The Macbook Air: A New Era of Portability and Performance

Silver is certainly not a new color for Macs, as it has been a staple since the beginning. However, with the latest release of the MacBook Air, Apple has introduced a new color option that's sure to catch your eye - Space Gray, which has been a fan favorite for years. But what about the other colors? Well, Apple has also tweaked the gold color to reflect the newest iPad 6th generation and the Apple Watch, making it a more coppery gold hue. This warmer tone is quite different from the previous yellow gold, which was more pink in nature.

The MacBook Air's design is sleek and polished, with a matching Apple logo on the back of the device that replaces the old backlighting. The text on the front of the display also matches the aluminum finish, giving it a cohesive look and feel. And when it comes to performance, the MacBook Air packs a punch. It runs on a 7-watt Core i5 processor, which may sound less powerful than its counterparts in other Macs, but trust us, it's still a beast. According to Geekbench scores, this Core i5 processor outperforms older models, making it a great option for those who need power without the extra weight.

But what about battery life? The MacBook Air achieves an impressive 12 hours of wireless web browsing, matching that of its predecessor. This means you can get a full day's work done on the go, without worrying about running out of juice. And with its compact size and weight (2.75 pounds), it's still one of the most portable Macs out there.

Now, what makes the MacBook Air a bit confusing for shoppers is that it slots between two other computers in Apple's lineup - the 12-inch MacBook and the 13-inch MacBook Pro without Touch Bar. Both of these options are priced similarly to the MacBook Air ($1,099), making it hard to decide which one to choose. The 12-inch MacBook is fanless and silent, but lacks performance compared to its larger counterpart. On the other hand, the 13-inch MacBook Pro has better specs, including a higher-resolution Retina display, but comes at a slightly lower price point.

Another quirk of the MacBook Air is its limited ports. It only features one USB-C port, no Thunderbolt, and lacks some of the more advanced features found in other Macs, such as true Tone and DCiP3 spec. However, this is also where the 12-inch MacBook comes in handy - it offers a smaller Retina display with similar specs to the MacBook Air, albeit at a lower price point.

So, how does the MacBook Air compare to its competitors? Well, in terms of performance, it's a solid mid-point between the 12-inch MacBook and the 13-inch MacBook Pro without Touch Bar. It's more powerful than the baseline model of either of those computers, but not quite as powerful as the higher-end configuration of the MacBook Pro. However, with its current design and specs, it's the most updated option available.

Ultimately, whether or not to choose the MacBook Air depends on your needs and priorities. If you want the best performance and the latest features, the MacBook Pro without Touch Bar may be the way to go. But if you value portability and a sleek design, the MacBook Air is an excellent choice. And with its new color options, it's now more affordable than ever - especially for those looking to upgrade from their old MacBooks.

Whether you're a seasoned Mac user or just starting out, the MacBook Air is definitely worth considering. Its compact size, impressive performance, and long battery life make it an ideal option for those who want a powerful laptop that won't weigh them down. So, if you're in the market for a new computer, be sure to check out the MacBook Air - you won't be disappointed!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up guys mike here the detroitborg with the all-new macbook air this is so overdue i never thought we would actually see it so this is the first time the macbook air has been completely redesigned since 2010. in fact macbook air was one of the first macs i ever reviewed and since the macbook air has been one of the most popular laptops of all time i think this is kind of a big deal so this new macbook air retails for 11.99 alongside the 999 of the original macbook air so a 200 premium brings you a lot more modern amenities including a retina display we also get the new third generation butterfly style keyboard along with a forced touch trackpad touch id much better speakers a more compact form factor along with more modern processors and thunderbolt 3 ports and of course because the macbook air is available in three colors this time we're going to take a look at all three of them side by side so maybe get an idea of what color you might prefer now strangely the macbook air only comes with one processor this is a dual core 8th generation core i5 clocked at 1.6 gigahertz now this is actually a custom 7 watt y-class processor this replaces the 15-watt u-class processors from the old macbook air but those are really old fifth generation processors and we'll talk about performance a bit later the base configuration gets you 120 gigs of pcie based ssd storage which you can upgrade to 1.5 terabytes eight gigs of ddr3 ram is standard running at 2133 megahertz and you can upgrade to 16 gigs onto the accessories taking a look at the paperwork first we get something we don't see terribly often which you can see peeking