Originally Posted: July 27th, 2019

2018 Retina MacBook Air Review

TL;DR: It’s great.

The best Mac laptop for you right now is the 2018 MacBook Air. If you were shopping for an Apple made laptop over the past few years, you had a lot of options, but none of them were that good. To understand the 2018 Air, you have to understand Apple’s recent lineup of laptops.

Recent MacBook History

Up until the changes Apple made in July 2019, the laptop lineup looked like this:

• The 13” MacBook Air, design introduced in 2010, last updated in 2015. This is the MacBook Air millions of people know and love, with the old scissor switch keyboard, USB-A ports, and a frustratingly low quality non-retina display and silver bezel. It was left at the bottom of the the lineup at $999 for years.

• The 12” MacBook, introduced in 2015, last updated in 2017, which traded performance and ports for thinness and lightness. It started at $1299 for 8GB RAM/256GB SSD, and was only big enough to fit one USB-C port. It used a low power CPU and didn’t have a fan, which made it fairly slow and low performance. It also introduced the new butterfly keyboard mechanism, which have shallow travel and reliability issues.

• The 13” MacBook Pro, redesigned in 2016, and had two distinct variations. The entry model started at $1299 for 8GB RAM/128GB SSD (Seriously, Apple? There’s nothing pro about 128GB of storage), two Thunderbolt 3 ports, 15 watt TDP CPU and physical function keys. It did not include the Touch Bar, which replaced the function row keys with a thin long touchscreen and a TouchID sensor on the higher end models. Once you stepped up to $1799, you went from a 15 watt CPU to a 28 watt CPU with better cooling, allowing better performance over longer periods of time. It also added two more Thunderbolt 3 ports and the Touch Bar. This model started at 8GB RAM/256GB SSD, and with upgrades quickly shot north of $2000.

• The 15” MacBook Pro, also redesigned in 2016, which trades portability for maximum performance and screen space. I previously had a 2013 15” MacBook Pro and loved the larger screen, but the new 15” is not a product designed for most people’s needs. Or wallets.

With that lineup there was a lot of overlap and confusion. Should you go for the legacy ports on the old Air and sacrifice screen quality? Do you want the Touch Bar or do you want function keys? What if you want function keys and higher performance? What was the best option if you had around $1300 to spend? None of these had clear answers.

The 2018 MacBook Air

Enter the new MacBook Air, introduced in 2018 with a redesign featuring two Thunderbolt 3 ports and a retina display, physical function keys and TouchID. It originally started at $1199 for 8GB RAM/128GB SSD. Updating the Air was the first step to fixing the lineup. The second came when Apple released updates in the summer of 2019. The old Air, low end 13” Pro and 12” MacBook were all discontinued. The 2018 Air received a small update, adding True Tone to the display. They introduced a revised low end 13” Pro with the Touch Bar. They dropped the price of the Air $100 for everyone and $200 for students, giving it a $999 starting price. They also reduced SSD upgrade prices across the lineup.

With all those small changes added together, the MacBook lineup finally makes sense again. They are back to the classic “consumer” or “pro” dynamic that Apple has been known for since Steve Jobs rose like a phoenix from the ashes of NeXT. Most people can use the consumer model, but if you need more performance, get the Pro.

Helping enforce this split is how expensive they designed the 2016-era MacBook Pro to be. The Touch Bar, TouchID, SSD encryption, webcam security and other features all run on the T2 security chip, which is essentially a CPU from an iPhone. It’s another computer inside your computer. A decent configuration with 16GB RAM and a non-insultingly low amount of internal storage costs well over $2000. Most people don’t need the performance or cost of the pro model, and they should set their sights on the Air.

Laptop Recommendations

If you’re in the market for an Apple device, make sure you check their refurbished store first. You get essentially a new device for a discount, sometimes saving hundreds of dollars. I picked up a refurbished 2018 MacBook Air with 16GB RAM/512 SSD for the price of a new 8GB/256GB model.

I’ve only had it for around a week now, but I love it so far. It’s almost as light as the 12”, but it’s quick enough for everything I need to do. The screen isn’t as bright as the one on the Pro or an iPad, but it’s 1440p and miles ahead of the previous Air. It’s a really nice screen. It only has a 7 watt CPU and a small fan that for some reason isn’t connected to the heat pipe, but it manages to stay cool and quiet. Battery life is hard to judge, but I have been seeing 6-8 hours or normal use. The keyboard is… a whole separate article, but I really like typing on it and I am glad it is covered by a 4 year warranty, thanks to the keyboard replacement program Apple is doing.

It’s the best mix of portability, price and power that Apple offers. The future holds a new keyboard, a redesigned MacBook Pro and other updates, but if you’re looking for an Apple laptop now, this is the one most people should get. It’s a wonderful laptop.