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The 2017 update to the MacBook Air was an uncharacteristic anachronism for Apple. Intel "Broadwell" silicon, and Apple did not update its aging 1,440-by-900-pixel panel that was a liability years before. The big question I had around Apple's 2018 laptop-lineup machinations: Would the MacBook Air join 2018, or remove quietly from the scene?
Welcome to '18, Air. With its new model, Apple has slashed the bezels, modernized the display, reduced the overall footprint, kicked the core processing power forward a full three generations, amped up the storage and it's speed … and whole lot more.
Meet the New Panel
Talk about a big-time pixel push. MacBook Air, branded with Apple's "Retina display" moniker, is a robust 2,560 by 1,600 pixels, topping out at a little more than 4 million pixels versus the mother 1.2 million of the previous model.
I took a good look at the panel from all angles-left and right offsides, of course, and noted excellent viewing angles from all directions. That kind of wide viewability is typical of IPS displays, of course, but this one has been decent pop and has color vivacity than the previous panel lacked. The pictures here under Apple's bright coming lighting do not quite do it justice, but it's nice.
I would like to say that I had the 2017 Air on hand at Apple's demo, but I think it's a good thing, with the drastically improved screen on the 2018. A frankly, having viewed the 2017 MacBook Air's rather coarse panel many times in the past, the difference is dramatic even going off of memory.
Indeed, I've settled for just the 1080p (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) panels that are standard Windows laptops. At the MacBook Air's 13.3-inch screen size, 1080p is an ideal match in terms of scaling. But now you have a machine that is worthy of running photo-editing or video-editing software, not just serving as a browsing and word-processing companion. (Lightweight editing, that is. The CPU in this machine is not a late-model multithreaded CPUs of late.
The screen itself is vastly improved, but looking at the panel in a more basic way, a picture in a frame, gives you a sense of what else has changed: the footprint of the laptop itself, and the width of the screen bezels. You will soon notice how to get rid of the camera, and I'm gratified to see that Apple did not pull a Dell XPS 13 and drop the FaceTime camera into the bezel basement below the screen, with the pending unflattering views of your nostrils or knuckles during videoconferencing sessions. Thumbs up to That.
Indeed, the MacBook Air is now 11.97 inches by 8.36 inches in footprint, shaving off more than a half-inch in both directions.
It also manages to lose a quarter-pound in the process. Handling the new Air, it now feels more like a cutting edge-edge. (The fact that the frame is made of 100 percent recycled / reclaimed aluminum gives a bit of warm-fuzzy as well.) The earlier airs, in their time, set the standard design for a sleek ultraportable. But by the time the 2017 MacBook Air emerged, it was feeling a bit. On the slimdown trend, some Windows machines had lapped it. This model helps the air catch up.
What's at the Core?
The Core (big and small "C") processing: Here's where the 2018 Air takes a big step forward, generationally speaking, though we'll have to see how much the new silicon translates to real-world performance advances. Apple would not check the exact chip model in the 2018 air-down to the nitty-gritty, but my suspicion (based on conversations with several reps who would not afford me Terminal access) is a little more than 8th-generation Core Y-series CPU.
Apple calls it, evasively as ever, has "1.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz, with 4MB L3 cache." This is exactly where the "Kaby Lake Refresh" or "Whiskey Lake" Intel U-series chips in current Windows machines (which were my first guesses). But it's awfully close to the "Amber Lake" Intel Core i5-8200Y, which is a low-power mobile CPU with just two cores and Hyper-Threading support. Apple's variant has some slight variance on the base and boost clocks. Apple also cites "Intel UHD Graphics 617" as the graphics solution, which is a very well-known UHD Graphics 615 (which is part of the Y-series chip) and the UHD Graphics 620 that's seen in many mainstream machines.
That's disappointing if true, but not a surprise. Other current 8th-generation Core i5 mobile cracks support four cores and eight threads (via Hyper-Threading), or are six-core / six-threaded chips. That said, using a Y-series-grade chip might keep the MacBook no-Air MacBooks, with which the Air now overlaps more than ever. And even with the dual-core limitation and relatively low base clock, the boost clock is hearty and the 8200Y does not support Hyper-Threading, so it's likely that the Air's CPU does, too.
