Gadgetory

it's easily the single most requested thing on any laptop shoppers wishlist a brand-new fully updated version of Apple's MacBook Air well after years of waiting it's finally here but I got to tell you one thing it's very different from the air you know now why is that so important for most of its 10-year life the classic MacBook Air was the default laptop for pretty much everyone high school college student MacBook Air writer a creative type back book air office drone or startup guy MacBook Air I was there for the very first MacBook Air way back in 2008 and it was no doubt a game changer in fact for many years I called it the single most universally useful laptop you could buy for most of its life the MacBook Air was $9.99 not cheap but an achievable luxury especially with something rock-solid that would last years and years but lately I started to feel a little bit like the old guy at the club still showing up but kind of dated everyone else moved to higher res screens that went almost edge-to-edge on the lid bigger touch pads regular component upgrades thinner and lighter bodies and for most of this year the rumor mill has been surging with talk of a new slimmer reasonably priced MacBook with a better screen than would either update or replace the air well the rumors were right we now have a new MacBook Air but I'd say it's an air in name only as everything about it is different new body check new screen check new keyboard and touchpad check new processors check I think it really keeps the air named for nostalgia reasons if I were in charge I might call it a MacBook Pro Lite it even fits right into the Karnak design sensibility a bit larger than two 12-inch MacBook a bit smaller than the 13-inch pro and much much different than the classic air which Apple is still selling at least for now let's look at the screen on the old low res air that's the single biggest reason I stopped recommending it to people as my go to default everyday laptop pick the big silver border is gone and now the 13-inch screen has the same slim style black bezel under edge to edge glass as the MacBook and MacBook Pro a resolution is also four times greater and that makes a huge difference what else did Apple fix about the MacBook Air it's got new 8th gen Intel processors instead of 15 or older ones you can get more RAM and more storage space tip it's bitter and lie there although not quite in the top tier of lightweight laptops it's even made from 100% recycled aluminum if you care about that sort of thing which you should there's a lot from the MacBook Pro line that's trickled down here both good and bad the Retina screen is a big plus as is the larger more modern touchpad but with that touch pad comes the infamous butterfly keyboard that's the super flat one where people's keys kept getting stuck Apple says it's fixed the problem now but it's still a shallower less tactile keyboard than the old air I really don't think it's as hard to get used to as some people say but chances are you're never going to love it but that keyboard comes with the very best part of the MacBook Pros touch bar the fingerprint reader I've used one and a MacBook Pro for a long time and it's the best laptop fingerprint reader i've tried by far okay are you ready for the really difficult part of this conversation if there was one giant burning question about a new MacBook Air was what support situation you might want to sit down for this you already know without me even telling you we're in modern MacBook territory here so to paraphrase Henry Ford you can have any port you want the MacBook Air so long as it's USB see but hey you get to so I can be plugged into power and connect it to something else at the same time and they're both Thunderbolt 3 as well most of those super slim Windows laptops or USB see only now so it may be time to get on that boat if you're a holdout or invest in some dongles that's ok we can still pour out a little for our old friends USB a HDMI an SD card slot we'll miss you browse headphone jacks still there can't say that about most other Apple products these days so am I telling you to run out right now and buy new MacBook Air in a way I am because it frankly hits almost every mark on our years-long wish list but there is a catch remember the good old days of the $9.99 MacBook Air well the new walk in the door price is 1199 and that's kind of a blow to a generation raised on the concept of being able to get your first MacBook for under a grand it's even $100 less then the 12-inch MacBook or the 13-inch basic MacBook Pro so you're gonna have to do some features versus value mat to figure out which one is right for you the higher price may drive the MacBook Air out of its impulse purchase territory but at the same time I can't think of much that I would do differently in a top-to-bottom reboot that the most popular laptop of all time you