MacBook Air Reviews Roundup: 'Best Computer for Most People' Again After 2018 Refresh

[Val-kyrie]

Apple's embargo lifted today on the first full-length reviews of the new MacBook Air ahead of the notebook's release on Wednesday.

The new MacBook Air via The Verge​

The new MacBook Air features a faster 1.6GHz dual-core 8th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, a Retina display, up to 16GB of RAM, up to 1.5TB of SSD storage, and Intel UHD Graphics 617. It also has Touch ID, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, and the same third-generation butterfly keyboard as the latest MacBook Pro.

Review Highlights

The Verge's Dieter Bohn:And:Wired's Lauren Goode:Daring Fireball's John Gruber:TechCrunch's Brian Heater:Engadget's Dana Wollman:Six Colors's Jason Snell:AppleInsider's Andrew O'Hara:Review and Unboxing
More Reviews
CNET's Dan Ackerman
Macworld's Jason Cross
Mashable's Pete Pachal
CNBC's Todd Haselton
USA TODAY's Ed Baig
Laptop Mag's Henry T. Casey

The new MacBook Air is available to order on Apple.com, with deliveries to customers and in-store availability starting tomorrow. The notebook now starts at $1,199, while Apple continues to sell the previous-generation model for $999.

Article Link: MacBook Air Reviews Roundup: 'Best Computer for Most People' Again After 2018 Refresh

I agree, I couldn't get by on 128GB. For my uses 256GB is a minimum.



128GB at the 1199 pricepoint is a marketing move. People will read reviews ''Macbook Air better than Macbook'', go in to the Apple store and then drop 1399 on more storage, instead of buying the 1249 Macbook 12''.

The best MB for the money is the 13" nTB MBP.

But that has an outdated processor and the faulty 2017 keyboard.

And the 2018 MBA has a weak CPU, weak GPU, and a 3rd gen keyboard that is still failing/faulty in 2018 MBPs.

 

[Borddeleau54]

Had a look at the MacBook at the Apple store.

Colours were flat at full brightness whilst plugged in. This is in comparison to the MacBook 12” next to it

Size and form factor were good still not as pleasing as the MacBook Pro

Thanks for the details...

 

[code-m]

I don’t understand your point, the iPad Pro beat a Dell laptop with an i7. It’s not the benchmarks fault that Dell and Intel can’t integrate and Microsoft can’t optimize Windows better for the i7. If it makes you feel better, it beat out a Surface tablet as well.

All we know for sure is that Apple is great at optimization, as their design the hardware (silicone) and software. Microsoft only designs the hardware (shell) and software, their can try optimizing however it will not be comparable until their decide one day to design their own silicone. This is more relevant as iOS can run on a minimum of 2GB of RAM and prior on 1GB. While Android even with 6GB of RAM or more still cannot compare in performance when compared to an iOS device with 2GB of RAM.

Plus you are comparing a CISC with a RISC design chip, it has to be comparable. This was one of the reasons why the comparison between PowerPC and x86 chips in the 90’s was not fair, as each architecture has its benefits.

 

[criticasm]

And the last good Macbook keyboard dies.

I really hope that karma revisits whichever executive ruined my computing experience with the butterfly horror show.

iJustine - "The butterfly keys are pretty awesome I've enjoyed really typing on them a lot"

What is she doing here anyway? She's not an Apple fan, she's an Apple hoe.

 

[Veinticinco]

Almost two decades ago I bought my first Mac laptop. I’d used Pismos at work but I still remember the genuine awe and wonder as I booted up my Titanium PowerBook that first time. Then came the workhorse alu PB and early MBPs.

But reflecting now, it’s been years, literally almost a decade now since I’ve approached buying a new Mac laptop (mostly MBP and evolving MBA) without that slightly heavy heart and internal sigh knowing I’m making a significant compromise on more than one level.

Most recently came the horror show that was my pre-launch 2015 12” MacBook. It arrived a day before a work trip and we had a fantastic honeymoon aboard a transatlantic flight. But even then, 35,000ft above Greenland, like a new wife 20+ years younger, I knew I’d pay the price for its space grey prettiness, thinness and lack of substance. Maybe it was being reacquainted with the spinning beach ball of performance throttling that I hadn’t experienced in years, but even I hadn’t figured on it self-combusting and frying its own logic board during a backup a year later, regrettably taking some of my precious data with it to its grave.

