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New 2018 MacBook Air Shown Off in Unboxing Videos on YouTube

Spectrum said:
The best thing about this new Mac is the lack of touch bar IMO. I can only hope this permeates into the MBPro models too...(even though I know it won't, since Apple will use it as a differentiating factor...but I really like the function keys!)
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Touch Bar was not included because OLED screens, especially custom designed ones, no matter how small add to the cost. They also can't give the MBA a premium feature that the base 13" MBP doesn't have. I expect Apple to do something about the lack of Touch ID on the Escape edition very soon.

Touch Bar actually makes a lot of sense on a MBA since a lot of young people buy this machine and using emojis without the Touch Bar on macOS is a really terrible experience.

Touch Bar is here to stay on the MBP. I think it will eventually make its way to every single MacBook and possibly even the Magic Keyboards. Apple always holds some features back instead of giving people everything at once.
 
lec0rsaire said:
Wow. This HD 617 is GT2 with 24 EUs vs. the GT3 48 EUs of the Broadwell iGPUs. The result is that even though this HD 617 is 2-3 generations newer the performance is still significantly worse than the HD6000 in the old MacBook Air. Now this may be compensated for by new stuff in Amber Lake but I would expect worse GPU performance for anything requiring any sort of acceleration. This is more 12" MacBook performance than old MBA/base MBP performance.

Of course all of this can be rendered irrelevant with the addition of an eGPU which this MacBook Air is capable of. You're stuck with the integrated GPU on the older Air. So overall this will not be a bad machine and it should have much better battery life than a 13" MBP.
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The old MacBook Air had no usable HEVC acceleration. The fact that the 2018 MacBook Air (like the 2017 MacBooks) has full HEVC 4K 10-bit acceleration is a pretty big deal.
 
lec0rsaire said:
No. Netbooks simply were not very capable of running the full version of the latest OS. Even the dual core Atom equipped ones with nVidia integrated graphics could not run Windows 7 Pro well back in 2011. Windows XP yes, but by that point is was near EOL. I had one and even with its max 2GB RAM it still did a poor job of running Win 7. However that old Asus netbook was still useful for helping me see and recover the data from my dead HP notebook when transitioning to a MBP. I simply threw the old drive into an external chassis.

The MacBook and MacBook Air on the other hand can do everything as long as it doesn't require strong multi-core performance and/or GPU horsepower.
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I tend to agree that Macbooks Air and Macbook should not be considered in the category of those Netbooks, either. I have used plenty of both. In addition to what you write about cpu power, gpu power, and ram, remember the slow I/O (either spinning rust or SD-like speeds). We have NVME SSD speeds now, and that makes a heck of a difference.

Also, the size--physical size--does matter. With the 12" Macbook and the Macbooks Air, I get a "full size" keyboard . . . for those of us who are fast touch-typists, this matters a lot. I never could type very fast with netbooks.

Of course, I liked the price of those netbooks. Often you could get something OK for around $500. But they never approached what we can get now if we are willing to pay.
 
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Elwe said:
I tend to agree that Macbooks Air and Macbook should not be considered in the category of those Netbooks, either. I have used plenty of both. In addition to what you write about cpu power, gpu power, and ram, remember the slow I/O (either spinning rust or SD-like speeds). We have NVME SSD speeds now, and that makes a heck of a difference.

Also, the size--physical size--does matter. With the 12" Macbook and the Macbooks Air, I get a "full size" keyboard . . . for those of us who are fast touch-typists, this matters a lot. I never could type very fast with netbooks.

Of course, I liked the price of those netbooks. Often you could get something OK for around $500. But they never approached what we can get now if we are willing to pay.
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Oh yeah, for the low $200-400 price they were excellent especially if you didn't want to spend the $1500 or $1700 that the MacBook Air cost back when it was introduced. I also dual-booted Ubuntu 10.10 with Wubi which worked surpassingly well on the underpowered hardware. I even used docky and Compiz to make Gnome 2 look a lot like OS X with all of the animations. When I got an iPad I just stopped using it.

That's also when I just started lusting for OS X. A lot of my friends were using MBPs and Mac Pros. To me the Leopard/Snow Leopard GUI was to die for. It was sex on the screen.
 
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Who the are these 'YouTubers'? We already know what the thing looks like... Where are the Geekbench results!?
 
I don't mean this in a negative or sarcastic way, but these Youtubers probably give an accurate representation of the experience for the average Apple consumer.

Most people buying Macs don't read MacRumors.
 
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EugW said:
The old MacBook Air had no usable HEVC acceleration. The fact that the 2018 MacBook Air (like the 2017 MacBooks) has full HEVC 4K 10-bit acceleration is a pretty big deal.
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Which is why I said that the weaker performance may be compensated for by the new stuff in the newer architecture. This is exactly was I talking about. It can also hook up to the TB3 LG Ultrafines which the old MacBook Air was not capable of. I know most people buying a MBA won't buy one of those displays, since those customers are buying MBPs, but the option is there.
 
