Is it me, or is MacBook Air 2018 much slower than old ones?

[jinnyman]

I wish Apple had priced the difference between the Macbook Air and Pro much more. I get a discount via the Corporate Perks EPP Apple store, i've checked out the difference between the new Air and the 13" Pro, with base specs there is about a £300 difference between the Pro with Touch Bar and the new Air for me.

When you consider the occasional discount deals, the difference between MBP 13" 2018 256 Gig and MBA 2018 256 Gig becomes insignificant to justify going with MBA especially considering the performance gap with insignificant difference in portability.

MBA should have been more portable or more powerful. More portable with removal of fan completely, or incorporation of 15W CPU with heat pipe could've easily been possible.

 

[bearinthetown]

When you consider the occasional discount deals, the difference between MBP 13" 2018 256 Gig and MBA 2018 256 Gig becomes insignificant to justify going with MBA especially considering the performance gap with insignificant difference in portability.

MBA should have been more portable or more powerful. More portable with removal of fan completely, or incorporation of 15W CPU with heat pipe could've easily been possible.

Are you sure fanless and more powerful is possible with current technology? I don’t think so.

 

[jinnyman]

Are you sure fanless and more powerful is possible with current technology? I don’t think so.

I was saying “either”. Hope to clarify any misunderstanding. As for your question, of course I dont think it’s possible. That’s why either more portable or more powerful.

 

[bearinthetown]

I was saying “either”. Hope to clarify any misunderstanding. As for your question, of course I dont think it’s possible. That’s why either more portable or more powerful.

Oh, yeah. I would go with more powerful though. It’s already ultra portable and beautiful. But could have been stronger for sure.

 

[Dave245]

Oh, yeah. I would go with more powerful though. It’s already ultra portable and beautiful. But could have been stronger for sure.

I don’t think the Air is a slouch tho, look at this guys video, after seeing it a while back I’m kind of leaning towards the Air when I sell my Surface device and come back to Mac.

 

[bearinthetown]

I don’t think the Air is a slouch tho, look at this guys video, after seeing it a while back I’m kind of leaning towards the Air when I sell my Surface device and come back to Mac.

I can’t imagine that, maybe Apple paid him? This MacBook gets hot even viewing videos, so how can it handle editing them?

 

[Dave245]

I can’t imagine that, maybe Apple paid him? This MacBook gets hot even viewing videos, so how can it handle editing them?

No Apple didn’t pay him, he’s not a YouTube celebrity, Apple doesn’t pay people to do that anyway. I just think it’s well optimised, he’s running Final Cut Pro for a start. There was a similar video about the 12” MacBook from different people a while back.

 

[bearinthetown]

No Apple didn’t pay him, he’s not a YouTube celebrity, Apple doesn’t pay people to do that anyway. I just think it’s well optimised, he’s running Final Cut Pro for a start. There was a similar video about the 12” MacBook from different people a while back.

How do you know that Apple doesn’t have paid reviews? Some of the reviews of MacBook Pros and highly questionable.

 

[Dave245]

How do you know that Apple doesn’t have paid reviews? Some of the reviews of MacBook Pros and highly questionable.

Because this guy isn’t a big YouTube celebrity, he has 117k subscribers where some of them have millions. Is it possible you have a defective unit? From what I’ve seen the new Air runs just fine for daily tasks and so on.

 

[bearinthetown]

Because this guy isn’t a big YouTube celebrity, he has 117k subscribers where some of them have millions. Is it possible you have a defective unit? From what I’ve seen the new Air runs just fine for daily tasks and so on.

Please check out my long post above. I have mentioned there that it got better after resetting stuff. Still not very smooth, but not sluggish anymore. I guess many people don’t see the difference between MBA 2017 and 2018. I do.

 

[Dave245]

Please check out my long post above. I have mentioned there that it got better after resetting stuff. Still not very smooth, but not sluggish anymore. I guess many people don’t see the difference between MBA 2017 and 2018. I do.

I have read your post, i don't know what to tell you because every Apple computer that i have used has worked well. I'm still using a 2012 iMac (until they announce the new ones) and it works great. I have also seen in store the new Macbook Air and it seems to work great, there are also YouTube videos showing the Macbook Air working fine. I still think you may have something wrong with your unit.

 

[AltecX]

I don't know what to tell you. Evidently some people "feel" a difference between retina and low resolution displays that they often describe as "lag" or "stuttering" which to me could be a perceived frame rate issue. If you think it is more prevalent in chrome, who knows, maybe chrome has issue with the intel graphics drivers newer intel cpus use? I am currently on my gaming computer, a windows box that only runs a 1080p monitor but is driven by a GTX 1070. If I resize chrome quickly it does seem to "stutter" around the edges of the window that are moving, but I don't think that is anything to worry about. To me it is subjective really. If you really aren't happy I'd say return it and stick with the old machine?

