Apple MacBook Air (2018) review

If you want a MacBook with a Retina display but can’t justify the entry-level price, the Apple MacBook Air 2018 could be your laptop. The 2018 update to the MacBook Air range is more evidence of why this series has maintained a permanent presence on our best Macs and best laptops list.

The Apple MacBook Air 2018 not only lives up to the ‘Air’ trademark but improves upon it with features including a Retina display, over 10 hours of battery life, Touch ID, and a revamped keyboard. Name a few ways it improves upon its predecessors: the new display is more beautiful than before, the battery life is longer, and the device is lighter and smaller than ever.

Its competitors may have better CPUs, but this laptop is still more reasonable than the Pro series, and its specifications are still respectable. Expect to spend money on additional storage by upgrading the internal memory or purchasing an external hard drive since the 2018 model lacks a microSD card port.

This update may seem disappointing if you’re hoping for much more power than in prior versions or are a Windows user hoping to make the transfer to the macOS environment at a reduced cost. If, on the other hand, you like portable Apple laptops or you have an earlier model of the MacBook Air, the Apple MacBook Air 2018 is a solid option to consider.

PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

The MacBook Air 2018 is the most expensive version of the laptop ever. While the 2019 update to the Apple MacBook doesn’t equal the $999 price of its predecessor, it is still the company’s least expensive laptop option.

That probably won’t provide much solace to the ears of those who are disheartened by Apple’s high (and growing) costs for its products. The starting price for the MacBook Air (2018) at this review was $1,199 (£1,199, AU$1,849).

It’s essential to keep in mind that the 2017 MacBook Air may still be purchased from third-party sellers at a discounted price. If you’re on a tight budget, you may still find the 2017 MacBook Air being sold by third-party vendors for the same price of $999 (£949, AU$1,499). It’s up to you to determine whether the $200 savings is worth forgoing the fingerprint sensor and higher-resolution display that newer models provide.

The newest version, however, has dropped in price by one hundred dollars, dropping it to $1,099 (£1,099, AU$1,699). At the moment, that sum buys you a system with an 8th-gen Intel Core i5, Intel UHD Graphics 617, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB solid-state drive. A price increase is associated with upgrading the MacBook Air’s RAM and storage. There is support for up to 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD .

Furthermore, the most expensive pre-configured MacBook Air 2018 costs $1,299 (£1,299, AU$1,999) and has 256GB of SSD storage but is otherwise identical to the base model. A larger SSD will save you an extra $US300 (about £200). The price jumps dramatically from the basic model to a 512GB SSD ($400, £400, AU$600) or 1TB ($1,200, £1,200, AU$1,800) storage.

This is a ridiculous price hike even by Apple’s standards, given that you can get an external SSD with 1–2 terabytes of storage for the same amount. The 128GB SSD is sufficient in this case, and an additional storage drive should be purchased separately. To get the most out of your MacBook Air, spend the extra $200 (£180, AU$320) to increase the RAM to 16GB at 2,133MHz.

The 2018 Apple MacBook Air has a fixed CPU and built-in graphics, with no extra options for customization. The pricing above also illustrates Apple’s exorbitant storage expenses. Although we haven’t done it, we imagine that swapping out the MacBook Air’s stock SSD with a bigger, more cost-effective one is a monumental task.

There won’t be a problem if you don’t have a lot of data and use cloud storage. However, if you need a lot of storage capacity, the MacBook Air may get pretty pricey soon unless you go the external hard drive route, as we advised previously. You need to weigh the costs and benefits of saving a few hundred dollars on convenience vs. hauling about an additional moving element.

As a result of the original MacBook Air’s popularity, the $1,000/£1,000 premium laptop market is more crowded than ever before, and it’s filled with some great computers. The Huawei MateBook X Pro and the Dell XPS 13 are two excellent Windows laptops that go head-to-head with the MacBook Air 2018 at its starting price of $1,099 (£1,099, AU$1,699). Both have better screens and more powerful internals than their predecessors at the same price.

DESIGN

One may claim that the MacBook Air inspired Intel and competitor laptop manufacturers to build Ultrabooks, prioritizing power, style, and thinness.

You’d be excused for expecting Apple to overhaul their design as they did with the first MacBook Air. If so, expect disappointment.

Apple’s 2018 MacBook Air was conservative. This laptop isn’t as popular as its predecessor. It retains the famously thin and light design while making key advancements.

The new MacBook Air measures 11.97 x 8.36 x 0.61 inches, making it even lighter and thinner. The MacBook Air case is wedge-shaped and 0.16 inches thick.

The new MacBook Air has the same width and depth as the 13-inch MacBook Pro but is thinner and lighter.

The MacBook Air’s smaller size and weight don’t equal fewer functions. You receive a 13.3-inch display and speedier technology, including an 8th-generation fanless dual-core CPU and 8GB of RAM, which can be upgraded to 16GB.

One may claim that the MacBook Air inspired Intel and competitor laptop manufacturers to build Ultrabooks, prioritizing power, style, and thinness.

You’d be excused for expecting Apple to overhaul their design as they did with the first MacBook Air. If so, expect disappointment.

Apple’s 2018 MacBook Air was conservative. This laptop isn’t as popular as its predecessor. It retains the famously thin and light design while making key advancements.

The new MacBook Air measures 11.97 x 8.36 x 0.61 inches, making it even lighter and thinner. The MacBook Air case is wedge-shaped and 0.16 inches thick.

The new MacBook Air has the same width and depth as the 13-inch MacBook Pro but is thinner and lighter.

