Apple MacBook Air (2019) $ 1,099
The good
The Retina display is now compatible with True Tone
- Quieter keyboard
- Touch identification sensor
- More affordable than before
The bad
SSD model slower compared to 2018 model
- Marginally faster performance
- Good
- but not the stellar battery life
The bottom line
The MacBook Air (2019) improvement in the previous version in minor ways.
Manzana
Updated last fall; The MacBook Air with a smaller body, a sharper Retina display, a larger trackpad and added Touch ID.
It was a solid update after Apple neglected it for a few years to focus on the MacBook Pro. As good as it was, the MacBook Air 2018 fell short in some areas: performance, keyboard and prices.
The processor
Dual-core MacBook Air 2019 still has little power compared to the 13-inch MacBook Pros quad-core and other Windows laptops.
However, the keyboard has improved (it's quieter and Apple says it's more reliable), The display supports True Tone and starts at $ 1,099 instead of the previous $ 1,199. Apple also removed legacy ports in favor of a pair of USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports.
If you are looking for the MacBook
The least expensive and does not need the performance of the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air 2019 is a competent laptop for light computing, such as writing, web browsing and video viewing. Just don't expect him to be a champion in heavy duty tasks such as video editing or games.
The biggest concern, of course, is if you trust that the keyboard won't break. I haven't used the new MacBook Air long enough for your keyboard to show repeated or failed keystrokes. If you have future problems, at least Apple has it covered in your keyboard repair program.
Yes, it is a MacBook Air
Manzana
He changed laptops forever after Steve Jobs pulled the original MacBook Air out of a manila envelope to highlight how thin and light it was.
Almost overnight, laptops went from heavy laughter to slender wedge-shaped mobile DVD machines without frames, with elegant, tapered frames.
The MacBook Air 2019
It retains the same rugged aluminum wedge design as its predecessor and comes in the same finishes (silver, space gray and gold).
Apple made zero adjustments to the outside of the MacBook Air. The metal body is as dense and durable as before, without any bending, which is great.
To the left of the Air, there are two USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports, and on the right side, a single 3.5mm headphone jack. I still miss the SD card slot on the MacBook Air before the Retina a lot and I hope Apple will return it on future MacBooks.
Better display with true tone
The Retina display has the same size of 13.3 inches (diagonal) with a resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 at 227 pixels per inch (PPI).
The MacBook Air 2018, former editor of Mashable Tech, Pete Pachal, said he was disappointed with the brightness of the screen compared to a 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Technical failures: revealed that the MacBook Air peaked at 300 nits of brightness compared to 500 nits on the 13-inch MacBook Pro. Not only did the lower brightness make the content look less vibrant, but the blacks were more washed.
The screen: The new MacBook Air is brighter. In April, Apple released an update that increased the brightness of the 2018 MacBook Air from 300 nits to 400 nits, which is also where the 2019 model tops the list.
The screen is still not as bright as that of the MacBook Pro, but I don't think many people will bother. Usually, the brightness of my laptop is set at around 60-75 percent and, as far as I can tell, the 400-bit brightness of the MacBook Air is fine.
New to the screen: is the true tone. MacBook Pros, iPhones and iPad have the function that adjusts the color temperature on the screen according to the surrounding lighting.
In simple terms
The MacBook Air's screen is never too cold (blue) because True Tone constantly looks at the ambient lighting and adjusts to match accordingly.
The true tone is subtle, but it makes the screen less hard to look at, which is important if you watch it all day.
The keyboard is fine (so far)
The MacBook Air keyboard is noticeably quieter than any other MacBook Pro keyboard released between 2016 and July 2018, and nowhere is it as flashy as the 13-inch MacBook Pro of 2017 that I am using daily to run the MacOS Catalina beta.
All Apple MacBooks now sport the enhanced third-generation butterfly keyboard first introduced on the MacBook Pros in May. These butterfly keyboards from “Generation 3.5” They are quieter than previous keyboards and are supposed to be made of a new material not specified for greater reliability.
The MacBook Air's keyboard is not silent, but the silicone membrane under each key definitely helps cushion keystrokes, while at the same time adding just a little more key travel.
Typing on the keyboard is not as good as typing on a Magic Keyboard or on any MacBook Pro with scissor-style keys, but I think Apple is getting closer and closer to a more acceptable midpoint.
Apart from the silent keys, I love – love – that there is a row of real function keys instead of a touch bar and touch ID is integrated into the power button.
Like the butterfly keyboard or 3D touch (Bless Apple for trying to make it one thing), The touch bar is almost universally rejected by everyone I know.