And so I can feel the same mixed feelings of urge and trepidation with the latest MBA. I no longer need MBP specs and like turning left on that plane, once you get used to the lack of weight, it’s hard to go back in the other direction.

Look, I t’s one thing for Apple to make a 2018 MBA that’s basically what the 2015 MB should have been. But to continue to charge a 4-figure sum for such a straightjacketed machine whilst dropping the base level SSD to 128GB is just a pickpocket too far.

I’m even toying with the idea of a new iPad Pro (with keyboard case and pencil for the novelty factor, naturally) despite the restrictions of iOS, but similarly the feeling of being violated in the wallet there too causes me to pause for thought.

Please god let 2019 bring a decent Hackintosh laptop option, and put me out of my misery.

 

[Solomani]

I’m sure Jony Ive can afford these products, with his chauffeur-driven Bentley, and his $17M town house. Which he bought for design reasons, of course. How quaint.

Patina! It's all about the patina!
[doublepost=1541561884][/doublepost]

iJustine - "The butterfly keys are pretty awesome I've enjoyed really typing on them a lot"

What is she doing here anyway? She's not an Apple fan, she's an Apple hoe.

Don't be jealous just cuz iJustine is hot.

 

[garethjs]

Thanks for the details...

what more did u want me to do in the 5 min
I was in front of it?

Edit a video? Do some photoshopping?

What I can say is the keyboard is perfectly fine.

Don’t know how much deeper the keys need to go before one feels satisfied

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

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.

I think the answer is yes, fortunately enough. I saw minimal pauses as I moved between apps and web pages after I'd opened 17 Safari tabs, five Chrome tabs (including the Google doc for this article, a YouTube video and Netflix), iTunes, Messages, Photos (syncing my 80,000+ iCloud Photo Library) and Mail. The MacBook Air stayed responsive as I loaded TweetDeck, Pixelmator and Bear, three of the other apps I use more than any other on my Mac.

Then, I used Continuity Camera -- one of macOS Mojave's best new features -- to easily drop a photo into a new email, and I chuckled as it all happened without a pause, even with all that stuff open in the background. That much multitasking gives me confidence in the MacBook Air, which every journalist needs with their hardware. The one downside was that the fans on the Air had spun up pretty loud when I was doing all of that, but they quieted down when I stopped moving between apps so quickly and stuck with Chrome, Pixelmator and Messages.

https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/apple-macbook-air-2018

Price aside, I found at least two other reasons to tone down the enthusiasm. I was disappointed in the battery life, and at one point while streaming a movie, the computer's fan kicked into overdrive.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/...ouch-id-bolster-thin-light-laptop/1898960002/

Still, Geekbench scores have little to do with what a machine can actually handle. To test that, I put the MacBook Air in point position in a typical workday, running my typical suite of apps: Slack, Trello, TweetDeck, Skype, a handful of Apple apps (Calendar, Reminders, Apple News, Messages, and Maps), and two Chrome profiles running 2-4 windows, each with ~12 tabs on average, with Amazon Music streaming music in the background.

That's almost never too heavy a lift for my quad-core MacBook Pro, but it was a definite workout for the dual-core Air. About an hour into the day, as my Chrome tabs started multiplying, I heard the cooling fan kick in. Soon after, when I authored a tweet in TweetDeck, things got really laggy: The time between my keypress and a character appearing onscreen extended to a second or more.

https://mashable.com/review/apple-macbook-air/#D_tvwunodPqB

 

[Bacillus]

Patina! It's all about the patina!
[doublepost=1541561884][/doublepost]
Don't be jealous just cuz iJustine is hot.

At least I’m happy with someone monitoring how well lipstick traces can be removed from a MacBook
(which seems a main characteristic, huge competiton from iPad is a laptop substitute etc.)

 

[Solomani]

I’m happy with someone monitoring how well lipstick traces can be removed from a MacBook

Of course! There's an app for that.

 

[Steve121178]

Pricing is insane, especially in the UK/EU. For this reason the MacBook Air cannot possibly be recommended by any decent honest review. Cost is a major factor when making a purchase!

