When announcing the long overdue refresh to the MacBook Air, Apple CEO Tim Cook described the laptop as “the most beloved notebook”. Personally, it was my most beloved notebook. I held onto one for five years, long after my manager told me it was out of warranty and no longer supported, waiting for the laptop to receive an upgrade.
A few weeks ago the MacBook Air finally got the update every owner wanted; an improvement to the display. The 2018 Air has a crisp Retina panel, with a full sRGB colour gamut, not matching the P3 displays found in the MacBook but a fantastic screen nonetheless. The bezel has been reduced and darkened to make the display more dramatic, and if that’s the only improvement you’ve been waiting for the 2018 Air will make you very happy.
On either side of the screen are powerful speakers that cleverly listen to each other, to separate the sound and give the impression of a much wider throw. It makes the little notebook a powerful media device; perfect for those who use their laptop as their television.
The addition of a fingerprint reader, without the Touch Bar tax, is a welcome change, and I hope to see the option spread through Apple’s line up. It makes logging in to the laptop fast and secure, while improvements to Apple’s own iCloud password vault — and built in support for third party password managers like LastPass and 1Password — makes it easy to set up complex passwords for your favourite sites. Please do that.
The keyboard is fine. Apple’s low travel butterfly mechanism has many detractors, but the third generation feels to me a good middle ground between sturdy and comfortable, much better than the first two attempts at this design.
Apple’s new MacBook Air at the announcement event last month.Credit:AP
The most controversial choice is in the CPU. Apple chose an Intel Amber Lake processor; still more powerful than the last, ancient, Air, and more powerful than the company’s tiny 12-inch MacBook, but much less powerful than the MacBook Pro or competing PC Ultrabooks, like the HP Spectre or Dell XPS. In my daily work I honestly didn’t notice the lack of power compared to my personal MacBook Pro 13-inch, but the Air definitely beat it on battery, and I prefer that trade-off.
Overall it’s good to have the Air back, and this would be the Mac laptop I would purchase and recommend for most users. But I’m still not sure about Apple’s motivation in bringing the Air back. It’s like your favourite band releasing a greatest hits album with just a few new tracks; it’s cool, and people new to the band will love it, but for us crusty old fans, it’s a little disappointing. Especially when you place the Air beside the iPad Pro, where the hardware is so advanced the software can’t keep up.
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