The same dual-core Core i5 CPU graces the two base-model SKUs of the Air (the $ 1,199 and $ 1,399); you do not get a better chip. (The 2017 Air did give you the option to bounce things up to a Core i7.) So I expect we'll get a lot more insight into this particular chip we get a 2018 Air in hand. One of the air ducts in the air, with the chassis of some of the cooling duties of the passive heat sink, but the ventilating fan subtly out the trailing edge of the hinge area when the laptop is open. You will not see ventilation grids around the edges or on the bottom.
On the memory front, the 8GB of 2.133MHz RAM that comes standard is a healthy up to 1.600MHz LPDDR3 in the 2017 MacBook Air, which, incidentally, was stuck at 8GB; the 2018 model can be configured with 16GB for a $ 200 premium. If indeed the CPU is a Y-series, we do not see the new Air as a rollicking media-creation muscle machine, so the demand for more than 8GB may be limited. But it's nice to see the option for more, and using a lower-powered CPU allows the air to be much thinner; at 15.6mm thick, it's 10 percent thinner than the last-gen Air.
Storage and Connectivity
Another welcome-to-2018 appearance is the storage arrangement. The 2017 Air was wedded to solid-state storage, but speeds have been perked up, so says Apple, by as much as 60 percent. This is thanks to the use of the PCI Express bus, as opposed to the traditional Serial ATA bus type; PCI Express SSDs have become standard in high-end laptops, at this point.
Apple notes that the base models' 128GB ($ 1,199) and 256GB ($ 1,399) drives are upgradable at 256GB (+ $ 200, from the 128GB), 512GB (+ $ 400 gold + $ 200), 1.5TB gold (+ $ 1,200 gold) + $ 1,000), with the storage-capacity upticks you are buying standalone PCI Express M.2-format SSDs. You'll want to buy what you need and no more, here is a definite Apple-tax premium here. That said, the apps were snappy and adequate for my eyes, though the 128GB is a tad stingy for users who need much local storage or much media work.
A complete renovation was overdue for the edges of the Air, and the 2018 Air goes the minimal route. USB 2.0 / 3.0 port: Here you have just two USB Type-C / Thunderbolt 3 ports, which work with the provided AC adapter for recharging the laptop and all the usual USB peripherals you might want to plug in (albeit, likely using an A-to-C adapter). Display output with compatible panels also works over USB-C. It is a cleaner, more modern arrangement, but it is possible that it is possible to adopt a certain number of MacBook users would like to see it.
On the USB-C upside, these Thunderbolt 3-port support eGPUs like the BlackMagic eGPU, for boosting the graphics acceleration via an external graphics card. I would expect this to be limited on the MacBook Air versus, say, the MacBook Pro, as throttling of the graphics seems to be a real possibility due to CPU limitations. But the option is there where it never was before.
Feeling Out the Input Changes
The biggest single look-and-feel changes on the MacBook Air's lower half is obviously the keyboard and the touchpad. Apple jumped the Air from the old-style, scissor-switch keyboard to the new butterfly-style switch, in what it is referring to its third generation butterfly keyboard. MacBook Pros: same depth of key, same underlying mechanism, same added anti-debris / dust seal. Indeed, taking a few moments to type some test lines, I found that the overall feel was the same in the MacBook Pro.
Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing is entirely a matter of taste. The old-style island keyboard has its proponents, of course, but it has been decisively about the butterfly style, which was for a time action (and the additional of seals under the keys in this generation).
The key layout is the same as before, with the same one-color (white) backlighting, with the only "key" tweak being the power button at the forward-rightmost point in the layout. This now incorporates Touch ID, which unlocks the machine with your fingertip. I did not, of course, but one of the machines coded to my fingers, but I did observe one of Apple's reps.
Touch ID, of course, links to the other security aspects of the Air, namely T2 security chip inside and BIOS-level bootup security. Unlocking the Air with your own SSD's encryption on the fly. In my brief time poking around various Apple-standard applications in Mojave, the air felt snappy and unlocked indication of sluggishness in unlocking, launching programs, or driving around the OS.
The touchpad, meanwhile, is 20 percent larger than the last-gen Air's. That may not be much like it, but it's immediately obvious if you have the 2017 or older Airs. With this model, Apple incorporates Force Touch for haptic feedback, and the feel is very much as it is on the MacBook Pro. No surprises here.
At PCMag, we expect to have an air in hand in short order. Stay tuned for a full review, including deep-dive benchmarks and some more test-driving outside the "friendly confines" of today's Apple event. I'm gunning for one of the gold machines; it is a newcomer to the silver space and the Space Gray, the latter being the one picturing this story.
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