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I wonder what impact a forced 33% increase in overall brightness on the same hardware, will have on battery life.

Unless I'm missing something, the brightness control ought to still work. Just because it gets brighter at the top end doesn't mean you have to keep it there.
 
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I've got the mid-2013 MacBook Air, still going strong, but I'm due for an upgrade of the internal storage. I could upgrade that myself, but considering a new laptop. Do you recommend *against* replacing it with a 2018 MacBook Air because of the keyboard?

I got a 2018 13" Pro last Friday but... I was looking at the new MBA and the 2017 MBP. I'd suggest going with the Pro, mainly because the screen is really bright. I used my laptop outdoors yesterday and it worked fantabulously. If you look at the two, they both are super thin. The Pro has the better brightness going for it. It helps that the CPU is also stronger. Clock speed may be the same but the MBA's CPU may hit its thermal limit faster.
 
Dear Apple,

OLED/ULED on future MacBook displays, please!

Also, fix the keyboard.

Sincerely,
Reason077
 
Unless I'm missing something, the brightness control ought to still work. Just because it gets brighter at the top end doesn't mean you have to keep it there.

True, you can dial down brightness notches to offset it-- but for people that use auto brightness or just by default crank things all the way up, thats gonna rear its head :D
 
Honestly this is a major reason I haven't bought this machine yet (along with skepticism around the keyboard). Can any current users confirm it makes a noticeable difference?

The MacBook Air has potential, but Apple definitely cut some corners... dimmer screen, smaller battery, underpowered CPU, and the Gen 3 keyboard is excluded from the repair program (Gen 1 & 2 only). For these reasons, the non-TB MacBook Pro is the much better buy.

FWIW, I compared the various models in person, and the screen on the MacBook Air was noticeably dimmer. If you sit next to a window, for instance, the screen would almost certainly have to be on the brightest setting. With this update, I imagine you'd get another 1 bar of brightness at most.
 
You’re WILDLY overestimating consumer purchasing decisions if you honestly think an average person has any idea what a nit is.
Hopefully a reader will be inspired to educate themself with a quick google search. And then they will know what they should already know.
 
Update, Apple to release Mac OS 14.14.5 to mitigate MBA battery drain problem related to 14.14.4 screen brightness update.
 
Okay, so it appears users are confirming an increase in brightness. Good. Upon first reading, I wasn't clear if it was an actual increase, or if they were revising the spec to reflect what it actually did. I'm glad to see it is an actual improvement.
 
How would this be achieved? Assuming it wasn’t just a software limitation in the first place...

Could the update include firmware for the SMC to increase the electrical voltage to the display or something like that?
Everything is always software.

Nothing is released to the consumer at full bore. Meaning each piece of hardware is dialed back to meet specifications, marketing, longevity, along with many other considerations. The screen is probably capable of reaching far higher than 400 nits in its raw form.
 
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I like the updated keyboard, but I don't eat cookies while typing.

Good point... I've had both a 2016 and a 2017 Macbook 12" (1st and 2nd generation butterfly) as my daily drivers, and I've never had trouble with any key. I've come to love the 2017 2nd gen keyboard.

But I'm religious about not eating or drinking near the keyboard. Dog hair (I have three Labs) gets all over it, but that doesn't seem to hurt anything. Plain old room dust hasn't hurt it either, but one crumbly cookie might be all it takes to trash the thing.

By my definition, that's a user problem.
 
Oh and suddenly it’s possible for Apple to deliver better “hardware”.
They wanted to keep that “feature” for the next gen model, but according to the sales, they had to act

I totally agree with this. They thought the fact it was a redesign would be enough to keep sales up. Clearly that hasn't happened.

Like this is something that will help sell even 1 Air to the general consumer.
 
Yes. I have a 2018 MB Air and it is definitely brighter after updating to macOS 10.14.4.

The difference is not subtle.
 
So they can actually tweak that via software. Great! I'll buy the MBA once they include 2 additional CPU cores in a future MacOS update.

Why don’t you get the 15-16inch MBP? Those ones are really loaded. I love mine.
 
I like the updated keyboard, but I don't eat cookies while typing.
I like my butterfly keyboard. I have the 2018MBP15 and also the 2017MBP15 they are quite neat actually. If they break, which the 2017 one did, just toss them back to Apple and in a week you get a brand new top case assembly and sometimes logic board replaced for free. I don’t care if it breaks, that’s not my problem as long as it works great when it’s not broken, I’m happy. They are fantastic personal machines that I wouldn’t trade for anything else. If you need more compute power than the top of the line MBP15, then delegate the workload to a server cluster. At home you can use the 2 x 5k monitor on each side with it. The other Mac that I think is pretty sleek is the iMac Pro. It’s beautiful and it’s powerful. Again if you need more just off load the compute task to a server, like rendering or compiling or building symbols, optimizing database, etc that can take days and on the scale of 10TB+. If you are on the budget then the best bang for your buck is the lowest standard config 5K iMac, don’t buy the 1080p iMac tho, the smaller 4K iMac can be considered if you need one more step down. Make sure to swap the Magic Mouse out with a Magic Trackpad.
 
You’re WILDLY overestimating consumer purchasing decisions if you honestly think an average person has any idea what a nit is.

Just assume that the current Air would sell more than expected. I swear to god Apple would sell the next Air with the slogan “now with a brighter screen”
 
I'm waiting for the MacOS update that fixes the keyboard.
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I like my butterfly keyboard. I have the 2018MBP15 and also the 2017MBP15 they are quite neat actually. If they break, which the 2017 one did, just toss them back to Apple and in a week you get a brand new top case assembly and sometimes logic board replaced for free. I don’t care if it breaks, that’s not my problem as long as it works great when it’s not broken, I’m happy. They are fantastic personal machines that I wouldn’t trade for anything else. If you need more compute power than the top of the line MBP15, then delegate the workload to a server cluster. At home you can use the 2 x 5k monitor on each side with it. The other Mac that I think is pretty sleek is the iMac Pro. It’s beautiful and it’s powerful. Again if you need more just off load the compute task to a server, like rendering or compiling or building symbols, optimizing database, etc that can take days and on the scale of 10TB+. If you are on the budget then the best bang for your buck is the lowest standard config 5K iMac, don’t buy the 1080p iMac tho, the smaller 4K iMac can be considered if you need one more step down. Make sure to swap the Magic Mouse out with a Magic Trackpad.

good for you BUT

  • some of us can't lose a laptop for a week or 10 working days as it his here
  • some of live in the next county from an official apple store
  • some of can't live with the keyboard breaking when you need it to work, no matter how quickly they can fix it
  • some of us don't want the cost of getting it fixed - travel, lost business
  • some of us don't want to pay £700 for a complete top case replacement every time the keyboard breaks after the warranty is out after 1 year ...
it is a warranty time bomb!
 
If I had bought one of those and it had 234nits, It would have been LONG gone by now. Like maybe the first half hour. The problem is I have a iPhone X max. sort of ruins things :D
 
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