Manzana
He has not defended firmly why the touch bar is better than the function keys. And no, the emoji entry is not the use case that changes the game that we all think it would be.
The use of the MacBook Air function keys only reinforced the effect of the touch bar. The function keys simply work perfectly: one touch to adjust the screen brightness, keyboard backlight, volume, playback, Exposé and Launchpad.
Do not touch a small thin arrow to expand the controls as you have to do in a touch bar and you do not need to waste time with the sliders to adjust the brightness and volume.
That it is possible to have function keys and Touch ID without the touch bar is proof that the MacBook Pro does not need it. Logging into the MacBook Air with Touch ID is faster, more convenient and more secure than entering a password.
Good performance
There is a reason why I talk about performance last: it is enough, but not very fast.
The new MacBook Air: Works with an Intel Core i5 (Y series) 8-core and 8-core dual-core processor with Turbo Boost up to 3.6 GHz and Intel UHD Graphics 617 and a base of 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of SSD storage. These are the same specifications as the MacBook Air 2018, which means it should work roughly the same.
However, the execution of Geekbench 4 revealed a different story. Based on an average of three consecutive tests, the MacBook Air 2019 scored a score of 4,113 in a single core and 7,775 in multiple cores, representing a 10.5 and 15 percent faster performance, respectively, compared to the MacBook Air 2018 .
With MacBook 2018
We watched the laptop get stuck when pressed too hard. I ran the same workflow we did then: Slack, Trello, TweetDeck, Skype, Apple applications (Calendar, Reminders, Apple News, Messages and Maps, and two Chrome profiles that run from 2 to 4 windows, each with an average of approximately 12 tabs, and Amazon Music streaming in the background.
I checked to see if the fan started in an hour to run so many applications and tasks and if there was any delay in TweetDeck. Nothing I restarted and tried again, but I didn't have the same problems as our previous editor.
This performance improvement could have been the result of a number of factors, including, among others, new software updates for macOS Mojave and better optimization for third-party applications, such as Chrome and TweetDeck.
But as we also noted in our previous MacBook Air review, we don't expect many people to stress their laptops in this way.
For general web browsing
Editing light photos, writing, viewing videos and editing documents, the MacBook Air works like a champion. Even editing light videos in iMovie will not choke the laptop to the point that it is unusable.
However, I wish Apple had given the MacBook Air a performance improvement with a faster processor and better graphics. It is even more disappointing when Windows laptops in the Air price range have a stronger performance.
Battery life
It is also more or less as before. I got between 5 and 7 hours of battery life while using the MacBook Air at work, but less at home when I pressed it more with more tasks. The battery life is not bad, but the pre-Retina air age that was a battery champion and consistently lasted between 6-7 hours makes me strange.
I should also note that the MacBook Air's SSD storage reports, it has read slower and write speeds compared to the 2018 model. Although some technology blogs are being alarmist about it, let me rule out any concerns.
Actually, the laptop reads and writes the data in a second or less than before. Will you notice the difference for small file transfers? Doubtful. However, you may notice that you transfer large amounts of data when the seconds add up to minutes.
Cheaper than before
The MacBook Air before the Retina was possibly the GOAT (The best of all time) of laptops. It was obvious to recommend that laptop to almost any non-professional person.
We were very hopeful that the MacBook Air 2018 would carry the torch. But it was clear that updating the MacBook Air with a smaller body and the Retina display included some not-so-welcome commitments.
The MacBook Air 2019 is
Of course, it is better: improved keyboard, True Tone display and faster performance despite the same specifications, but perhaps the most important thing is that it starts at $ 1,099 instead of the previous $ 1,199.
One hundred dollars may not seem like much. But for many buyers, being close to 1,000 dollars makes it seem a much better value. The 2019 MacBook Air is not as affordable as the pre-Retina MacBook Air, which started at $ 999, but is coming.
For the students
The MacBook Air is a good and affordable laptop (999 dollars with an education discount). However, the world of laptops with Windows still seems very tempting.
Microsoft's Surface Laptop 2, our favorite laptop last year, starts at 999 dollars (although it is regularly discounted at 899 dollars) and it comes with a more powerful quad-core performance, a touch screen and a full-size USB-A port (no dongles needed)
The same goes for other laptops like the Huawei MateBook 13 (from 999 dollars) and the Dell XPS 13 (Starting at $ 1,199.99, but can easily be found for $ 999.99).
Unless you need the power (then buy a MacBook Pro), The MacBook Air does the job. It's not as amazing as the MacBook Air before the Retina, but it's fine. Hopefully the next update will be more exciting
