Air - whats the point?

[Hank Carter]

I hate to say it but I picked up a brand new i7/256GB 2017 Air at a bargain price on Black Friday.

90% of what I do on this machine is writing in Final Draft and Pages, email, iChat and browsing the internet. Essentially it's an office machine.

- I truly despise the butterfly keyboard and the old Air is a joy to type on.

- The butterfly keyboard has not proven itself to be very reliable.

- I do like the smaller size of the new Air.

- The new Air is only marginally faster than the old i7 model.

- Battery life is roughly the same.

- Disk speed is way up, but that doesn't really effect me doing email, Pages etc.

- The SSD in the new Air is soldered in and can't be upgraded. I had to upgrade or replace the SSD in my old Air twice. The first time my SSD failed was in the middle of a job. I simply had OWC FedEX me a drive overnight and I was back in business the next day. Try that with a soldered in drive.

- Ports. Yeah, I know USB-C is the future, but I keep a mini USB-A thumb drive plugged in at all times that constantly backs up two immensely important folders every 4 hours. This is in addition to Backblaze. I haven't been able to find a USB-C drive small enough that won't get snapped off in my bag.

- Thunderbolt 2 is fast enough for the tasks I'm doing on my Air. I have a big workstation for video production work.

- No SD card reader.

- Magsafe. Has saved my hide and wallet more times than I care to admit.

- The new screen is a vast improvement, but really doesn't make a difference for what I do.
The old screen is mediocre at best, but it works perfectly fine for writing. If anything the lower resolution makes it easier for me to read text. If I want a bigger and better display I simply plug the Air into an external monitor.

- On sale the 2017 Air was about $400-$500 cheaper than a similarly spec'd 2018.

- The pre-2018 Air is the Toyota Camry of laptops. It will run and run and run...

- No glowing logo.

 

[geejay9876]

Heard in the shop that the MacBook Air 2018 sells like hotcakes.
"You wouldn't believe how many we sell"

Why?
"Because it's gold"

 

[KPOM]

Heard in the shop that the MacBook Air 2018 sells like hotcakes.
"You wouldn't believe how many we sell"

Why?
"Because it's gold"

Interesting. The 12” MacBook has been available in gold since Day 1.

 

[geejay9876]

Interesting. The 12” MacBook has been available in gold since Day 1.

It's not the same colour. My wife requested a lipstick in the same colour for Christmas. Rose-Gold-Bronze is the colour to have currently, as I am told.

 

[glycerine00]

Interesting. The 12” MacBook has been available in gold since Day 1.

Not going to lie, part of my reason for getting this new Air was the gold (more rose copper) color. When the Macbook came out I was tempted by the gold color as well, but the screen was too small, I wanted a 13"

 

[KPOM]

It's not the same colour. My wife requested a lipstick in the same colour for Christmas. Rose-Gold-Bronze is the colour to have currently, as I am told.

They updated the 12” MacBook to the “new” gold and dropped the previous separate gold and rose gold options.

 

[lowkey]

Nope you are not missing anything, I want to upgrade my 2011 MBA and the 2018 MBA has way to many issues to consider it. The unreliable keyboard and underwhelming screen being the biggest ones.

No one whose worked on a 2011 non retina MBA for 7 years can legitimately call the new models screen underwhelming. LOL, seriously the old MBA screen was truly appalling in comparison.

 

[Enclavean]

The MBA is not intended to be the MBP so you will never see an MBA with MPB level hardware. You bought the Air because it was a cheaper alternative. Hence its value.

Unfortunately, its now more expensive and Apple is going to continue to push the envelope of pricing because people keep paying.

The value for me is the bigger screen. The only MBA 2018 complaint I feel is reasonable is the brightness of the screen. Yes its less than a Pro, but with the correct color driver selected I feel its fine. Others do not agree.

Then again, the Air was meant to be portable yet it has MBP level footprint ‍

 

[jpn]

Totally agree.
That’s why it’s so frustrating that they put in an unreliable keyboard in these new MacBook Airs

its not "unreliable" in any way.
[doublepost=1546408821][/doublepost]

Hmm.. you make a very good point, I hadn't thought about SSD cell exhaustion.

SSDs in any mac will have no problems for at least 4 years, probably more.
never had any problem with any mac SSD and i have been using them since apple first offered them.
typically macs have a variety of problems after 3 years: battery issues and keyboard issues mainly.
but never SSD.

 

[turbineseaplane]

its not "unreliable" in any way

So what is one to make of this thread?

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ard-issues-with-the-macbook-air-2018.2155508/

Or any of the threads about the Pro keyboards with issues, including 3rd gen versions, just like in the new MBA?

 

[jpn]

So what is one to make of this thread?

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ard-issues-with-the-macbook-air-2018.2155508/

Or any of the threads about the Pro keyboards with issues, including 3rd gen versions, just like in the new MBA?

i actually don't believe too many of these reported issues. sorry.
if the keyboard is failing with such minimal use, then either
(1) it was simply defective to begin with or
(2) the user has some abnormally bad eating and drinking habits when using their mac

this 3rd gen keyboard is really good. and i waited a long time for it to be perfected.

 

[turbineseaplane]

i actually don't believe too many of these reported issues. sorry.

I see

 

[dagored]

I see

I have to agree with Niji. Some, maybe, but how many thousands don’t have problems?

 

[Mainsail]

I have to agree with Niji. Some, maybe, but how many thousands don’t have problems?

I think we can all agree that the feedback on MR can be somewhat hyperbolic. Also, you will tend to get negative posts rather than ones where there is no problem. This is just human nature. People just expect the keyboard to work. It’s kind of like the City Water Department. People don’t write in to say thanks for keeping my water running this month.....but they do hear about complaints service issues....even if it is a small fraction of customers effected.

That said; You can’t complete dismiss these negative posts on MR, and I think it is pretty clear Apple has had a history of reliability issues with the butterfly keyboards. Evidence: Class Action Lawsuits, Tech Reviews, Tech Magazines, and yes, User Posts on Tech sites.

 

[turbineseaplane]

That said; You can’t complete dismiss these negative posts on MR, and I think it is pretty clear Apple has had a history of reliability issues with the butterfly keyboards. Evidence: Class Action Lawsuits, Tech Reviews, Tech Magazines, and yes, User Posts on Tech sites.

Thank you.
Yes - exactly.

Way too much smoke for no fire.
It's coming from plenty of angles and locations beyond just this forum.

It's amazing to me that some users will insinuate that "you can't use anecdotal data from MacRumors users to know if there's a problem", but then in literally the next sentence will include their own anecdote about "no problems here!" and that, for some reason, is relevant data?