I believe that is what they call Frame Time, which is the time between frames. If there is uneven time between frames it can be perceived as lag.

 

[bearinthetown]

I believe that is what they call Frame Time, which is the time between frames. If there is uneven time between frames it can be perceived as lag.

Frame rate is a real thing and there is no subjectiveness about it. It’s actually quite shocking that some people do *not* see the difference. I know people who can’t see the difference between 24p and 60p, so everything is possible.

 

[Jayblue873Tech]

I got a shiny MacBook Air 2018 with 16 GB of RAM.

I feel like it's much slower than my previous one, MacBook Air from 2013. The SSD is supposed to be much better, I got double the RAM. But it still feels slower.

Web browsing used to be smooth, even when I used MacBook Air 2013 in 2018. The pages scrolled smoothly. It's not the case with the new MacBook Air.

Also, I need to now work with photos in Finder, 500 photos per folder. Moving them feels like I'm working on some ass cheap notebook. I mean, it's fast once it's requested, because new Apple filesystem works that way, but the animation of moving files is sluggish.

Anyone can confirm?

This is true with a lot of apples thin ultrabooks now.
like the MacBook!
the MacBook has a crappy processor like a M3.most people would accept it but for any gaming.it would downright be no more then 50fps,Also the GPU! the gpu also has a HD 615 which is also extremely sluggish!and with that retina display.the gpu has to work with all those pixels so same goes with the MBA.
The 2018 MBA model has a retina display.But because apple is is thinning their laptops.the processors get newer yet slower. this is not the exeption of the MBP. apple decided to make their U Processors Y! and Y Processors are so slow that NO Gamers would ever buy this laptop. even the i3 is better then Y Processors! same goes with gpu.intel HD 6000 To UHD 615... But apple is trying to make it then so it should actually be slightly thicker.that way the MacBook air cant put a U processor again.The 2017 MBP Is a lot better and you could get some work done with it! You could connect a eGPU To it! Which would blow the GPU to a whole new level.about the i5 8210Y....
this took forever to type...

 

[bearinthetown]

This is true with a lot of apples thin ultrabooks now.
like the MacBook!
the MacBook has a crappy processor like a M3.most people would accept it but for any gaming.it would downright be no more then 50fps,Also the GPU! the gpu also has a HD 615 which is also extremely sluggish!and with that retina display.the gpu has to work with all those pixels so same goes with the MBA.
The 2018 MBA model has a retina display.But because apple is is thinning their laptops.the processors get newer yet slower. this is not the exeption of the MBP. apple decided to make their U Processors Y! and Y Processors are so slow that NO Gamers would ever buy this laptop. even the i3 is better then Y Processors! same goes with gpu.intel HD 6000 To UHD 615... But apple is trying to make it then so it should actually be slightly thicker.that way the MacBook air cant put a U processor again.The 2017 MBP Is a lot better and you could get some work done with it! You could connect a eGPU To it! Which would blow the GPU to a whole new level.about the i5 8210Y....
this took forever to type...

I feel like thinness used to be this cool feature we all wanted, but now it's just Apple's excuse to put cheap components in. I wonder how many customers would prefer MacBook Air 2013-2017 to be thinner at the cost of performance.

 

[vws02]

Hi bearinthetown, I recently bought MacBook Air 2018 and its performance is really poor. Some apps needs seconds to open, generally everything needs seconds to run. When I listen to a YouTube video with music it stutters when I log in to facebook etc. So I can confirm your issue. Could you tell me the fix / reset recommended by Apple support?

I got a shiny MacBook Air 2018 with 16 GB of RAM.

I feel like it's much slower than my previous one, MacBook Air from 2013. The SSD is supposed to be much better, I got double the RAM. But it still feels slower.

Web browsing used to be smooth, even when I used MacBook Air 2013 in 2018. The pages scrolled smoothly. It's not the case with the new MacBook Air.

Also, I need to now work with photos in Finder, 500 photos per folder. Moving them feels like I'm working on some ass cheap notebook. I mean, it's fast once it's requested, because new Apple filesystem works that way, but the animation of moving files is sluggish.

Anyone can confirm?

 

[lambertjohn]

My wife has a base 2013 MacBook Air and I have a base 2018 MacBook Air. I can tell you with 100% certainty, her Air is noticeably faster than mine. It doesn't bother me--all my programs load and run just fine--but there is a definite speed difference between hers and mine. The biggest speed difference is bootup time; her's is up and ready for her password while mine is still churning away, trying to get up and running.

 

[AustinIllini]

It's pretty clear to me Bear simply doesn't know how to use macOS or troubleshoot his issue. My MacBook Air never heats up and on the rare occasion it does it's really easy to fix.

