The new 2018 MacBook Air is essentially nothing more than a 13" MacBook.
Sadly, as dated as it is, the old MacBook Air is the last decent notebook that Apple offers, and that only as a legacy likely soon gone. It offers the variety of ports one still often needs, a good keyboard, as well as a practical amount of processing power.
Conversely, the 2018 MacBook Air offers none of this. Its only advantage over the previous model is principally a decent screen that the MacBook Air should have long since had. Other than that only the inclusion of USB-C ports (which should have been added to the existing ports) and better graphics.
The loyal Macintosh customer is left with nothing but bad choices. Apple could have truly upgraded the MacBook Air in retaining its many advantages while adding the better screen, etc., as well as in being truly upgradeable and repairable—but this is not Apple's way under Tim Cook. If so, it would have shown the rest of the notebook line for what they are and decimated them in sales.
While many MacBook Air loyalists have longed for a better screen, this option now at the expense of computing power, for one thing. Your only option with the 2018 MacBook Air are 1.6 GHz dual-core i5 processors, versus the 2.2 GHz dual-core i7 processors available in the old MacBook Air for $50 less total cost.
Consider as well that the least expensive MacBook Pro offers 2.3 GHz dual-core 15 processors for only $100 more in total cost (in each case figured with 256GB in storage, as a practical base minimum) than the 2018 MacBook Air. If, as the 2018 MacBook Air, neither is provided with the customary long and quite useful power cord the old MacBook Air comes with.
In short, Apple is doubling down on its path charted since the advent of Tim Cook in offering less for more. While there has always been an Apple tax, this once reflected in solid desirable products worth the premium. This is no longer the case. Apple has devolved into fashion pricing for Macintosh products, hardware and software, at best questionable.
While never perfect, Steve Jobs truly cared about the customer experience and what computers could best do in improving people's life's. Tim Cook does not appear to share such a sentiment, yet there seems no limit to his avarice. Given the phenomenal growth and prosperity of Apple under his reign it would be a hard decision for Apple's board to consider replacing Mr. Cook. But they should. Now.
For as the history of business is written time and again, all that goes up will come down. There are precious few companies extant which have manged to survive even a century. Fickle fanboys and Apple's board may think otherwise but the many loyal Apple customers having been left waiting all too long, or since decamped to other platforms, understand that Emperor Cook is parading without a shred of, at basis, real clothing.