through the hole in the packet but we get some color matching apple stickers so if you get the silver version it's just basically white but if you get space gray or gold you get these metallic apple stickers which pretty accurately reflect the color of the anodized aluminum so we've seen this with the 12-inch macbook and we see this with the imac pro and the mac pros so at least we see it with the macbook airs in terms of our charging adapter this is a 30 watt usb c charger so this is up from the 29 watt charger we used to get with the 12 inch macbook we also have a set of folding prongs which will pop off so you can add an extension cable or an international wall adapter and spoiler alert if you didn't know already the macbook air did lose the magsafe power connector so now we're on to usbc which is the cable we get in the box although the macbook air did not get the touch bar it did get touch id and this is by far the cheapest way of getting touch id on the mac so during the set of process you're prompted to train your finger now this can be used to unlock your macbook air authenticate payments or authenticate passwords macbook air also gets hands-free siri this is thanks to the new t2 chip this actually remains somewhat rare on the mac lineup only the macbook pro and the imac pro currently have this macbook air did go on a diet so it's down to about 2.75 pounds from three pounds so it's not a night and day difference it's also quite a bit more compact than the old macbook air in fact it has the exact same footprint as the 13-inch macbook pro by far the biggest and most overdue improvement for the macbook air is the new retina display so just like the macbook pro this is a 13.3 inch display with a resolution of 2560x1600 that's up considerably from the 1440x900 resolution of the old 13.3 inch display this is the most affordable retina display on the mac and produces 40 more color than the old design we also get 4 million pixels up from 1 million pixels the other big change is ips over tn so the old tn display had terrible off axis viewing angles so as you tilt the screen you can see just how bad the distortion was also gone from the old display is that wide bezel which was wrapped in aluminum so now we have an edge to edge glass panel which is also more anti-reflective than the old glossy panel so if you look side by side you'll still see glare but it's definitely not as bad as it used to be it's quite a bit more tinted at first glance it looks like the macbook air has the exact same display as the macbook pro 13-inch but that's not exactly the case although we have the same screen resolution and the quality is still pretty good we're still lacking a few features like true tone which matches the white balance to the ambient light in the room and the maximum brightness of the macbook air is 300 nits versus 500 nits for the macbook pro now you can really only achieve maximum brightness in direct lighting such as when you're outdoors so you can't really ramp up the brightness to this level so in my case i'm just shining lights directly at the ambient light sensors to bring up the maximum brightness and you can see there is a difference the other difference is that the macbook air lacks support for the dc ip3 color gamut although this is still a very vibrant and colorful display whites aren't quite as clear as they are on the macbook pro and colors like green and reds aren't quite as vibrant we also get the new third generation butterfly style keyboard the same one they debuted with the 2018 macbook pro so the new design is quieter and they've improved durability by adding a membrane underneath each key which keeps dust down but this keyboard is a huge change from the old keyboard i'm actually a big fan of the butterfly style keyboard just because the keys are wider so they're easier to strike and the keys are far more stable so they don't wobble around like they did with the old macbook air and because there's much less mechanical travel these keys are actually really fast to type on i'm a really fast typer so i actually appreciate a shallow keyboard just because that means you're working less to press the keys but obviously preferences differ quite a bit and i think it just takes a little time to get used to the new keyboard before dismissing it once again improved backlighting because each key gets an individual led light so you can see much less light leaking around the keys and each key character is more brightly lit once again the brightness of the keyboard is adaptive to the ambient lights but you can also manually adjust the brightness of the keyboard from the function row this is the first mac keyboard that gets touch id without a touch bar typically that's been combined but now we have a separate key just for it this still acts as a power button and like other touch id sensors it's covered in sapphire crystal macbook air also finally gets the force touch trackpad replacing the mechanical trackpad of the old design so instead of the diving board style trackpad which was hinged toward the top we have a larger trackpad surface which responds to pressure and simulates a click thanks to a haptic motor so that click and sensation and the sound is pretty much indistinguishable from a physical click but because we have the exact same force sensors across the entire surface you can press anywhere