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Apple Highlights 2018 MacBook Air and Mac Mini Reviews

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Reviews for the new 2018 MacBook Air and Mac mini went live this morning ahead of tomorrow's launch, and in a press release, Apple this afternoon highlighted reviews from several media sites that were able to spend some time with the new machines.

Apple shared review passages from sites that include CNBC, WIRED, Daring Fireball, PC Mag, Six Colors, Tom's Guide, and more.

macbookairreviews.jpg

Daring Fireball, for example, called the MacBook Air the MacBook that "most people should buy," and the Daily Express said "fans of this laptop" will love the new update because "it takes the concept of power and ultimate portability to a whole new level."

Gear Patrol said the MacBook Air is the "perfect computer" for anyone looking to do "normal things" like web browsing, answering emails, and watching movies, while Refinery29 highlighted the MacBook Air's 12-hour battery life.

As for the Mac mini, Six Colors said that the new update allows it to fill a wide range of needs, from basic server needs to "high-end applications that require a great deal of processor power."

Tom's Guide said that the Mac mini is the best option for those who want a compact Mac desktop for streaming media or getting into Apple computing, and ZDNet said the new version is "designed for all types of users" and is "no longer serving a niche market."

As with prior reviews roundups for devices like the iPad Pro, Apple has only highlighted the positive elements from each review. For anyone considering a purchase of one of these machines, it's worth taking a deeper dive into the reviews to get a full picture of both the positives and the negatives.

Apple's full list of Mac mini and MacBook Air review selections can be seen in the article shared through the Apple Newsroom, while additional reviews can be found in our Mac mini and MacBook Air review roundups.

The new 2018 MacBook Air and Mac mini models officially launch tomorrow and base configurations will be available in Apple retail stores and from third-party retailers.

The first pre-orders for the machines are also set to be delivered on November 7 and have already started arriving in Australia and New Zealand.

Article Link: Apple Highlights 2018 MacBook Air and Mac Mini Reviews
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/11/06/apple-highlights-macbook-air-mac-mini-reviews/
DrJohnnyN said:
This thing is a beast and will sell like hotcakes!
Click to expand...

I'm sure. But imagine how it could've sold if it was as thin and lightweight as the 12" MacBook. And fanless.

I'm sure everyone at Apple knows why this machine has a fan and a tappered design, I'm sure there's a key engineering reason behind, but honestly if I want a light and portable machine I'll grab a 12" MacBook. And if I want a decent amount of power, I'll get a 13" MacBook Pro.

Anyway, I'll try to get my hands on one of them this holidays, and test it for a couple of weeks to see if it may be worth this compromise between portability and performance.
 
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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.
 
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Yvan256 said:
And imagine how many more they could sell if it still had a keyboard with proper key travel and didn't increase the price by 200$USD, or at least put a quad-core in it for that price.
Click to expand...
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.
 
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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.

Their “mobile” devices are becoming extremely powerful and larger - to the point where form factors and the virtues of macOS and iOS, while impressively best-in-class, are overlapping. It’s not a matter of “use iPads to consume and Macbooks etc. to produce.” Life doesn’t work that way. The idea of skeuomorphism was to scrape away the artifice of something and facilitate interaction with a simulacrum of that thing’s whatness. Now that we’ve flattened the virtual representation of what the thing is, the salience of whether touch is the eminent artifice for interaction is increasing.

Specifically, I think iOS should introduce an external pointer input device. There are external keyboards. The why’s are obvious. Ease of use, ergonomics, precision, familiarity of tactility, etc. So why not a pointer (of which is a common virtual reality input artifice) for power interactivity and multitasking?

Tactility is a part of how we encode, internalize, process, and interact with information (whether the texture of a plant, a piano keyboard, or switching between tens of thousands of rows and columns of data in 16 spreadsheets). That said, tactile input encumbers cognitive load as screen sizes increase when it requires appendages coordinating with fine motor controls. Corollary, the efficaciousness of intention to project an input increases when minimizing the effort required through an artifice to achieve a function; decreasing the interruptive stimuli (eg. your hand covering a portion of the screen to touch some thing) lowers cognitive and physical load. In simpler terms, you spent less active interruptible brain and physical power moving a mouse with a hand at rest a few millimetres than hunting and pecking with an appendage.