 

[Falhófnir]

Pricing is insane, especially in the UK/EU. For this reason the MacBook Air cannot possibly be recommended by any decent honest review. Cost is a major factor when making a purchase!

I think an even bigger factor than the implicit value for money is that, at this price it simply isn't bringing anything new to the table. The nTB Pro can be had for £1,199 at pretty much any computer retailer - to your average user what is the Air offering that you couldn't already get with that machine? Touch ID and a wedge shaped design? (Battery performance is dubious from reviews, certainly not 12h in the same way the 2015 machine achieved that) and for that you have to trade off a better (brighter and more colourful) display and a good chunk of power (particularly GPU side). at £999 it would have brought the retina experience down across the full lineup, as it stands, it's just a near duplicate of the nTB with very slightly different tradeoffs.

 

[antonis]

The so called faulty keyboard is protected with a 4 years extended warranty. The 3rd gen keyboard is not.

I'll choose a keyboard with a non-faulty mechanism without extended warranty over the other, any day.

 

[MacBH928]

So yes I agree with you.... Most sane people should stay away unitl Apple decides it can't keep raising prices to offset declining/stagnant sales.

This is the problem.. if you refrain from buying the MacBook Air due to prices... they will think no one wants the Air anymore and they will slash it out of the product line. They don't understand that people don't want it because due to lack of features or high prices.

 

[iConnected]

Pricing is insane, especially in the UK/EU. For this reason the MacBook Air cannot possibly be recommended by any decent honest review. Cost is a major factor when making a purchase!

Cost - as opposed to price - should certainly be a consideration. But it can support a recommendation, rather than undermine it.

As I switch to a new MacBook Air from my old MacBook Pro (2014), I have factored in the fact that I can sell my MBP for a very respectable sum, despite it being over 4 years old.

The cost of ownership is looking very reasonable indeed - just as it was when I last switched Apple notebooks. Which makes cost (vs price) a positive, not a negative. I hope and, based on past experience, expect that the same will apply again in due course when I come to sell my MBAir.

Of course, you still need the available funds to finance the initial purchase. But it is a very long way from being money down the drain.

 

[Ma2k5]

I'll choose a keyboard with a non-faulty mechanism without extended warranty over the other, any day.

Bad news I’m afraid, the 3rd gen suffers the same issues - you can find the 3rd gen butterfly keyboard thread in the MBP sub forum and see videos of double press issues/sticky keys.

 

[iConnected]

.. The nTB Pro can be had for £1,199 at pretty much any computer retailer - to your average user what is the Air offering that you couldn't already get with that machine? Touch ID and a wedge shaped design? (Battery performance is dubious from reviews ..

Touch ID
Lighter weight
8th-gen vs 7th-gen processor
T2 security chip
Hey Siri
Newer keyboard (if it ends up also needing a Keyboard Service Program, then I'm sure that Apple will end up providing one)
Better battery life

And, of course, it's an Air.

 

[Ma2k5]

Touch ID
Lighter weight
8th-gen vs 7th-gen processor
T2 security chip
Hey Siri
Newer keyboard (if it ends up also needing a Keyboard Service Program, then I'm sure that Apple will end up providing one)
Better battery life

And, of course, it's an Air.

Battery life is unlikely to be too different between the too due to the higher capacity on the nTB.

7th Gen indeed, although it’ll beat the 8th gen. Dont read too much from one or two benchmarks, real world usage greatly appreciated a 15W thermal envelope.

The display is worse by some margin. From 500 nit P3 to 300 nit SRGB.

The nTB has a removable/upgradable SSD, not sure about the Air?

Intel HD 640 vs HD 617 graphics.

I agree about your other points though, but coming on two years, I wanted the Air to be much more superior than the nTB, being a 2018 machine on the 10th anniversary of the original Air.

 

[0014]

I was thinking of getting one but the screen kills it for me. One of the thing i like about Apple's notebooks are their screen brigthness. Use to have a 2014 Macbook Pro that was almost always crancked up to the max. 300 nits won't cut it for me.

Your 2014 MBP had a 300nits display, just like my current early 2015 one does.