on the surface and get the exact same response this trackpad is slightly smaller than the one on the macbook pro so there's a little more room on either side but generally speaking the trackpad does have excellent palm rejection so you can rest your palms directly on the trackpad without triggering it on either side of the keyboard are front-facing stereo speakers which are big improvement over the under keyboard design we had before these are 25 percent louder with twice the bass and a much wider stereo sound so these speakers are much more immersive than the more muffled distance speakers we had before starfleet is a promise i give my life for you you give your life for me i give my life for you you give your life for me and nobody gets left behind and nobody gets left behind not surprisingly the new macbook air replaced all of its old ports with two thunderbolt 3 ports on the left side so gone is the sd card reader thunderbolt 2 and the usb a ports also gone is the magsafe connector now personally i've never been a big fan of magsafe just because i think it comes off way too easily and i definitely prefer a universal charging standard which means i have less cables and adapters to keep around thunderbolt 3 and usbc certainly opens up the macbook air to a world of much powerful accessories so you can connect this to a 5k display you have data transfer speeds up to 40 megs per second and you can even connect an external gpu to improve graphics performance by up to 17 times macbook air certainly isn't the first mac to go usb-c only so there's quite a few adapters out there and for the most part the only adapter i actually need is an sd card reader otherwise i'm able to use usbc for basically everything at the top edge of the glass is the facetime hd camera still recording at 720p we also get an led indicator and the ambient light sensors nearby we also have a 3 microphone array which is used for better voice recognition for siri and what's kind of interesting is that the microphones are controlled by the t2 chip and when you close the lid of the macbook air it actually mechanically disconnects the microphone which means software good or otherwise can't get around this interrupt on the underside of the macbook air is a single panel which is held on with pentalobe screws those screws are actually color matched to the aluminum finish which is kind of a nice detail we also have those plastic feet at all four corners which protect the bottom of the macbook air similar to the old macbook air ventilation is hidden within the hinge but this time the hinge is integrated into the aluminum unibody of the design as opposed to a black plastic strip so it's a much cleaner design consistent with all of the other macs in terms of the color selection silver is certainly not a new color we've had this since the beginning but space gray finally makes it to the macbook air although this is a color we've seen on the 12-inch macbook and the macbook pro for a number of years but a new color here is gold and apple keeps tweaking the gold color so now it's been updated to reflect the gold color that's also on the newest ipad 6 generation and the apple watch so this is more of a coppery gold color it's quite a bit warmer than the yellow gold and not quite as pink as the rose gold incidentally the 12 inch macbook was also updated to get this new color personally i'm still a huge fan of space gray but no matter what color you get you also get a matching apple logo on the back so this is a polished inset apple logo replacing the backlit apple logo of the old macbook air another color matching detail is the macbook text on the front of the display so if you look closely you'll see that it actually matches the aluminum finish in terms of performance i mentioned earlier that this is running a 7 watt core i5 processor which sounds less powerful than the 15 watt core i5 or core i7 from the old macbook air but if you take a look at the geekbench scores you can see that this core i5 still beats those old processors so this is still a faster computer and even though we have a more powerful computer and a slightly smaller battery this macbook air achieves the same battery life as the old macbook air so that gives you about 12 hours of wireless web browsing which is the best among all of the macbooks in terms of performance this entire video was actually made on the macbook air and although it's quite a bit slower than my imac pro which i normally use it's certainly doable it definitely keeps the fans running at least if you're doing background processing but otherwise it's actually pretty smooth now what makes the macbook air a little confusing for shoppers is that it slots between two different computers with very similar pricing so we have the 12-inch macbook and the 13-inch macbook pro without touch bar so the 12-inch macbook and the macbook air are the exact same price 11.99 while the macbook pro is only 100 more the big selling point for the macbook remains its size and weight it's still quite a bit smaller and lighter than the macbook air it's at two pounds versus 2.75 pounds it's also the only fanless mac you can buy so it's always going to be silent but naturally this is not geared toward performance a few other quirks about the macbook include a 480p facetime camera and a single usbc connector so no thunderbolt ports here