Air (2020 Version) - The dual core processor is good but for $100 more you can get a quad core processor for better multi-core performance
• Microsoft Surface Book 3
• Samsung Galaxy Chromebook - the most premium Chromebook currently

Best Laptop - no budget

• 2019 Apple MacBook Pro 16" - the new design gives you less bezels than the previous 15" design with an improved keyboard, internal mic, and just an all around great device. Now the 13" Pro has been updated, as well. It is strange that 2020 base pro models still have 2 year old CPUs and slower RAM than even the Air, though. The $1799 13" MacBook Pro is a great buy.

Phones

We live in a weird time where there are iPhones for just about any budget, even if you want to spend $1500 on one.

• iPhone SE - $399 and for those that like small phones with a current processor. Apple definitely wants you to upgrade your iPhone 6.
• iPhone 11 - $699 is a great midrange iPhone. This is my current iPhone and it has great battery life.
• iPhone 11 Pro - Ballin' but you might as well wait for September if you can.

Android has so many phones out right now and I've used very few but it is hard to suggest any of the Samsung ones where you won't get the same promise of updates. I'd always recommend going the Google Pixel route for the purest form of Android.

iPad (because what other tablet is good any more)

Apple has so many price points for iPads and even released a new Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro.

• Go the cheap route and get the $329 10.2"
• Buy a used 2018 iPad Pro and you can still get one of the new keyboards
• The current $799 iPad Pro is great and has higher starting storage. It may be overkill for most people and you'll really want to shell out the extra cash for the pencil if you are artsy.
• It is hard to recommend buying the iPad mini or the iPad Air with the older chips.