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The new 2018 Macbook Air
- Thread starter elhungarian
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If I hadn't bought a MacBook in 2016 I'd be picking one up ASAP, but it's certianly top of the list when it comes to the renewal cycle next year.
I always thought a retina MBA was a better move than the MacBook, and I suspect sales over the next few years will prove me right.
I always thought a retina MBA was a better move than the MacBook, and I suspect sales over the next few years will prove me right.
Apple has lost the plot!! The price of this thing is just to high, just $50 more for the base MBP....
On the keynote was said up to one 5K display. So I guess that if your screens are 1080p, it will be able to drive both. Not so sure about 4K monitors though... Just my two cents.
The main reason for buying new MBA is better thermal design (lower enclosure temperatures) due to low TDP CPU.
Battery life nothing spectacular and Dell XPS laptops are superior in this area offering much higher performance at reasonable price.
Integrated UHD617 Intel Graphics will be system bottleneck soon.
Generally for such extreme pricing Intel Whiskey Lake CPU is expected and 4 core CPU is a minimum now like in new Asus Zenbooks.
Also 128GB SSD in late 2018 is a joke and 256GB SSD shall be a minimum.
Upgrade prices are also extreme.
MBP13 has P3 gamut panel but GPU Iris support only 8 bit color depth and AMD GPU in MBP 15 10 bit color depth is reduced to just 8 bit. Result is similar like to have MBA 13 Retina. All machines are not real professional tools like HP mobile workstations with 10 bit color depth DreamColor panel and 10bit color depth GPU support (AMD Fire / Nvidia Quadro).
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Had Apple only put a 15w QC processor in this computer, it would have been the perfect laptop.
I agree pretty much with this.
I would just note that the MBA seems to have a far more inferior screen, not just due to lack of TrueTone but because it is a 300 nit display, compared to the 500 nit display which even the 2016 nTB enjoys. When I read it had only a 300 nit display at that price AND a 5W CPU, that had ruled the machine out for me completely. A shame, was really looking to make it a day 1 purchase.
Also, the MBA seems to lag in both specs and price to the new Window laptops coming out next month (Lenovo S730, HP x360 WhiskeyLake with LTE, Zenbook 13/S WhiskeyLake series).
Let’s just say, if it wasn’t for macOS, you wouldn’t be considering this machine. This is very different to back in 2014 where I purchased my first MacBook for its hardware/specs even though I didn’t want macOS. How times have changed.
Completely agree with this, now I’m having to look at the 13” tb mbp.
And 500 P3 nit display - no reason it should be worse than the 2016 nTB screen at only 300 nits non-P3.
It’s now closer to a base on a phone, as well. How doesn anyone run their digital life on 128? I don’t want everything off-system.
I was all set to buy, now I’m rethinking. I have the 11 inch MBA, love it. The new keyboard is an issue for me, don’t like it. Crazy as this sounds, I love the light in the Apple : )
Guess I’ll hang on to my device a little longer, battery is still good. Not my main device, so I serves its purpose.
Guess I’ll hang on to my device a little longer, battery is still good. Not my main device, so I serves its purpose.
Yes, I’m in the same boat, however I absolutely hate the Touch Bar. Would much prefer the MBA, if it wasn’t for the low-power CPU.
Maybe Apple does a Hail Mary and updates the non-touch bar model with gen3 keyboard and WhiskeyLake!
Nah, not a chance.
All apple had to do was add a retina display and put this under $1,000 and I would've been happy. I knew that wasn't going to happen and they had to make this more in line with their current offerings. $1,300 plus for a 256 GB SSD configuration is way more then I would consider. I love my Air and honestly at this point I plan to keep this until it passes or maybe I'll consider a new laptop when Apple moves things over to it's own chips and away from Intel.
I am unsure of how much extra a quad core would cost Apple but making it standard for $1200 even at the expense of having a larger fan would have turned the consensus into a great upgrade instead of one huge question mark.
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Actually the issue at this point won’t be solved if Apple moves to their own chips. They will price them even higher or design them even more poorly. This is just extrapolating based on their laptops over the last five years. They price for the value of their products but it seems like they are overestimating their value.
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Just for comparison to how much 15W Windows Whiskey Lake laptops are going for:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-Spectre...SMJ8V?th=1&psc=1#immersive-view_1540941891049
Base WhiskeyLake with 8GB RAM AND 256GB SSD is £1199.
i7, 16GB RAM 1TB SSD for £1699.
Meanwhile, 512 GB SSD 16 GB Air is more than the i7 1TB variant.
And yes, that HP comes with a stylus too, 61Wh battery vs 50Wh of the Air and even an LTE Sim tray. Will also come in 4K variant for those who need it.
The new Lenovo S730 will be very similarly priced as the HP too.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-Spectre...SMJ8V?th=1&psc=1#immersive-view_1540941891049
Base WhiskeyLake with 8GB RAM AND 256GB SSD is £1199.
i7, 16GB RAM 1TB SSD for £1699.
