Ten years later and you get the same amount of storage. Apple can't afford the $10 to upgrade you to 256GB. I really hate what they have become. It's a long time since every student knew the Macbook Air was the best deal.
I got an MBA earlier this year at work and it works totally fine with 8 GB RAM. Office, email, browser, sysadmin stuff (ssh, shell scripts), a VM with Windows 10 for a couple of programs, lots of coding (usually with VS Code). No problem at all. And the SSD is blazingly fast. I actually was a bit wary at first, but then I was positively surprised by this thing. Love it now.
Many people don't need lots of storage, they're streaming everything and/or use the cloud or local file servers. Like it or hate it, but even in the base configuration it's a really nice and capable machine. Certainly not for number crunching, but otherwise it's a surprisingly convincing product. Well, at least that's my experience with using it since 6 months to get things done.
Confirming that ssh sessions to remote systems can be extremely memory intensive for the local terminal. Can eat hundreds of kilobytes of RAM at a time.
Yeah, funny. Are you saying that this thing is Ok for work but nothing else? Or what? Just tell me of your experiences instead of that, may be more useful.
I need this Windows VM for two business apps. Works totally frictionless and if either Windows or one of the apps get wrecked I just restore the machine and continue getting things done. Maybe a potato but it's a slick potato. Also it's really nice to switch between macOS and effing Windows with a four-finger swipe.
People like you bother me because you have no clue what you're talking about. I dislike apple and think their laptops are garbage, but 8gb of RAM is plenty. My laptop had 6gb of ram however I'm able to have 30 chrome tabs open, 3 word documents, 5 Excel documents open each with their multitude of sheets, and 4k YouTube running in the background. Maybe if you're working on rendering or making music then yeah it's not enough but that's like 0.01% of the population who uses these things.
To be fair, its most comparable competitor is the entry-level model Surface Laptop 2 (and Surface Pro), which also has the same RAM/storage at the same price point.
Of course, the Surface Laptop 2 runs a quad-core CPU and is still grossly overpriced...
It is actually $100 cheaper than this with 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD. What is dumb about the Surface Laptop 2 is going from 128GB to 256GB is a whopping $300 premium, which is enough to buy a decent 2TB PCIe NVMe SSD
yes it was, the second year model was very inexpensive, had 900p instead of 768p screen, slim, light, and ssd... was the best model for university students for a few years, took a few years to get the same thing with windows
They can afford the upgrade, it would just eat into their enormous margins on storage upgrades. Rather you pay 4-8x the retail cost of a bigger SSD just to have it installed at the factory.
Perhaps they're still using the ones you ordered last year, only they degraded. Or they don't want to charge them so much, so that they *don't* degrade.
To be fair, it's probably a i5-8210Y stuck at a cTDP Up of 7W. Sure, an Intel 8th gen U-series processor will be probably be quad core, but it's not going to be running at ~7W.
And most ultrabooks are stuck at 16:9 screen, or a crappy trackpad, or slow ssd, or no thunderbolt, or battery life goes to crap when all 4 cores are used, or etc.,etc. There's always a trade off with every product.
It is not bad machine, depending on how it compares - price-wise - with premium Windows ultrabooks. I'd personally stay away from 128GB... but 8GB of RAM, I fell, is still plenty for all the things I'd do on this machine.
Even my 4GB Surface Pro still does everything I need from such portable and compact format. My 8GB laptop at work rarely goes over 80% of memory usage, and we do use some memory hogs on a daily basis (such as ConnectWise with around 10 tabs opened all the time, more when required).
These are good little machines, but no word if the keyboard was fixed? I like the MBA and the Thinkpad X1 Yoga. I have an Extreme, and had the last XPS15. Also have the new Samsung 9 Pen. X1 Yoga is my favorite of the bunch, but the MBA makes its own case too.
That's pretty impressive that it makes its own case and very unlike Apple. I suppose that means it comes with a 3D printer unless it comes with 2 Vietnamese children on loan?
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Alistair - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
128GB PCIe SSD... *eyerollTen years later and you get the same amount of storage. Apple can't afford the $10 to upgrade you to 256GB. I really hate what they have become. It's a long time since every student knew the Macbook Air was the best deal.
