Apple Highlights 2018 MacBook Air and Mac Mini Reviews

[RumorSeeker]

I envision a dongle bundle some day soon when Apple packages all the dongles together for a "special" price and throws in a MacBook of your choice!

 

[code-m]

Not the majority of Apple customers. Most want the latest and greatest.

Tides are turning
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I envision a dongle bundle some day soon when Apple packages all the dongles together for a "special" price and throws in a MacBook of your choice!

Apple will put all components of a prior laptop as separate dongles. Want a screen, get a dongle, want a cpu unit, another dongle, etc

MacDongle, the future of computing

 

[Lone Deranger]

Can we please stop it with the "The Best [X] Yet" ********? When, ever, in the history of product update announcements, has an inferior product been announced?

When they introduced the butterfly keyboard.

 

[lordofthereef]

"The best [insert Apple product name here] yet" is getting kind of old, isn't it? I'm not arguing it's incorrect, but I feel like it's the same recycled catch phrase year after year.

That said in eying a Mac mini as a media center (and possibly MBP replacement). Just can't decide if I want the base or something more. Ram I can, and likely will, upgrade myself down the road.

 

[EEzycade]

I just remembered that the normal MacBook has not had the keyboard upgraded yet with that condom under the keys. I don't know who would still buy a MacBook with that reason alone.

Condom under the keys, haha made me laugh

 

[wkrjr]

The keyboard is the fundamental part of a laptop. If it's bad, the whole laptop is bad.

I was testing out the 12" MacBooks (which I really have a thing for) but my goodness are the keyboards terrible. While using it I wanted to go on a website called Kijiji (it's like Craigslist but everyone in Canada uses it instead) and the bloody 'J' key didn't work. I had to press it at least 20 times for it to finally register and even then it's input was flaky. Knowing that the butterfly keyboard is also now on the new MacBook Air is a major letdown, as it's a major downgrade in terms of quality and functionality compared to the beloved scissor keys.

How else to dissuade laptop users towards iPad than destroy the user interface with a crappy keyboard and a disheveled Mac lineup with everything out of sync

 

[Chazzle]

I know Apple is only going to highlight the positives in any review but is there any reason why MR has to? Telling readers to “take a deeper dive” themselves to find the negatives doesn’t seem very balanced.

At any rate, I never consider reviews from sources that have contractual agreements with Apple for early access. I’ll always wait for user reviews from independent purchasers.

Like these articles?
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/11/06/2018-macbook-air-review-roundup/

https://www.macrumors.com/2018/11/06/mac-mini-2018-reviews-roundup/

 

[Shiro_Simba]

True story I was at the Apple Store today at Fairview Mall in Toronto checking out some of their stuff and someone beside me wanted to buy a MacBook Air. They pointed towards the legendary MacBook Air that we all love and know and the Apple employee told them a new one just released and that they should get that one instead, but the customer said no and insisted to buy the "old" one instead.

The new MacBook Air is inferior to the old one in a lot of ways. People are dumb, but not that dumb. Nobody wants to deal with the bull and inconvenience of having limited ports, a crappy keyboard, and lack of MagSafe charging.

Such a shame Apple. You've done injustice to the MacBook Air name.

Based on that criteria, it’s the MacBook name. I really like my 2017 MacBook Pro, though my 2015 is better in many ways

 

[drzen]

The propaganda machine is well oiled and humming smoothly.

 

[ka-spot]

The best MacBook yet to come

 

[Pangalactic]

Well it's obviously the best cause IT DOESN'T HAVE THE TOUCHBAR, THANK GOD. Now to bring back the SD card slot, fix the keys, fix the Bridge OS error, increase the battery size, make a single USB A port...you're getting there, Apple

 

[MX20]

Tim Cook didn't care about the product and user experience from start to end. It approved an inferior Intel 8210-y series CPU that's supposed to be inside fanless chassis such as tablet form factor and not appropriate for a device like the 2018 MacBook Air.

Unfortunately, the 2018 MacBook Air is a lot slower than most ultrabook such as surface laptop 2, matebook X which equipped better model of CPU with higher performance and lower price tag and come with fairly secure face recognition technology (Windows Hello).

The Intel 8th generation i5-8250u is virtually included in every 2018 ultrabook except the 2018 MacBook Air and a comparable price tag of $1199

The MagSafe is one of most underrated feature that prevented a lot of case like crashing the laptop down to the floor and it's no longer part of 2018 MacBook Air which absolutely makes no sense.

