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MacBook Air Reviews Roundup: 'Best Computer for Most People' Again After 2018 Refresh
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Apple needs to get better at negotiating component prices! If they were, then their flash storage capacities would be going up in line with the dramatic decrease in flash storage pricing...
Or maybe price gouging on storage is what helps them maintain such high profit margins across all product lines...
Who needs karma when the market will decide the desirability of the terrible, no good keyboard.
Or maybe price gouging on storage is what helps them maintain such high profit margins across all product lines...
[doublepost=1541526350][/doublepost]The base flash storage configuration for the 13-inch MacBook Air since 2010. A progress!
Who needs karma when the market will decide the desirability of the terrible, no good keyboard.
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There's a graph they should show at their next keynote. An Amazing, awesome feat that only Apple has the courage to pull off.
Their ability to negotiate component prices as nothing to do with it. They probably get them very cheaply. It's their profit margin that is a problem, great for a stock holder, not so for a user.
That would only be true if the previous generation was 1280x800, but it was 1440x900, so doubling the horizontal and verticals dimensions would give us the 2880x1800 of the 15” MacBook Pro. The only 1280x800 MacBook Airs were the 2008-2009 ones.
New: 2560 x 1600 = 4,096,000 pixels
Old: 1440 x 900 = 1,296,000 pixels
Not quite 4x, but in the ball park...
That’s what I was thinking, but it seems wrong to announce it on a keynote like that, I think.
I think the 2017 nTB is still a great option. Sure it has the previous generation keyboard but with the recall, as soon as there is any issue I get it repaired which includes the whole case and a new battery. A slight inconvenience but after 4 years I will continue to get 100% battery performance for a few days of repair.
It also only has a 7th-gen processor, unlike either the MBA or Touch Bar MBPs.
Apple is really just phoning it in when it comes to new Mac hardware. It's pretty obvious that their hearts aren't in the Mac lineup anymore, despite whatever they claim on stage. This new Air is underwhelming. The new Mini is underwhelming (and ridiculously priced). iOS clearly has Apple's heart and they're just giving the Mac enough attention these days to keep it limping along until they can deliver iOS on the desktop.
Nobody seems to talk about this, but the old air had 334 nits and the new one has 300 nits. Surely there can't be a justifiable difference in the unit cost between 300 and 500 so the question is, why did they do it? Better battery life? However, based on personal use, I rarely have my old air above 80% brightness anyway so I don't think this will affect me in reality.
I've got to ask: What is it that you do need that isn't satisfied by a MBA but might be with either an iPad or MBP?
Consider taking a look at a Lenovo X1 Carbon if you are not stuck on operating system. That Lenovo keyboard is amazing (as always), and the HDR screen surprisingly competes/beats out Macs too. Only thing is the Apple trackpads still rule, but if you like the Trackpoint you'll never use it anyways.
And they have that power because of comments like this..... Blind following of a companies products regardless of the price.....
Last quarter sales for the iPhone were essentially flat.... But the iPhone is not Apple's only product. Take a look at Mac/iPad sales. Flat again compared to last year. Apple is making more revenue on the same sales numbers meaning their margins have increased/they are charging more for the same product. When does that end? When people stop buying their products.
I like apple products don't get me wrong. But in recent years the Apple tax has become more then I can justify.
And what does 20% revenue growth with small to flat unit growth tell you? It means people are willing to pay more for Apple’s products.
You have stopped, others haven’t. It’s very easy to see in the data.
Once enough people hold off, Apple will either lower prices, increase features, or introduce new products.
Hasn’t happened yet.
Pricing power is business and it’s done at every company. Look at a ticket to Disney World now versus 10 years ago. Look at food prices and Disney hotels.
Nothing wrong with selling your business if people will buy.
Apple fudged that one by citing the original 2008 13" MacBook Air's 1280x800 resolution and not the 2010-2017 13" MacBook Air's native resolution of 1440x900, which is not technically lying, but is sort of obfuscation by omission.New: 2560 x 1600 = 4,096,000 pixels
Old: 1440 x 900 = 1,296,000 pixels
Not quite 4x, but in the ball park...
You'd have to inhabit a parallel shill universe or expect a fat paycheck to praise this polished poop of an upgrade. Are we really that behind our wits as consumers that we can't get out of Apple's coattails?
The only thing this Air shows is just how confused and aimless Apple is when it comes to the Mac, and how arrogantly they'll never get over themselves as their design missteps are openly maligned by users and reviewers alike (butterfly keyboard, death of MagSafe, the USB-C donglehell). They had already achieved a near-perfect device a few years ago and they just get on by killing its features.
Why not just call it for what it is. An expedient mishmash of the 12" MacBook with the base 13" MBP with *some* updated internals and conveniently called "Air" even though Air means absolutely nothing in 2018, of course priced at a predictable premium. Good thing at least they skipped the abominable Emojibar.