and although the 12 inch has a smaller retina display it's basically got the same specs as the macbook air so it doesn't have true tone doesn't have the dc ip3 spec and it only achieves about 300 nits of total brightness as i've already mentioned the macbook air is actually very similar to the macbook pro in terms of its size and screen and most of the features are very similar the major difference really comes down to performance and some of the display specs so again the display isn't as bright or colorful as the macbook pro and the macbook pro offers better cpus and graphics but the macbook air gains an edge with touch id longer battery life and it's slightly lighter than the three pound macbook pro in terms of performance between these three predictably the macbook air slots right between them much more powerful than the 12-inch macbook's baseline configuration but not quite as powerful as the baseline macbook pro although if you look at that single core score you can see the macbook air is getting quite close but the big selling point for the macbook air is that it's the most current of these three the macbook and the macbook pro without the touch bar haven't been updated for 2018 so they're overdue so either they're gonna update these in 2019 or the macbook air is going to be expanded to fill their spots as always apple doesn't make it easy to decide which mac to get i definitely think it's worth the 200 upgrade from the old macbook air and i would still choose it over the macbook and the baseline macbook pro just because it's the most current and offers the best form factor in dollar value but if you want the best power for the least amount of money definitely go for the macbook pro alright guys hope you enjoyed this look at the macbook air if you guys enjoyed this video please let me know with a like and i'll see you again in my next videowhat's up guys mike here the detroitborg with the all-new macbook air this is so overdue i never thought we would actually see it so this is the first time the macbook air has been completely redesigned since 2010. in fact macbook air was one of the first macs i ever reviewed and since the macbook air has been one of the most popular laptops of all time i think this is kind of a big deal so this new macbook air retails for 11.99 alongside the 999 of the original macbook air so a 200 premium brings you a lot more modern amenities including a retina display we also get the new third generation butterfly style keyboard along with a forced touch trackpad touch id much better speakers a more compact form factor along with more modern processors and thunderbolt 3 ports and of course because the macbook air is available in three colors this time we're going to take a look at all three of them side by side so maybe get an idea of what color you might prefer now strangely the macbook air only comes with one processor this is a dual core 8th generation core i5 clocked at 1.6 gigahertz now this is actually a custom 7 watt y-class processor this replaces the 15-watt u-class processors from the old macbook air but those are really old fifth generation processors and we'll talk about performance a bit later the base configuration gets you 120 gigs of pcie based ssd storage which you can upgrade to 1.5 terabytes eight gigs of ddr3 ram is standard running at 2133 megahertz and you can upgrade to 16 gigs onto the accessories taking a look at the paperwork first we get something we don't see terribly often which you can see peeking through the hole in the packet but we get some color matching apple stickers so if you get the silver version it's just basically white but if you get space gray or gold you get these metallic apple stickers which pretty accurately reflect the color of the anodized aluminum so we've seen this with the 12-inch macbook and we see this with the imac pro and the mac pros so at least we see it with the macbook airs in terms of our charging adapter this is a 30 watt usb c charger so this is up from the 29 watt charger we used to get with the 12 inch macbook we also have a set of folding prongs which will pop off so you can add an extension cable or an international wall adapter and spoiler alert if you didn't know already the macbook air did lose the magsafe power connector so now we're on to usbc which is the cable we get in the box although the macbook air did not get the touch bar it did get touch id and this is by far the cheapest way of getting touch id on the mac so during the set of process you're prompted to train your finger now this can be used to unlock your macbook air authenticate payments or authenticate passwords macbook air also gets hands-free siri this is thanks to the new t2 chip this actually remains somewhat rare on the mac lineup only the macbook pro and the imac pro currently have this macbook air did go on a diet so it's down to about 2.75 pounds from three pounds so it's not a night and day difference it's also quite a bit more compact than the old macbook air in fact it has the exact same footprint as the 13-inch macbook pro by far the biggest and most overdue improvement for the macbook air is the new retina display so just like the macbook pro this is a 13.3 inch display with a resolution of 2560x1600 that's up considerably from the 1440x900 resolution of the old 13.3 inch display this is the most affordable retina display