DISPLAY

Apple’s most significant and most welcome improvement is the MacBook Air 2018 display. Despite the Air’s smaller size, the 13.3-inch screen remains.

Bezels surrounding the screen were trimmed. The new MacBook Air is thinner, more compact, and has a larger screen.

The screen preserves the 16:10 aspect ratio, but that’s all. The MacBook Air 2018 has the first Retina display, with 2560 x 1600 pixels and 227 PPI (PPI). It’s crisper than the MateBook X Pro and the base XPS 13.

The MacBook Air’s Retina screen is four times as sharp as before. The jump from 900p to Retina resolution is impressive and the first thing you’ll notice when you turn on the new Air. Previous MacBook Air versions had a lesser solution, which made working cramped.

Apple updated its Retina display in July 2019 with True Tone technology. This means the MacBook Air screen will automatically change the color temperature for a more natural viewing experience. The new MacBook Air display now matches the 13-inch MacBook Pro in size and resolution.

This year’s MacBook Air features enhanced viewing angles. With the old MacBook Airs, turning the screen away from our faces made it hard to see anything. MacBook Air 2018 solves that. The LCD screen’s anti-glare glass only reflected heavily at extreme angles.

The new MacBook Air can show 48% more colors than the previous model, making photographs seem brighter and more colorful.

Higher resolution gives the new MacBook Air a premium feel and makes movies and images seem better.

PERFORMANCE

When Apple first introduced the MacBook Air 2008, it received a lot of positive feedback for having a thin and lightweight design. On the other hand, several reviewers have expressed concerns about the device’s weak performance compared to comparable (more extensive but more expensive) laptops. Many people believed that the thin design of the MacBook Air compelled Apple to use less powerful components. Apple addressed this concern in subsequent iterations of the product.

We would want to be able to claim that, after ten years, things have changed, but regrettably, this is not the case. Even though it comes standard with 8 GB of two 2,133 MHz LPDDR3 RAM that can be expanded to 16 GB and a lightning-fast SSD, the processing capability of the MacBook Air still seems like it is being held back somewhat by its dual-core Intel Core i5-8210Y CPU.

This 1.6GHz, dual-core Intel Core i5 can Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz, with 4MB L3 cache, which is acceptable for most day-to-day operations but is not as quick as some quad-core processors that you find in competing laptops around this price range, such the Dell XPS 13. The Apple MacBook Air 2018 is not as strong of a competitor as other laptops in this price range when it comes to demanding jobs or when it comes to juggling many projects at once.

The new MacBook Air just isn’t as quick as the more powerful Macs we’re accustomed to using now. When we were using it, the MacBook Air sometimes gave us the impression that it was trailing behind; it took a few extra seconds to load programs and react to our commands, which was particularly noticeable when we launched many apps at the same time.

Therefore, it is essential to emphasize that the 13-inch MacBook Pro is much more powerful than the MacBook Air. However, it does not cost significantly more than the latter. If you want a MacBook that can do some heavy lifting, we have no choice but to suggest you go with the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

The decision to use a low-powered dual-core Intel Core i5 processor is a bit disappointing; however, the MacBook Air does have an ace up its sleeve to help mitigate this – it includes the Apple T2 security chip, which works alongside the central processor to offload specific tasks. Even though this decision is a bit disappointing, the MacBook Air does have an ace up its sleeve to help mitigate this.

It maintains your fingerprints when you use Touch ID, and it also has an SSD controller with on-the-fly data encryption to provide “industry-leading security.” As the name implies, this mainly pertains to the safety and security components of the product. It also helps with the stereo spacing effects of the speakers, which we mentioned earlier, and it has an always-on ‘Hey Siri’ feature, which is a first for a MacBook Air and allows you to use your voice to control the laptop. We mentioned earlier that this feature helps with the stereo spacing effects of the speakers.

The new MacBook Air, on the other hand, already has macOS Mojave pre-installed, which means that the lower specifications of the Air are handled pretty well (thanks to the fact that Apple’s operating system is custom-made for the hardware, in contrast to the “one size fits all” approach that Windows 10 takes, which makes it more demanding).

BATTERY LIFE

According to Apple, the Apple MacBook Air (2018) is capable of 12 hours’ worth of local video playing or 12 hours of wireless web browsing, a reasonable quantity that should allow you to go through a whole work day without needing to be recharged.

The high-resolution Retina display results in depleting the battery life a little bit quicker than its predecessors. As a result of Apple’s choice to go with a lower-power, dual-core CPU, the Apple MacBook Air (2018) has one of the batteries that can last the longest of any MacBook.

According to Apple’s own estimations, the battery life of every other Retina MacBook is rated for 10 hours; thus, if you are an Apple fan who puts a high priority on having a battery that lasts for an extended period, then the Apple MacBook Air (2018) could be the right laptop for you.

In our own battery life testing, we played a continuously looping 1080p film with the screen brightness set to fifty percent, and the MacBook Air lasted for ten hours and thirty minutes total. Although it falls 1.5 hours shy of the 12-hour battery life that Apple had claimed, it is still a decent number and is much longer than the 8 hours and 4 minutes that the 12-inch MacBook offers.

During our evaluations, we discovered that the MacBook Air’s battery life remained stable despite our extensive usage of the device for activities including watching movies, surfing the internet, and using several programs. The only drawback is that it seems to charge rather slowly, and it takes a few hours to fully charge from an empty state when the battery is entirely depleted.

Pros And Cons

The new Apple MacBook Air is smaller and lighter than ever before, which is sure to please fans of the line. It’s more costly and just somewhat faster. You might not be won over by the MacBook Air’s updated design if you were never won over by it previously.