We’ve been using Apple’s new 2019 MacBook Air for about a week, and we can say that
it basically feels the same as the last years’ model, but unlike last year, quite a few things
have changed that will greatly impact your buying decision.
If you’ve seen our recent Which MacBook should you buy in 2019 video, you probably
already know that the new base 13” MacBook Pro is the king of value when it comes to
performance, being much faster than the MacBook Air and offering basically twice as much performance
per dollar.
So in the case that you really want the most performance you can get, you should obviously
buy the MacBook Pro instead.
But what if you don’t really care that much about performance, what if you value other
things, like battery life and typing experience and saving a couple hundred dollars?
That’s the case for a lot of people out there, for people who just need a basic, reliable
and premium laptop, to students, writers or programmers.
And yes, we did just release a brand new video talking about how it actually makes sense
for some people to buy an iPad Pro over a MacBook Air, but if you’re digging the traditional
laptop feel and you need macOS, the Air still makes a lot of sense to buy, despite being
the only MacBook in Apple’s 2019 lineup with a dual-core processor.
And in the real world, unless you’re doing power-demanding productivity tasks, the MacBook
Air is still fast enough for a lot of people.
For example, people have been using dual-core MacBook Airs for programming in apps like
Xcode for years, despite being much slower than the MacBook Pros.
Sure, it won’t get the job done as quickly, but it still gets it done.
And for productivity work like this, the MacBook Pros brighter and more color accurate display
doesn’t really matter.
On the plus side, the MacBook Air does get True Tone technology this year, a feature
which automatically adjusts the white balance of the display to match the environment you’re
in, so if you’re in a very warm-lit dark room, the screen won’t blast you with a
bunch of distracting blue light.
This is a really great feature, especially for people who spend a lot of time typing
on their MacBook.
And for typing, the MacBook Air is the best you can get this year.
That’s mainly due to the fact that the keyboard actually sloped downward towards the front
edge, which makes typing a lot more comfortable to the flat straight-edged MacBook Pro.
Now here’s where the drama comes in, Apple’s butterfly keyboard is still equipped on this
MacBook, which is known for having dead or stuck key issues, and it’s a MAJOR reason
why people think twice about buying it.
But is this a major deal?
We actually don’t think so, for a few reasons.
We’ve been using and testing Apple’s butterfly keyboard-equipped MacBooks ever since the
original 2015 Retina MacBook, and so far, out of around 30 MacBooks we’ve tested,
with 5 of them being long-term, we’ve only had issues with one MacBook, the original
2015 12” Retina.
Other than that, we’ve experienced none of the issues at all, and the best part about
the 2019 MacBook Air is that it features Apple’s 4th-generation butterfly keys, with new materials
that are supposed to be more reliable.
This version of keys has been on the market for around 2 months, and so far, we haven’t
heard of a single report of keyboard issues on the 2019 MacBooks.
So we’re now pretty confident that if you buy a 2019 MacBook Air, you probably won’t
experience any issues.
And just to give you peace of mind, Apple is giving you a free 4 year keyboard-replacement
warranty on any new MacBook, and to be completely honest, if your keyboard is affected, it’ll
probably happen within the first 4 years, so I wouldn’t worry about it.
Now here’s something great about the MacBook Air.
It’s now the only new MacBook that comes with function keys, so if you absolutely hate
the Touch Bar that now comes on every MacBook Pro, you can go with the Air instead.
And as a bonus, you still get a Touch ID sensor which is really convenient for logging in
and not having to enter your password every time macOS asks you for it.
While the trackpad is a bit smaller than the one on the Pro, it’s still the same industry-leading
ForceTouch trackpad that’s perhaps one of the biggest advantages over Windows laptops.
It’s seriously the best trackpad you can get.
On top of that, if you value battery life, the MacBook Air gets the best battery life
out of any MacBook.
PCMag showed that it ran for 20 hours in their battery life test, about an hour and a half
longer than the Pro, and completely wiping the floor with other popular Windows laptops.
We tested the speakers various times and we found that they’re actually pretty great,
especially compared to most Windows laptops.
They’re not as bassy as the MacBook Pro’s speakers, but they are more than good enough
to binge watch your favorite show on netflix.
So with the MacBook Air, you get a very comfortable typing experience, standard function keys,
really good speakers, top-of-the-line battery life, a decent display, the excellent trackpad
and reliable macOS software, all for $1100 or $1000 with a student discount.
So how the heck was Apple able to drop the price by $100 for a great laptop like this?
Well here’s where the bad news comes in.
While testing storage speeds of this new MacBook Air, we saw that they’ve become quite a
bit slower compared to SSDs from 2018 and even 2017.
Even the 512GB model was limited to around 1300 MBps read and write.
Now is this a big deal?
Actually, I don’t think so.
Yes, it does suck that storage speeds are slower, but they’re still just as fast or
faster than most Windows laptops.
And for the people this laptop is meant for, like students, writers, programmers and common
people, the speeds are actually more than fast enough.
You really only need faster storage speeds for working with productivity apps like photoshop,
Lightroom and Final Cut Pro, and if you’re doing that, you should be buying a MacBook
Pro anyway.
So no, I don’t think the slower storage speeds are a big deal at all.
Overall, this is great laptop and probably the best choice if you don’t need the extra
performance and would like to save a couple hundred bucks.
However, there is a third-wheel that just entered the market, and that’s the 2018
iPad Pro loaded with Apple’s upcoming iPadOS software, and I think it could actually make
sense for some people to choose that instead.
If you haven’t seen that video, definitely check it out right there.
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