on the mac and produces 40 more color than the old design we also get 4 million pixels up from 1 million pixels the other big change is ips over tn so the old tn display had terrible off axis viewing angles so as you tilt the screen you can see just how bad the distortion was also gone from the old display is that wide bezel which was wrapped in aluminum so now we have an edge to edge glass panel which is also more anti-reflective than the old glossy panel so if you look side by side you'll still see glare but it's definitely not as bad as it used to be it's quite a bit more tinted at first glance it looks like the macbook air has the exact same display as the macbook pro 13-inch but that's not exactly the case although we have the same screen resolution and the quality is still pretty good we're still lacking a few features like true tone which matches the white balance to the ambient light in the room and the maximum brightness of the macbook air is 300 nits versus 500 nits for the macbook pro now you can really only achieve maximum brightness in direct lighting such as when you're outdoors so you can't really ramp up the brightness to this level so in my case i'm just shining lights directly at the ambient light sensors to bring up the maximum brightness and you can see there is a difference the other difference is that the macbook air lacks support for the dc ip3 color gamut although this is still a very vibrant and colorful display whites aren't quite as clear as they are on the macbook pro and colors like green and reds aren't quite as vibrant we also get the new third generation butterfly style keyboard the same one they debuted with the 2018 macbook pro so the new design is quieter and they've improved durability by adding a membrane underneath each key which keeps dust down but this keyboard is a huge change from the old keyboard i'm actually a big fan of the butterfly style keyboard just because the keys are wider so they're easier to strike and the keys are far more stable so they don't wobble around like they did with the old macbook air and because there's much less mechanical travel these keys are actually really fast to type on i'm a really fast typer so i actually appreciate a shallow keyboard just because that means you're working less to press the keys but obviously preferences differ quite a bit and i think it just takes a little time to get used to the new keyboard before dismissing it once again improved backlighting because each key gets an individual led light so you can see much less light leaking around the keys and each key character is more brightly lit once again the brightness of the keyboard is adaptive to the ambient lights but you can also manually adjust the brightness of the keyboard from the function row this is the first mac keyboard that gets touch id without a touch bar typically that's been combined but now we have a separate key just for it this still acts as a power button and like other touch id sensors it's covered in sapphire crystal macbook air also finally gets the force touch trackpad replacing the mechanical trackpad of the old design so instead of the diving board style trackpad which was hinged toward the top we have a larger trackpad surface which responds to pressure and simulates a click thanks to a haptic motor so that click and sensation and the sound is pretty much indistinguishable from a physical click but because we have the exact same force sensors across the entire surface you can press anywhere on the surface and get the exact same response this trackpad is slightly smaller than the one on the macbook pro so there's a little more room on either side but generally speaking the trackpad does have excellent palm rejection so you can rest your palms directly on the trackpad without triggering it on either side of the keyboard are front-facing stereo speakers which are big improvement over the under keyboard design we had before these are 25 percent louder with twice the bass and a much wider stereo sound so these speakers are much more immersive than the more muffled distance speakers we had before starfleet is a promise i give my life for you you give your life for me i give my life for you you give your life for me and nobody gets left behind and nobody gets left behind not surprisingly the new macbook air replaced all of its old ports with two thunderbolt 3 ports on the left side so gone is the sd card reader thunderbolt 2 and the usb a ports also gone is the magsafe connector now personally i've never been a big fan of magsafe just because i think it comes off way too easily and i definitely prefer a universal charging standard which means i have less cables and adapters to keep around thunderbolt 3 and usbc certainly opens up the macbook air to a world of much powerful accessories so you can connect this to a 5k display you have data transfer speeds up to 40 megs per second and you can even connect an external gpu to improve graphics performance by up to 17 times macbook air certainly isn't the first mac to go usb-c only so there's quite a few adapters out there and for the most part the only adapter i actually need is an sd card reader otherwise i'm able to use usbc for basically everything at the top edge of the glass is the facetime hd camera still recording at 720p we also get an led indicator and the ambient light sensors nearby we