Meanwhile, 512 GB SSD 16 GB Air is more than the i7 1TB variant.
And yes, that HP comes with a stylus too, 61Wh battery vs 50Wh of the Air and even an LTE Sim tray. Will also come in 4K variant for those who need it.
The new Lenovo S730 will be very similarly priced as the HP too.
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I know we havent seen benchmarks yet, but I wouldnt be surprised if this Air can handle all the everyday tasks with ease. If it can handle that, maybe this processor was the best tradeoff for the battery life, price and performance.
I would agree except all the new premium Windows laptops have the 15w Whiskey Lake and insane battery life and are priced lower than this Air.
The 15w Whiskey Lake performance will dance all over the 5W Amber Lake.
The Whiskey Lake models also have more spectre/meltdown bug fixes at the hardware level than their Amber Lake series.
The Air is too close to the price of the Pro when you add the almost mandatory 256GB SSD, which is weird since it doesn’t have the cost of the Touch Bar, not the cost of the better CPU, nor the cost of a P3 500 nit display (only has a 300 nit SRGB).
This conversation about benchmarks actually brings me to another way that this new MacBook Air fails where previous ones have excelled.
There are no other CPU options at all.
That’s really frustrating if you wanted to really spec it out and keep that great form factor as you could in the past.
There are no other CPU options at all.
That’s really frustrating if you wanted to really spec it out and keep that great form factor as you could in the past.
Tell me why I should buy new macbook air 13.3" 256GB for 1399$ if I can get macbook pro for 1429$.
For just 30$ more I will get much powerful CPU, 61W faster charging, better display (wide colour P3 with 500 nit brightness).
For just 30$ more I will get much powerful CPU, 61W faster charging, better display (wide colour P3 with 500 nit brightness).
I just checked, and you're right. The price difference between base i5 processors(whiskey and amber lake) are not that different at all.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-whiskey-lake-amber-lake,37704.html
Which begs the question, why would Apple choose Amber lake over whiskey lake? Does the Amber Lake provide better battery life? Do you have any idea?
Also, the i5, 256GB, 8GB version of MBA costs $1400, while the i5, 256GB,8GB version of MBP(with TB) costs $1800. So for $400 more, you get a better screen, more power, and a touchbar, and 2 more ports, while trading off on battery life and weight. I think that's fair(not the pricing, but the difference in pricing for the tradeoff in specs).
If your priority is more power and a more brighter screen, yes it makes sense to buy the 13" Pro. However, the Air has more battery(2hrs), lighter, has a better keyboard,is cheaper and has Touch ID.
So its about preference. If Apple was smart, they would kill the non TB Pro, and spec up the Air a bit.
For me priority was a nice value for money 15w laptop with the great Apple screen that I liked from the Pro lineup.
They served a 5w 300 nit machine
.As for why they chose Amberlake? No idea, many Window laptops exist in that form factor with 15w CPU’s and they run great so it’s not to do with thermals. Window laptops have managed to get more battery life than Apple’s 12 hour on 15w CPU’s too so that isn’t the reason either.
Is it because there was a shortage of CPU’s and later on we will get the option of Whiskey Lake CPU’s? This could be the actual reason as we know these chips aren’t in great supply. It’s actively cooled so it is possible that Whiskey Lake upgrades come about in future, the chassis will support it. They couldn’t have put the KabyLakeR 8th gen CPU’s (8250/8550 etc) because they don’t have the integrated WiFi, it had to be Amber/Whiskey Lake
The last reason is perhaps product segmentation, they wanted to make the Pro lineup far more powerful than the Air?
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Key parameter for photo/video editing is color accuracy. Panel brigthness 300 nit is not the best but not bad. Please note that most of professional LCD monitors for photo/video editing did not have a features like TrueTone sensors. Apple put this minor innovation because they still cannot offer major innovation like 4K displays at the reasonable price to guarantee high profit margin for Apple and maybe current 4K panels cannot fit Apple calibration limits so production cost (percentage of LCD panels that do not fit) is still too high.
Regarding Intel Whiskey Lake CPUs eg. Core i5-8265 TDP can be set to 10W so possibly Apple chose Intel Amber Lake 2 core CPUs with 5W TDP also due to smaller form factor on PCB and lower cost production. Generally Intel Whiskey Lake Core i3 CPU can keep a product cost low and maintain a good multicore benchmark result.
Since Macs base on Intel platform we can compare hardware cost to Windows machines.
Even Apple pricing strategy does not have any sense for some of you because price of MBA 13 Retina is close to MBP 13 but Apple push customers gently to buy more expensive product. Clear examples:
- iPhone XR with wide black bezels (no product design unification comparing to XS and XS Max)
- MBA 13 Retina with just 2 core Intel Amber Lake Y CPU
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