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Is it me, or is MacBook Air 2018 much slower than old ones?
- Thread starter bearinthetown
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I googled and found this post. Seeing the same thing. About to return it. feels like a cheap netbook. Guess I need a pro.
The first couple of weeks my brand new MacBook Pro 2018, 16GB RAM, 513 GB SSD felt laggy and somewhat slow at times. Also, I had to replace my top case because the aluminium had a discolouring issue. But after a couple of weeks the issue with stuttering and lag disappeared. Dunno, maybe it needed to warm up or something. Now everything is as smooth as butter. Except the typing. Even after almost a year not yet used to the butterfly keyboard (coming from a MacBook Air 2011). Not using grammarly.
[doublepost=1566853534][/doublepost]Recently purchase a new MBA with 16GB processor and am also upgrading from a 2013 MBA. I found this post searching for the same issues the original poster had. Should I return or is there still hope for fixing it?
I would agree with the performance reports, it just feel sluggish quite often. I ordered this new MBA right when it came out 11/1/2018, i5 16GB 512GB SSD. The dual core processor and the hard drive seems very busy all the time according to Activity monitor.
Coming from a 2012 MBA 11" i7 8GB 256GB for over 6 years, that computer would out perform this one most days. I'm an IT pro of 20+ years, and my first thoughts are that Apple was throttling the CPU, recycling old CPU's, or selling an M3 as an i5 (ha!) Just my random thoughts, but there something is definitely off. A number of reports I've read are folks with the 512GB SSD, perhaps there is an issue there.
As others have mentioned, it's all subjective and perception until you use tools to measure properly. I just wanted to chime in to say I'm seeing similar issues. I'm about to put the unit on eBay here 1 month short of owning it 1 year, and switch to an MBP. Not sure if I call Apple before the warranty is up if it will be worth my time.
Coming from a 2012 MBA 11" i7 8GB 256GB for over 6 years, that computer would out perform this one most days. I'm an IT pro of 20+ years, and my first thoughts are that Apple was throttling the CPU, recycling old CPU's, or selling an M3 as an i5 (ha!) Just my random thoughts, but there something is definitely off. A number of reports I've read are folks with the 512GB SSD, perhaps there is an issue there.
As others have mentioned, it's all subjective and perception until you use tools to measure properly. I just wanted to chime in to say I'm seeing similar issues. I'm about to put the unit on eBay here 1 month short of owning it 1 year, and switch to an MBP. Not sure if I call Apple before the warranty is up if it will be worth my time.
I'd agree w/ the general consensus here that lags exist in the new mba. I have a 2019 mba maxed out w/ 16gb, 1tb and it does feel sluggish at times. As others have noted, my guess is it's got to do w/ the high resolution display that the integrated graphics is pushing. I'd still buy this any time of the day to the non-retina mba though.
I just can't go back to the old non-retina display w/ usb-a ports and thick silver bezels in all 4 corners. The new mba has better speakers, a touch id, a good display, a brighter screen, and modern ports.
I just can't go back to the old non-retina display w/ usb-a ports and thick silver bezels in all 4 corners. The new mba has better speakers, a touch id, a good display, a brighter screen, and modern ports.
this
I own both the late 2017 MBA (the old design) and the 2018 MBA
the new Air is noticeably slower in normal day to day use (browsing, e- mail, youtube, word processing ...)
it most probably is not
the old Air in extended desktop mode (one external full HD display plus the built in) still feels snappier than the new one without an external monitor
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You still have more pixels with the rMBA.
2560*1600 (rMBA) - 1440*900 (MBA) - 1920*1080 (FHD) = 726400
I'm far from an expert on this, but I don't think that will change the number of pixels it needs to drive.
Back in the 90s I had to scale back some games' resolutions (and effects) in order to keep the fps at or above 30, based on the graphics card performance
The retina Air's default resolution is called "looks like 1440 x 900"
Scaling down screen resolution on a portable Mac has the benefit of reduced power consumption and heat built up, in addition to making text readable which otherwise would be very tiny
Of course, Apple scales things down beautifully by pixel doubling (in reality: pixel quadrupling) and by maintaining high resolution for certain UI icons and buttons which remain high res in an otherwise lower res environment
you can try out the different screen resolutions on any (retina) Mac in system preferences, display: scaled (where the "more space" option gets closer to the native screen resolution)
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Hello after a while. It's February 2020 now, a year and a bit since I got my MBA 2018 with 16 GB of RAM.
Let me say that it's gotten much worse. These days my MacBook feels really sluggish, like a netbook at times. Not sure if that's Google Chrome's fault or something else. Chrome feels kinda terrible. Opening new tabs freezes quite a lot and typing URLs is lagging. It's really like some $300 Acer or something, except 6 times pricier.
I must say though that I have zero keyboard problems since replacing it 2 times and I really like the butterfly keyboard (when it works, obviously).