also have a 3 microphone array which is used for better voice recognition for siri and what's kind of interesting is that the microphones are controlled by the t2 chip and when you close the lid of the macbook air it actually mechanically disconnects the microphone which means software good or otherwise can't get around this interrupt on the underside of the macbook air is a single panel which is held on with pentalobe screws those screws are actually color matched to the aluminum finish which is kind of a nice detail we also have those plastic feet at all four corners which protect the bottom of the macbook air similar to the old macbook air ventilation is hidden within the hinge but this time the hinge is integrated into the aluminum unibody of the design as opposed to a black plastic strip so it's a much cleaner design consistent with all of the other macs in terms of the color selection silver is certainly not a new color we've had this since the beginning but space gray finally makes it to the macbook air although this is a color we've seen on the 12-inch macbook and the macbook pro for a number of years but a new color here is gold and apple keeps tweaking the gold color so now it's been updated to reflect the gold color that's also on the newest ipad 6 generation and the apple watch so this is more of a coppery gold color it's quite a bit warmer than the yellow gold and not quite as pink as the rose gold incidentally the 12 inch macbook was also updated to get this new color personally i'm still a huge fan of space gray but no matter what color you get you also get a matching apple logo on the back so this is a polished inset apple logo replacing the backlit apple logo of the old macbook air another color matching detail is the macbook text on the front of the display so if you look closely you'll see that it actually matches the aluminum finish in terms of performance i mentioned earlier that this is running a 7 watt core i5 processor which sounds less powerful than the 15 watt core i5 or core i7 from the old macbook air but if you take a look at the geekbench scores you can see that this core i5 still beats those old processors so this is still a faster computer and even though we have a more powerful computer and a slightly smaller battery this macbook air achieves the same battery life as the old macbook air so that gives you about 12 hours of wireless web browsing which is the best among all of the macbooks in terms of performance this entire video was actually made on the macbook air and although it's quite a bit slower than my imac pro which i normally use it's certainly doable it definitely keeps the fans running at least if you're doing background processing but otherwise it's actually pretty smooth now what makes the macbook air a little confusing for shoppers is that it slots between two different computers with very similar pricing so we have the 12-inch macbook and the 13-inch macbook pro without touch bar so the 12-inch macbook and the macbook air are the exact same price 11.99 while the macbook pro is only 100 more the big selling point for the macbook remains its size and weight it's still quite a bit smaller and lighter than the macbook air it's at two pounds versus 2.75 pounds it's also the only fanless mac you can buy so it's always going to be silent but naturally this is not geared toward performance a few other quirks about the macbook include a 480p facetime camera and a single usbc connector so no thunderbolt ports here and although the 12 inch has a smaller retina display it's basically got the same specs as the macbook air so it doesn't have true tone doesn't have the dc ip3 spec and it only achieves about 300 nits of total brightness as i've already mentioned the macbook air is actually very similar to the macbook pro in terms of its size and screen and most of the features are very similar the major difference really comes down to performance and some of the display specs so again the display isn't as bright or colorful as the macbook pro and the macbook pro offers better cpus and graphics but the macbook air gains an edge with touch id longer battery life and it's slightly lighter than the three pound macbook pro in terms of performance between these three predictably the macbook air slots right between them much more powerful than the 12-inch macbook's baseline configuration but not quite as powerful as the baseline macbook pro although if you look at that single core score you can see the macbook air is getting quite close but the big selling point for the macbook air is that it's the most current of these three the macbook and the macbook pro without the touch bar haven't been updated for 2018 so they're overdue so either they're gonna update these in 2019 or the macbook air is going to be expanded to fill their spots as always apple doesn't make it easy to decide which mac to get i definitely think it's worth the 200 upgrade from the old macbook air and i would still choose it over the macbook and the baseline macbook pro just because it's the most current and offers the best form factor in dollar value but if you want the best power for the least amount of money definitely go for the macbook pro alright guys hope you enjoyed this look at the macbook air if you guys enjoyed this video please let me know with a like and i'll see you again in my next video\n"