The butterfly keyboard is undoubtedly more stable but at the cost of less leeway for key travel that reaches the threshold of becoming uncomfortable for the typist.

 

[Beeplance]

I know Apple is only going to highlight the positives in any review but is there any reason why MR has to? Telling readers to “take a deeper dive” themselves to find the negatives doesn’t seem very balanced.

At any rate, I never consider reviews from sources that have contractual agreements with Apple for early access. I’ll always wait for user reviews from independent purchasers.

Just curious, do you have any recommendations for independent reviewers? Which YouTubers do you frequent in this aspect? Would love to check them out.

 

[jellyjeff]

Was anyone expecting a new laptop with 12 months of additional technology improvements to NOT be "the best Macbook ever"?

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

This might be "The Best MacBook yet", but I wanted a (new and upgraded) MacBook Air.

 

[phpmaven]

What is Apple’s obsession with this “best *Apple product* yet”. That’s so stupid, especially considering the brilliant marketing Apple otherwise does. It would be pretty sad if a new Apple product wasn’t better than its predecessor.

It always cracks me up when people make comments like this. What do you expect them to say? “It pretty much the same as the last model.” “It might be a bit better, but you probably should just keep the one you have” “If we ever come out with anything really good, we’ll let you know. “

 

[Bacillus]

Was anyone expecting a new laptop with 12 months of additional technology improvements to NOT be "the best Macbook ever"?

Me. BTW these improvements took 3/4 years.
Another world premiere: the first to appear on “Don’t buy” list before hitting the shelves.

 

[Jago]

”no longer serving a niche market”

Umm, what? The price increase of the new Mini alone makes it a lot MORE niche, not less.

 

[dilbert99]

I have to get this out. It’s a long read. TL;DR With these new releases, I think now more than ever iOS needs to consider allowing cursor support and other OS superiority features.

OMG, you are taking your life into your own hands making blasphemous statements like that. You better run and hide from the mouse police

 

[tardegrade]

MacRumors Forums 2028:

Now that the new MacBook Air iX has the new "hapticGlass" keyboard, there goes the last decent keyboard on a MacBook. For the love of all things sacred Apple, bring back the beloved Butterfly keyboard. It was the best keyboard the Mac ever had!!

And why move away from USB-C?? USB-G might be 100TB and able to daisychain with 400 devices, but it is NOT backwards compatible with USB-A and 10BASE-T!!

No. Apple. Just. No.

No Butterfly. No USB-A compatibility. No sale!!!

 

[ChrisChaval]

Tides are turning
[doublepost=1541565447][/doublepost]

Apple will put all components of a prior laptop as separate dongles. Want a screen, get a dongle, want a cpu unit, another dongle, etc

MacDongle, the future of computing

Dongle different

 

[jonnysods]

I really don't understand the MBA now that the new MBP 13" form factor is so close but so much faster for specs.

 

[sehns]

I think the reason Apple have included a fan in this design is due to the criticism around thermals on the new MBP's and it also gives them room for adding bigger CPU options in the future. Its obvious to anyone paying attention that the new 'chassis' on the MB's and MBP's is designed to last them a very, very long time. Jony Ive probably doesn't want to get out of bed to work on Macs anymore thats why they dropped USB A so fast, they intend on using this same clamshell 5 years from now.

 

[rmoliv]

”no longer serving a niche market”

Umm, what? The price increase of the new Mini alone makes it a lot MORE niche, not less.

Apple likes to keep telling (the lie) that they want to be accessible to more people. Guess it sounds cool and hip (to pretend) to care for the less fortunate.

 

[TomOSeven]

Wasn't the MacBook/MacBook Air delineation confusing enough?!

View attachment 801961

There we go.

Do you ever post content that isn't absolute quality?
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Just curious, do you have any recommendations for independent reviewers? Which YouTubers do you frequent in this aspect? Would love to check them out.

Dave Lee for short and sweet reviews, notebookcheck.net for in depth written reviews, Lisa Grade of Mobile Tech Review for in depth video reviews.

Dave has a slight bias for shiny things, Lisa loves good keyboards with lots of travel and Notebookcheck is a bit skewed towards high review scores, so 70% is basically garbage and even mediocre laptops get 80+%. Other than that, they're by far the most detailed.