These are some of the reasons you use an Apple Pencil for precision if you’re an artist (instead of trying to finger paint on the screen), or a keyboard if you write a lot. The importance of rapidly and precisely “pointing” to a function or information becomes even more obvious when we tease out the “right-click” nature ubiquitous to modern applications; “Force-touch” was an implicit acknowledgement, perhaps compromise, of this.

I hope iOS expands its horizons to match the hardware.

Anyhow, take care all.

Mark
 
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funny thing about these reviews (and also macrumors front page snippets about air) is that none of them highlight the removal of USB-A ports and SD card slot. This move was bigger than the retina screen or reducing the bezel size. It is as if the writers all agree we are past needing USB-A and its time to shell out more money for these machines. Yet I know lots of business folks that require the USB-A port and that is a key part of being able to make the switch and leave windows based portable machines behind. I guess the units sold will tell us how this works out... er.. wait, isn't apple no longer revealing the break down of sales data?
 
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Waiting patiently for my Gold to arrive.
But there’s long delivery on these, at least in Sweden.
Uhhm, end of November I’ll be happy to dive into this beauty :)

Have to get some adapters, new cords, no big deal.
At one point it’s always this way when tech evolves.
 
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CrazyForCashews said:
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.
Click to expand...
And then everyone clapped?
 
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DrJohnnyN said:
This thing is a beast and will sell like hotcakes!
Click to expand...

What other option do people have for a Mac ultra portable laptop, the previous years MacBook, the aging MacBook Air (prior 2018) or the entry level Pro 13” model.

When people say sell like “hotecakes” then their are disconnected from the reality that people consider price and then I/O over anything else. I have witnessed this first hand at the Apple Retail Store, whatever gets the job done for the price and the required connectivity.

The reason why the successive generations of the MacBook Air were well loved was due to price, portability and I/O. It was a students go to Mac laptop on a budget with minimal compromise.
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Yvan256 said:
And imagine how many more they could sell if it still had a keyboard with proper key travel and didn't increase the price by 200$USD, or at least put a quad-core in it for that price.
Click to expand...

That KB, is a deal breaker for a laptop. Some like it, many don’t. Apple is too stubborn to recognize its shortcomings and design a better KB.
 
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I have had many Apple products over the years, and have been really happy with them (and the customer support). However...I purchased a maxed-out 2017 (touchbar) and have had nothing but problems. First, the logic board failed; replacement took almost a month--it had to be sent in to the "main" Apple, whatever that means, and the entire bottom portion was replaced. Literally a month later, the GPU card failed--I assume that this is also part of the bottom case that they replaced, though I have not yet been able to get it in to be serviced. I've had this thing for a year and change and not been able to use it for about half of that time. I travel a lot so my ability to get things serviced all the time is limited, but that is also why in the past I have paid a premium for Apple products. I know Cook et al could give a flying eff about my experience, but ... it sucks. Hopefully these new versions are more reliable for ya'll.
 
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I'm finding it odd how Apple could easily have hit home runs with its new MacBooks over the last few years. Instead it's model after model where users quickly point out shortcomings & user hostile changes very uncharacteristic of Apple until now. Are they suddenly making mistakes or deliberating making Macs that miss the mark to frustrate & drive users who don't want to leave to ecosystem over to iPads. The iOS hardware has better profit margins while the apps & services are more lucrative.
 
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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.
 
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Air form factor, Retina display, Touch ID, Macbook processor... Air is becoming a mosaic of older Apple tech (not really bad, if it's not expensive).
 
code-m said:
What other option do people have for a Mac ultra portable laptop, the previous years MacBook, the aging MacBook Air (prior 2018) or the entry level Pro 13” model.

When people say sell like “hotecakes” then their are disconnected from the reality that people consider price and then I/O over anything else. I have witnessed this first hand at the Apple Retail Store, whatever gets the job done for the price and the required connectivity.
Click to expand...


Not the majority of Apple customers. Most want the latest and greatest.
 
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The keyboard is still iffy to many users after all these years.

While the previous 'non-butterfly' keyboard that Apple used on its laptops was loved by the majority and was the benchmark along with their great touchpad.

The touchpad has been improved while the keyboard has gone backwards into infamy. Lawsuits, lame video tutorials on how to fix it...

The new Mini (i5 model) is a great update though.
 
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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.
 
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