Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “2018 Macbook Air Review: No Risk!”.
Hey what is up guys mkbhd here, so this is basically what i do on my laptop right: a lot of email, a lot of text and research based stuff. A lot of google docs a lot of youtubing. So that’s watching videos commenting on them and then all the youtube studio stuff then some light photo editing. So i use lightroom for that. It’S never more than one image at a time. It’S making adjustments and exporting pretty simple there and then a bunch of miscellaneous file management.
You know downloading a bunch of images, editing documents signing pdfs things like that. I actually stopped video editing on my laptop and it’s nice to have final cut pro and be able to toss something together once in a while in 1080p tops, but for the videos you see on this channel that are 8k with all the transcoding and raw and Everything i refuse to put myself through rendering on a laptop, so i don’t do that so, basically, for my use, it’s pretty non-intensive, which means i can get away with. If i want to use mac os, the cheapest laptop apple makes so this new macbook air is the cheapest laptop apple makes. It is now more expensive than the last one at 1200 baseline classic, but this is the one. So this 2018 macbook air – it isn’t.
The absolute miles ahead, game changer that blew everyone’s mind when the first gen came out, but it’s a good laptop still just with a couple small shortcomings so aesthetically, it’s still clearly an apple laptop. It looks just like there are others. Full metal, unibody build and great. Overall, build quality and hinge weight and big generous track pad all the things we know.
Apple does well two usb c ports on one side, headphone jack on the other. The keyboard doesn’t have much travel, but it’s not the worst apple keyboard which isn’t saying much, but i’ve already gotten so used to the mushy one on the new macbook pro. So this one actually feels fine, it’s a little bit more clicky and it’s still backlit, which is good and the speakers. Next to the keyboard, with the help of some magnet paper, we can see they’re actually much smaller than the grille might make them seem, but they are good speakers, so nothing wrong with that apple does laptop speakers well, but just overall the whole thinness thing is kind Of lost like it’s not a thick laptop by any means, but i’ve been using a 13 inch macbook pro for a little while now – and this is not noticeably thinner or noticeably lighter than that laptop.
If you really want noticeably thin and light, you got to go. Get the tiny one port 12 inch macbook, which is both less powerful and more expensive. So it’s kind of a hard sell fun fact back to back on a table. The macbook air is thicker at its thickest point than the 13-inch macbook pro that i’ve already been using, so the wedge shape can make it feel a little thinner, but honestly, it’s not really noticeably thin, so don’t buy the macbook air this year for its thinness. It’S weird to say, but it’s true, so beyond the build quality, the display is important to me, and that was the biggest downside of the original macbook air, which they still sell by the way uh a low resolution with big, thick silver bezels and everything. So that was the biggest upgrade here in the new macbook air we asked for it.
They made it. So it’s now, a 13-inch 2560 by 1440 ips display thinner, bezels black bezels big time upgrade. The one thing is at max brightness, it’s not quite as bright as i want to, or i’m used to from the macbook pro or even the surface laptop. They all seem to get brighter. But i find myself using the air at maxed out brightness, all the time and that’ll naturally hit the battery life a bit. It’S a solid b plus battery life and a laptop still i’m happy with it, i’m getting the usual seven to eight hours.
I normally get, but it’s nothing too noteworthy, but overall i just wish the display would get a bit brighter. This facetime camera is technically upgraded. Although every time i look at one of these built-in webcams on a laptop, i’m always wondering why doesn’t anyone put a smartphone quality camera in a laptop? No one, is it too thin up here at the top of the laptop i mean you, don’t need the ois. Just the sensors honestly, this laptop should just have the iphone’s front facing camera and face id, of course nothing wrong with touch id here.
It’S fine. It works it’s consistent, but wouldn’t face id, be more futuristic like the ipad pro or even like windows, hello. I really would have loved to have seen face id here. I don’t want to turn this into some kind of rant, but it’s just super not a big risk in any way right. The the display it’s a big upgrade, but now it’s it’s fine, the design. It’S not very different from any other apple laptop.
It’S fine, the performance, it’s fine, the battery life. It’S fine apple, didn’t really take any risk with this one, not that they have to it’s actually really smart, not to take any risks. In fact, this is probably the smartest no risk laptop they can make. They had their fan.
Favorite macbook air start to pile up, requests like hey. Why haven’t you updated it with new internals and a retina display, so they did exactly that they tossed in touch id and uh. That’S about it. This is what you get the question becomes.
Is it good enough and i’d say barely i mean it’s 1200 bucks and you can get more laptop for less money if you’re willing to move to windows. We all know this, but a lot of people for many reasons, aren’t about to switch to windows and apple. Will gladly sell this to those people? I would have loved to have seen apple, make like an eight nine hundred to a thousand dollar laptop, because that new lower price would have been something to get excited about, but as of right now. This isn’t that this is the super safe incremental upgrade, which it’s weird, that that kind of sounds like a bad thing. It’S not at all. It’S just kind of the curse that apple gets, because you can’t live up to the hype of the incredibly revolutionary first gen macbook air.
So it’s fine and you’ll probably enjoy one. If you’re, due for a new laptop and this one fits your budget and you want the cheapest mac os laptop, this one is good, but this all brings me back to why i love the ipad pro so much. This new ipad pro, which is 800 bucks, feels like a real, purposeful, modern redesign because it is, i enjoy using it for more things. The thin bezels are awesome face id is here and that’s great.
The performance is incredible and it’s an even higher resolution and higher refresh rate 120 hertz display it’s an amazing screen. Those are some real things to get excited about, but when it comes to the ipad pro, there’s of course, still just one of those things that i mentioned at the beginning: miscellaneous file, management being a big one that make it impossible for me to replace my laptop With the ipad, even though i want to anyway for me, i’m going to keep my current laptop and my current tablet, i’m going to keep my 13-inch macbook pro, which has been handling everything fine and i’m going to keep using my ipad pro every chance i get And i’ve also been trying the surface laptop 2 a lot more, probably worth a video. Let me know if you guys want to see something on that, but as far as the macbook air goes, i’m going to keep waiting for that big interesting upgrade. Maybe they inevitably switch to those arm chips. Maybe they have much thinner, bezels and face id.
Maybe they actually take those risks? Maybe they do 120 hertz display something to get excited about, but for now this macbook air, it’s safe. If it fits the budget, then that’ll do either way until the next one. Thanks for watching catch, you guys later peace, .