300 nits is fine in all but really really bright sunlight. I work in the Middle East and have no issue with mine.

I think this display brightness thing is being misrepresented. Yes the 13” MBP might have a 500 nits display. But that particular line of machines is aimed more at people who will need the extra brightness for photo editing etc.

Most people don’t buy the Air or MacBook to do those sort of tasks.

An even brighter display would kill the battery quicker. So it’s a compromise for battery life.

 

[Jimmy James]

Are they thinking about phasing out the silver finish? Most if not all reviewers got space gray or the new gold color. Anyway, that is totally not worth its inflated price.

I certainly hope not. It’s my understanding that silver is the colour of the bare aluminum and the others are anodized. I suspect that the silver will hold up to visible wear much better. My week 1 2008 unibody has been abused and still looks petty good. Yes doubt an anodized finish would have held up as well.

 

[Falhófnir]

Touch ID
Lighter weight
8th-gen vs 7th-gen processor
T2 security chip
Hey Siri
Newer keyboard (if it ends up also needing a Keyboard Service Program, then I'm sure that Apple will end up providing one)
Better battery life

And, of course, it's an Air.

You're listing points but kinda missing the thrust of what I was saying - yes there are things there in the Air's favour, there are also things you're giving up with it, overall it's a sidegrade to the nTB Pro for the same money, so again, I really don't see this bringing anything meaningful to the table for your average user a minor upgrade to the Pro wouldn't have done just as successfully. Honestly I think the last point is the key raison d'être of this machine - there's residual goodwill in the Air brand they want to tap into.

 

[iConnected]

I certainly hope not. It’s my understanding that silver is the colour of the bare aluminum and the others are anodized.

They are all anodized - silver included.

 

[ksnell]

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

I agree with you about the support and QC issues (at least from my reading). Not sure where your stat about required 1000 nits come from. However, here is a review (at least from March) stating the 500 nit Dolby Vision HDR display on the X1C beats out the Macbook Pro and all other laptops in both brightness and color gamut. I own one. It truly is a great panel. Same goes for the keyboard. Although I love the build quality of Apple notebooks, its actually surprisingly good on the X1C, and I get the TB3 USBC ports plus USBA 3.0 ports.

All I am saying is it is worth considering. I am certainly no Apple hater (have their notebooks, phones, router, ATVs), but they did not do enough to keep me from switching upon upgrade. They still destroy in the mobile phone category in my opinion. I went from a 2011 Macbook Pro 17 inch with 16GB of RAM (self-upgraded, which you can no longer do) to the X1C. Maybe I just got lucky, but mine has worked great. Oh, and I could buy almost TWO new iPad Pros with the cost savings compared to a MacBook Air with similar specs.

 

[iConnected]

You're listing points but kinda missing the thrust of what I was saying - yes there are things there in the Air's favour, there are also things you're giving up with it, overall it's a sidegrade to the nTB Pro for the same money, so again, I really don't see this bringing anything meaningful to the table for your average user a minor upgrade to the Pro wouldn't have done just as successfully. Honestly I think the last point is the key raison d'être of this machine - there's residual goodwill in the Air brand they want to tap into.

I think I'm a fairly average user. And the points that I have listed are very meaningful to me.

Under no circumstances was I prepared to buy a new notebook (or a desktop replacement) with anything older than an 8th gen processor (I cancelled an iMac order when the Spectre / Meltdown news broke and am still waiting for a viable alternative from Apple).

I also definitely wanted Touch ID, even more definitely didn't want a Touch Bar and "Hey Siri" functionality is a major plus for me.

In respect of processors, btw, I found this very illuminating:

https://www.engadget.com/2018/10/31/macbook-air-intel-processor-cooling/

I don't dispute the value of the Air brand - and am looking forward to owning one at long last

 

[travelsheep]

...while I'm cuddling my 2010 11" MBA, hoping it will stay alive until WWDC -19.

I upgraded from my MacBook Air 2011 to MacBook Pro 13-inch just 3 weeks ago. Once you gazed into the new screen for a couple of hours there's no going back. If you want to keep your beloved 2010 for a while longer, best behave towards the new MacBook Air/Pro like you would towards Medusa (the greek underground goddess).