MacFather said:
The MacBook Air with Retina display should be released years ago. Instead, they created an overpriced fashionable netbook in 2015, that no one wanted or needed.
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Damn you man! That's so incorrect. I use the 12" MacBook for 8 hours a day 7 days a week. I run my own Sport Marketing business and I travel the world for 8 months of the year. I edit 4K 60fps video daily in FCPX. I had the 2015 model then the 2016 M5 and now have the 2017 i5. The MacBook 12" is an incredible machine. My favourite to date and i've been using Macs since 1995. This little beauty has given me freedom - i'm not tied to a desk, I LOVE every day of my life, I see every culture and earn a decent living whilst having a lot of fun! Just how life should be for ALL!
Please do not under estimate the 12" MacBook. Haters gonna Hate please please try one for 6 months before posting such inaccurate information.
Thank you.
 
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wubsylol said:
I don't mean this in a negative or sarcastic way, but these Youtubers probably give an accurate representation of the experience for the average Apple consumer.

Most people buying Macs don't read MacRumors.
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This is true but I still found that the last one did a really poor job with her "review." I'm sure she's pretty new at this but still. At least film yourself using some apps and things. They don't always have to run Geekbench, Blackmagic and Intel Power Gadget.
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BODYBUILDERPAUL said:
Damn you man! That's so incorrect. I use the 12" MacBook for 8 hours a day 7 days a week. I run my own Sport Marketing business and I travel the world for 8 months of the year. I edit 4K 60fps video daily in FCPX. I had the 2015 model then the 2016 M5 and now have the 2017 i5. The MacBook 12" is an incredible machine. My favourite to date and i've been using Macs since 1995. This little beauty has given me freedom - i'm not tied to a desk, I LOVE every day of my life, I see every culture and earn a decent living whilst having a lot of fun! Just how life should be for ALL!
Please do not under estimate the 12" MacBook. Haters gonna Hate please please try one for 6 months before posting such inaccurate information.
Thank you.
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It is a very beautiful machine and weighs almost nothing. It's the ultimate in portability and probably fantastic for long haul flights. I honestly would love to have one even though I don't need one.
 
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corebeliefs said:
Is a dual-core Air at $1,800 (with Applecare and dongles) really a good decision?
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No. If you're spending $1800 you're better off buying some 13" MBP or a second hand 15" from the last couple of years.
For the base price or with either a 256GB SSD or 16GB RAM for $1399 it is fine for those whom these are targeted to.
It's just a quarter pound lighter than a 13" MBP but 4 ounces may matter to some people. Besides it's available in GOLD! Those who have a gold 8/8 Plus/XS/XS Max may want to have a matching MacBook. From what I saw in the first video, the gold is exactly the same as the iPhone 8 gold.
 
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P.S. For those not aware the BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) is where Alice in Chains shot their legendary MTV Unplugged performance back in 1996. It was one of the last shows with Layne Staley. It's also just a few blocks away from my high school said:
Many years ago I attended Brooklyn Prep. Tech was an arch rival of ours although we had a much smaller student body.
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Oh my god, oh my gosh, so cute! Wondering whether the last one has special needs. And half of her video was unrelated to the MacBook... Poor choice of “YouTubers”
 
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Jimmy James said:
I’m running a 2008 unibody. Didn’t update it past Mavericks and apparently now I can’t.
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You can't install Yosemite on it? I'm pretty sure you can. Even though it's now 4 years old, Yosemite is now the minimum required OS for the current versions of many, many apps. If it has an SSD installed, I would definitely try it if I were you. There may even be a workaround to get El Capitan on it which is even better imo.
 
lec0rsaire said:
You can't install Yosemite on it? I'm pretty sure you can. Even though it's now 4 years old, Yosemite is now the minimum required OS for the current versions of many, many apps. If it has an SSD installed, I would definitely try it if I were you. There may even be a workaround to get El Capitan on it which is even better imo.
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I thought Yosemite was no longer signed and therefor not available? If so, would be great. Will be doing a fresh install soon.
 
Jimmy James said:
I thought Yosemite was no longer signed and therefor not available? If so, would be great. Will be doing a fresh install soon.
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You can always install any version of OS X/macOS. They're not like iOS releases that Apple wants to keep tightly shut to prevent jailbreaking and other exploits. Hell you can go back to the version of Tiger or Leopard that it came with if you want!

Some people do keep a machine on Snow Leopard 10.6.8 for Rosetta and PowerPC apps that never received updates although that number is probably getting lower by the day.
 
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iJustine and baby boomers? She's around my age lol! Us mid 80s Gen Yers/millenials aren't that old! I guess I hope not! :(
 
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