If you're having a problem, bear, maybe sign up for a Mac class or look up a tutorial on the internet.

Also, a MacBook Pro will certainly run hotter than a MacBook Air.

 

[Falhófnir]

My wife has a base 2013 MacBook Air and I have a base 2018 MacBook Air. I can tell you with 100% certainty, her Air is noticeably faster than mine. It doesn't bother me--all my programs load and run just fine--but there is a definite speed difference between hers and mine. The biggest speed difference is bootup time; her's is up and ready for her password while mine is still churning away, trying to get up and running.

Bootup will almost certainly be because of the faster SSD in the 2018, even the 2015 were notably faster to startup than preceding generations (I think that was when they changed from SATA to PCIE drives)

 

[Jimmy James]

It's pretty clear to me Bear simply doesn't know how to use macOS or troubleshoot his issue. My MacBook Air never heats up and on the rare occasion it does it's really easy to fix.

If you're having a problem, bear, maybe sign up for a Mac class or look up a tutorial on the internet.

Also, a MacBook Pro will certainly run hotter than a MacBook Air.

Thermodynamics in portable computing during high bitrate media loading. I’ve taken that class at an Apple store. Solved all of my problems. Highly recommended!

 

[eliot3b4]

I got a shiny MacBook Air 2018 with 16 GB of RAM.

I feel like it's much slower than my previous one, MacBook Air from 2013. The SSD is supposed to be much better, I got double the RAM. But it still feels slower.

Web browsing used to be smooth, even when I used MacBook Air 2013 in 2018. The pages scrolled smoothly. It's not the case with the new MacBook Air.

Also, I need to now work with photos in Finder, 500 photos per folder. Moving them feels like I'm working on some ass cheap notebook. I mean, it's fast once it's requested, because new Apple filesystem works that way, but the animation of moving files is sluggish.

Anyone can confirm?

[doublepost=1561157498][/doublepost]

I got a shiny MacBook Air 2018 with 16 GB of RAM.

I feel like it's much slower than my previous one, MacBook Air from 2013. The SSD is supposed to be much better, I got double the RAM. But it still feels slower.

Web browsing used to be smooth, even when I used MacBook Air 2013 in 2018. The pages scrolled smoothly. It's not the case with the new MacBook Air.

Also, I need to now work with photos in Finder, 500 photos per folder. Moving them feels like I'm working on some ass cheap notebook. I mean, it's fast once it's requested, because new Apple filesystem works that way, but the animation of moving files is sluggish.

Anyone can confirm?

I purchased a MBA, with 16 gb ram and 5612 mb ssb. I was replacing a mid 2015 MB.

After 2 days, I returned the MBA and bought another MacBook Pro. The MBA was horribly slow and drove me nuts. My iPad is light years ahead of the MBA. I did like the design and the key board, but could not stand how slow the machine is.

I do not recommend the MBA. Nice design, but needs more.

 

[pcd213]

[doublepost=1561157498][/doublepost]

I purchased a MBA, with 16 gb ram and 5612 mb ssb. I was replacing a mid 2015 MB.

After 2 days, I returned the MBA and bought another MacBook Pro. The MBA was horribly slow and drove me nuts. My iPad is light years ahead of the MBA. I did like the design and the key board, but could not stand how slow the machine is.

I do not recommend the MBA. Nice design, but needs more.

I have to agree. I'm glad I ditched the 2017 keyboard, as I saw so many issues there, but there's just not enough power here in the 2018 MBA. It's not as anemic as the 12" MacBook but I did expect a bit more power in this model. I'm now considering either purchasing a 2018/2019 MBP or waiting for a refreshed MBP, but power is lacking in this MBA. I also wish the screen were a tad brighter.

 

[torana355]

I picked up my 2018 air 2 days ago, i can confirm it runs well but there are certainly frame drops and stutters, it reminds me of an android phone from a few years ago. I suspect the GPU is not sufficient for the retina screen. My 2011 MBA ran completely smooth in comparison.

 

[fancybid]

I have a 12" MacBook too, but thinking of upgrading to a 2018 Air. I don't want to go to the 2017 non-TB MacBook Pro because it's now more than a year old (likely defunct) and has the old generation keyboard (and lacks touch ID).
There are a few refurbished 2018 TB MacBooks that I have my eye on but: 1) I don't want the TouchBar and 2) I don't need all that power.
If I get the 2018 Air with 16GB of RAM, do you think it will be able to handle light gaming and light photshop/lightroom? This guy seemed to do well with video editing on the 8GB version (I watched it on FB2Mate, but Youtube might be better):

 

[Clockworkz]

I don’t see any issues with my air, plays YouTube perfect and opens up webpages good ( not as fast as my windows desktop but that’s a lot more powerful).