Apple MacBook Air (2018)
SLIMMER, LIGHTER AND BETTER LOOKING.
APPLE MACBOOK AIR
From $1,849 www.apple.com/au
CRITICAL SPECS
1.6GHz Intel Core i5-; Intel UHD Graphics 617; 8GB RAM; 13.3-inch, 2,560 x 1,600 Retina display (backlit LED, IPS); 256GB PCIe SSD; 2x Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C), 3.5mm headphone jack; 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2; 720p FaceTime HD webcam; 1.25kg; 30.41 x 21.24 x 1.56cm.
APPLE’S MACBOOK AIR (2018) isn’t a bold reimagining of its iconic original MacBook Air, arguably the first ever Ultrabook, but it brings enough new features and upgrades that make it the best entry-level MacBook with a Retina display the Cupertino company has made.
This year’s update includes updated hardware, a much-improved screen and a thinner and lighter design that makes it more easily portable – finally justifying the ‘ Air’ moniker.
These welcome updates and new additions do come with a caveat, however: the MacBook Air (2018) is the most expensive MacBook Air to date. So, while the MacBook Air remains one of the more affordable ways to get a MacBook, do the new features justify the higher price tag?
DESIGN
When the first MacBook Air launched 10 years ago the design made an incredible impact on the laptop market, as it proved you could have a powerful and feature-packed laptop in a thin and light design.
One could convincingly argue that the MacBook Air caused Intel and rival laptop makers to create the Ultrabook category of laptops, which were premium devices that put power, style and thin and light design above all else.
With the original MacBook Air’s design having had such a huge impact on the market you might have been hoping that, for its 10th anniversary, Apple would have created a similarly revolutionary design – and if that’s the case then you may be slightly disappointed by the design of the MacBook Air (2018), as Apple has played it relatively safe.
While this means it’s not a market-defining laptop like its predecessor, it does keep that iconic thin and light design, while benefiting from some important improvements where it counts.
IN OUR DAY-TO-DAY TESTS, WE FOUND THE MACBOOK AIR (2018)’S PERFORMANCE TO BE A BIT OF A MIXED BAG, WITH THE DEVICE DOING A FINE – IF NOT SERIOUSLY IMPRESSIVE – JOB OF MOST TASKS WE ASKED OF IT, BUT STRUGGLING A BIT WHEN ASKED TO DO LOTS OF TASKS AT ONCE.
So, the MacBook Air (2018) has been shrunk compared to the original, making an already thin and light laptop even more impressively svelte, with dimensions of 11.97 x 8.36 x 0.61 inches. There’s still wedge-shaped design to this Air, so it tapers off to 0.16 inches at its thinnest point.
As we noted in our initial hands-on review of the new MacBook Air, the new laptop has the same width and depth as the 13-inch MacBook Pro, while being a bit thinner and lighter.
The reduced size and weight of the new MacBook Air doesn’t mean there’s been a cut to features to accommodate this. You still get a 13.3-inch screen (more on that in a bit), and as mentioned it comes with boosted hardware, including a 8th-generation, dual-core Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB of RAM, which can be upgraded to 16GB.
In our time with the new MacBook Air we found that the keyboard does take a little getting used to, especially if you’re coming from an older MacBook Air, but once your fingers adjust it ends up being quite a pleasant typing experience.
The keys are very shallow, travel-wise, so you don’t quite get the responsive feedback you get from other laptop keyboards, but that’s the price you pay for such a slimline design. There’s also a satisfying ‘click’ to the keys when pressed, although this does make it a bit more noisy to type on than previous versions.
The use of recycled aluminum makes this the greenest MacBook ever, according to Apple, and while its unibody design has been made from the metal shavings from previously machined devices (which means Apple doesn’t need to mine and smelt further materials), there are no blemishes or marks; this is the same premium-looking – and feeling – MacBook Air we’re used to, just greener. Apple told us it has achieved this design feat by employing full-time, in-house metallurgists to help ensure that the recycled aluminum body is up to Apple’s rigorous standards.
DISPLAY
The screen on the Apple MacBook Air (2018) is where Apple has arguably made the biggest, and most welcome, changes. Despite the overall size of the Air shrinking compared to previous models, the screen size remains the same at 13.3 inches.
The screen keeps the 16:10 aspect ratio, but that’s where the similarity to previous MacBook Air screens ends. The MacBook Air (2018) is the first Air to come with a Retina display, with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels. This results in a pixel density of 227 pixels per inch (ppi), which is a little sharper than the MateBook X Pro, and easily outclasses the entry-level XPS 13.
The Retina screen gives this MacBook Air four times the resolution of previous models. The leap from the 900p resolution of older MacBook Airs to the Retina resolution really is impressive, and it’s likely the first thing you’ll notice when you power on the new Air. Anyone who felt the lower resolution of previous MacBook Air models was a bit cramped when working will really appreciate the improvement.
PERFORMANCE & BATTERY LIFE
While the MacBook Air comes with 8GB of 2,133MHz LPDDR3 RAM, which can be configured to 16GB, and a speedy solid state drive, processing power still feels slightly hobbled, with a dual-core Intel Core i5-8210Y processor.
This 1.6GHz, dual-core Intel Core i5 can Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz, with 4MB L3 cache, and while that’s fine for most day-to-day tasks, it’s not as speedy as some quad-core processors you see in rival laptops around this price point, such as the Dell XPS 13. For strenuous tasks, or running multiple apps at once, the Apple MacBook Air (2018) isn’t as strong a performer as other laptops at this price range.
In our day-to-day tests, we found the MacBook Air (2018)’s performance to be a bit of a mixed bag, with the device doing a fine – if not seriously impressive – job of most tasks we asked of it, but struggling a bit when asked to do lots of tasks at once.
Our benchmark results also show that the hardware of the MacBook Airis lacking compared to its competitors. Pitting it against the older 12-inch MacBook, the Cinebench benchmarks show roughly the same results, at 264 points compared to 279 for the MacBook Air (2018). The Geekbench 4 scores show a similarly slight improvement with the 12-inch MacBook’s scoring 3,879 single core and 7,072 multi-core, compared to the MacBook Air (2018)’s 4,247 and 7,832 respectively. Again, these are not huge leaps for the newer MacBook Air.
In our own battery life tests, where we ran a looped 1080p video with the screen set to 50% brightness, the MacBook Air lasted 10 hours and 30 minutes. Not quite the 12 hours Apple managed in its own tests, but it’s still a very good amount, and much longer than the 12-inch MacBook’s 8 hours and 4 minutes.
VERDICT
In the end, the MacBook Air isn’t likely to make many converts for people thinking of switching from Windows to Mac. However, for the committed fanbase who have been waiting for a new MacBook Air, they’ll find the lightest and most powerful Air ever made. And for many people, that will be more than enough.