The MacBook lineup has become a total hodgepodge, and bless our dependency on macOS that makes us put up with all this nonsense.
PS. Cloud or not, 128GB base storage is laughable even for a phone nowadays. Are we seriously defending Apple on that too?
The only thing this Air shows is just how confused and aimless Apple is when it comes to the Mac, and how arrogantly they'll never get over themselves as their design missteps are openly maligned by users and reviewers alike (butterfly keyboard, death of MagSafe, the USB-C donglehell). They had already achieved a near-perfect device a few years ago and they just get on by killing its features.
Why not just call it for what it is. An expedient mishmash of the 12" MacBook with the base 13" MBP with *some* updated internals and conveniently called "Air" even though Air means absolutely nothing in 2018, of course priced at a predictable premium. Good thing at least they skipped the abominable Emojibar.
The MacBook lineup has become a total hodgepodge, and bless our dependency on macOS that makes us put up with all this nonsense.
PS. Cloud or not, 128GB base storage is laughable even for a phone nowadays. Are we seriously defending Apple on that too?
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Both the SurfaceBook and Surface Pro start at 128gb and both are more expensive than the Air to upgrade too.
Seems Microsoft get a pass for that though
Apart from the screen, smaller chassis and touch ID it's pretty much a sidegrade from the 2015 machine (a downgrade in GPU and battery terms by all account - the '12h' claim isn't as solid here as it was on the original model). And for this sidegrade you're paying a $200 premium? Arguably some of the spec bumps between 2010 and 2015 were more significant than this... the 2009-10 upgrade certainly was and it came with a hefty price cut!
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Old air was 1440x900, like the 15" pro though, this uses the 13" pro's retina screen which is @2x 1280x800. Pedantic, perhaps, but it's true to say it's not accurate, you're having to reduce the resolution before getting full integer @2x scaling.
The so called faulty keyboard is protected with a 4 years extended warranty. The 3rd gen keyboard is not.
I really don't like hearing the fans while working. I wonder if this quote just refers to batch exports which would be ok. It'd however be great if I can process RAW images in Lightroom, edit some clips in Final Cut or have multiple tabs open in Chrome and playback 4K video in browser without the fans being audible. If anyone sees a review on this or an example of the fan noise and when they kick in, please let us know.
I was really hoping for a silent/fanless MacBook Air. A 12" MacBook with a similar feature set including Touch ID, upgraded keyboard and 2 ports would have been perfect.. I'd wait for it but have already waited a year.
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Lenovo has terrible warranty support and well known quality control problems. Regarding HDR it require LCD panel brigthness about 1000nits to reproduce HDR content correctly. Lenovo panels are about 300 nits and have much wider tolerance of parameters than in Macs so in fact they can have higher resolution but require software calibration to reproduce colors correctly - Macs are calibrated at the factory and do not need recalibration. Even that brigtness uniformity in Lenovo is much worse than on Macs and a lot of backlight bleeding issues tell a lot about LCD panel standards in Lenovo. Regarding Mac keyboards - look and feel is constant which is opposite than on Lenovo where is keyboard supplier lottery and each keyboard is different so again Lenovo allow suppliers to deliver a product within very wide tolerance to cut the cost and amount of scraps. To conclude: grass is always greener on the other side
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I'm surprised no one considered the release of the MacBook Air (2018) as another test bed Apple needs to get to the bottom of the keyboard problem. They have the "Pro" as a high température CPU/with fan, the Macbook as a low pemperature CPU/ without fan with second gen keyboard and now the new air with low temp CPU/with fan with 3rd gen. The probably need to collect all this data to know if the various CPU/case temps results in different repair claims patterns , etc.
As for "the Pro is only $100 more" well, in Canada it's 250$ more! And, Surface, Thinkpads are as expensive in Canada.
As for "the Pro is only $100 more" well, in Canada it's 250$ more! And, Surface, Thinkpads are as expensive in Canada.
Not me. Apple never admits failure. Their new keyboard is awful. Everyone hates it. They know it's garbage. But I knew 100% that the new laptop would use that same garbage keyboard and they would officially kill the great (old) keyboard experience that the old MacBook Air provided.
The people making the decisions in this company probably never have use for a keyboard or computer. They are so filthy-rich that they have their own servants that meet their every need. As soon as the people running a company become this obscenely rich, they start to live in a weird celebrity bubble where they're completely out of touch with the wants/needs of their customers.
Right now, they're still riding the gravy train, but even if the stock plummeted to 10 cents tomorrow, I don't think it would change much. They all already have so much money that I don't think they'd care much. The company would go bankrupt and they'd see that as an opportunity to go on safari and hunt an elephant.