The battery life is really bad. I'm a web developer and I need to use a few tools. They make my battery drain in ~4h, even though I don't use anything extraordinary. I feel like I need to rethink the "normal usage" term and realize that I will never get any close to the advertised battery time.
Let me say that it's gotten much worse. These days my MacBook feels really sluggish, like a netbook at times. Not sure if that's Google Chrome's fault or something else. Chrome feels kinda terrible. Opening new tabs freezes quite a lot and typing URLs is lagging. It's really like some $300 Acer or something, except 6 times pricier.
I must say though that I have zero keyboard problems since replacing it 2 times and I really like the butterfly keyboard (when it works, obviously).
The battery life is really bad. I'm a web developer and I need to use a few tools. They make my battery drain in ~4h, even though I don't use anything extraordinary. I feel like I need to rethink the "normal usage" term and realize that I will never get any close to the advertised battery time.
Update to my previous post: I ended up selling my MBA2018/16gb/512GB 1 year after purchase. Lost over $1000 in value. Simply running Chrome with a few tabs on a clean image proved to have high CPU utilization, and the room was cool - no fans heard either.
I thought it was due to running an LG Ultrawide external monitor 3440x1440 + Internal Retina, so I tried the internal display for a while - same issue. Completely wiped the system multiple times (disk, partitions, etc) and downloaded the latest MacOS, no change.
I'm completely disappointed in Apple with this product. My 2012 MBA/i7/8GB/256SSD ran circles around this unit. I think we begged too so long for a new MBA that Apple just threw together whatever minimum specs, and made it pretty so they could to trick us into buying it...and not cannibalize their MBP Sales.
The fallout from this is that I bought a Google Pixelbook Go i3/8GB/128, and taught myself new ways to do old tasks - and I'm an IT pro of 20 years. Rarely do I use Chrome Remote Desktop to get to something on a PC. The speed and battery are great, and it was 1/3 the cost of a Macbook. The future is nearly 100% browser with Progressive Web Apps.
I thought it was due to running an LG Ultrawide external monitor 3440x1440 + Internal Retina, so I tried the internal display for a while - same issue. Completely wiped the system multiple times (disk, partitions, etc) and downloaded the latest MacOS, no change.
I'm completely disappointed in Apple with this product. My 2012 MBA/i7/8GB/256SSD ran circles around this unit. I think we begged too so long for a new MBA that Apple just threw together whatever minimum specs, and made it pretty so they could to trick us into buying it...and not cannibalize their MBP Sales.
The fallout from this is that I bought a Google Pixelbook Go i3/8GB/128, and taught myself new ways to do old tasks - and I'm an IT pro of 20 years. Rarely do I use Chrome Remote Desktop to get to something on a PC. The speed and battery are great, and it was 1/3 the cost of a Macbook. The future is nearly 100% browser with Progressive Web Apps.
I’m happy to know you got a satisfying laptop. I don’t like what Apple does to its customers. They completely skew people’s understanding of technology. People worshipping Apple believe that it’s the only way. They don’t know that technology improves over the years, because Apple makes their products age badly and quickly. Apple makes people believe they need to spend $2.000 to browse web without lagging. That’s just sad.
My MacBook Air 2013 was never as slow as the 2018 is now.
My MacBook Air 2013 was never as slow as the 2018 is now.
I don't really follow anything non-Mac on the laptop front, but happened to see the Pixelbook Go at a Best Buy. Thought it was amazing in terms of weight (only 2 lb) and form factor. We need something like that from Apple.
I have a 2019 MBA and so far so good. I do notice some performance issues with youtube but they are minor. The weak link with the MBA is the graphics.
And the CPU. By the way, if you find your keyboard failing at some point, don't hesitate and replace it as soon as possible. Now I can't imagine having a faulty keyboard again, it was a nightmare.
Agree to some extent. I have the activity monitor running all the time and I rarely see CPU spikes for my usage but definitely more often than I did on my 2017 and 2019 MBPs (I returned the 2019 MBP and replaced it with the 2019 MBA).
I really don’t know what is wrong with Apple just lately, there seems to be number of issues with products. My AirPods Pro have had an issue (with them not charging properly). My 2017 iPad Pro had a touch disease problem, and it looks like my 2017 replacement is having the same issue!
On top of that iOS 13 has a number of bugs. Apple really need to get their stuff together!
On top of that iOS 13 has a number of bugs. Apple really need to get their stuff together!
MBA 8/128 2018 (November): Used almost every day. Its hardly missed a beat. I had one T2-related crash early 2019, but nothing since. Battery life is still excellent. No problem getting a full day out of it. 63% at bedtime yesterday, after working on it all afternoon then watching Parasite in the evening.
Aside: I don't use Chrome.
Aside: I don't use Chrome.
Do you do any kind of work on your MacBook? I don't know, it surprises me when I hear people have positive experience with MBA 2018. Mine is really laggy.