DanNeely - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
It only has 8 gigs of ram. That means it's just an over glorified cat-tube player, a 128gb ssd is plenty for that role.uhuznaa - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
I got an MBA earlier this year at work and it works totally fine with 8 GB RAM. Office, email, browser, sysadmin stuff (ssh, shell scripts), a VM with Windows 10 for a couple of programs, lots of coding (usually with VS Code). No problem at all. And the SSD is blazingly fast. I actually was a bit wary at first, but then I was positively surprised by this thing. Love it now.Many people don't need lots of storage, they're streaming everything and/or use the cloud or local file servers. Like it or hate it, but even in the base configuration it's a really nice and capable machine. Certainly not for number crunching, but otherwise it's a surprisingly convincing product. Well, at least that's my experience with using it since 6 months to get things done.
PeachNCream - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Confirming that ssh sessions to remote systems can be extremely memory intensive for the local terminal. Can eat hundreds of kilobytes of RAM at a time.uhuznaa - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Yeah, funny. Are you saying that this thing is Ok for work but nothing else? Or what? Just tell me of your experiences instead of that, may be more useful.GreenReaper - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Fast-scrolling text (which is, after all, rendered locally as graphics) can cause serious CPU usage.coburn_c - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
A Windows VM with 128GB of storage and 8GB of ram? Potatoes gonna potato.uhuznaa - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
I need this Windows VM for two business apps. Works totally frictionless and if either Windows or one of the apps get wrecked I just restore the machine and continue getting things done. Maybe a potato but it's a slick potato. Also it's really nice to switch between macOS and effing Windows with a four-finger swipe.Shekels - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
People like you bother me because you have no clue what you're talking about. I dislike apple and think their laptops are garbage, but 8gb of RAM is plenty. My laptop had 6gb of ram however I'm able to have 30 chrome tabs open, 3 word documents, 5 Excel documents open each with their multitude of sheets, and 4k YouTube running in the background. Maybe if you're working on rendering or making music then yeah it's not enough but that's like 0.01% of the population who uses these things.ThePanos - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
yep you're totally right, 8gb RAM is absolutely fine in 90% of test cases. 128gb of SSD space, however, is totally unacceptable in 2019.Rookierookie - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
To be fair, its most comparable competitor is the entry-level model Surface Laptop 2 (and Surface Pro), which also has the same RAM/storage at the same price point.Of course, the Surface Laptop 2 runs a quad-core CPU and is still grossly overpriced...
quiksilvr - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
It is actually $100 cheaper than this with 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD. What is dumb about the Surface Laptop 2 is going from 128GB to 256GB is a whopping $300 premium, which is enough to buy a decent 2TB PCIe NVMe SSDfred666 - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
the MBA has never been the best deal. Especially not for money conscious students.Alistair - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
yes it was, the second year model was very inexpensive, had 900p instead of 768p screen, slim, light, and ssd... was the best model for university students for a few years, took a few years to get the same thing with windowsaakash_sin - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
True that!++ 12hrs battery and back-lit keyboard
just6979 - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
They can afford the upgrade, it would just eat into their enormous margins on storage upgrades. Rather you pay 4-8x the retail cost of a bigger SSD just to have it installed at the factory.olafgarten - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Why is the battery smaller?PeachNCream - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
That's so the 2020 model can use the 2018 model's battery and Apple can boast about better battery life than the 2019 model.GreenReaper - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Perhaps they're still using the ones you ordered last year, only they degraded. Or they don't want to charge them so much, so that they *don't* degrade.Devo2007 - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Still only dual-core when most Ultrabooks are using quad-core CPUs now.Yaldabaoth - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
To be fair, it's probably a i5-8210Y stuck at a cTDP Up of 7W. Sure, an Intel 8th gen U-series processor will be probably be quad core, but it's not going to be running at ~7W.id4andrei - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
To be fair? It was supposed to have a 15W CPU like the previous MBA. 7W is a compromise and they even jacked up the price.tipoo - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link
Hopefully there's enough overhead in here for those 9W Ice Lake quad cores. Though worst case they could just TDP-down itDug - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
And most ultrabooks are stuck at 16:9 screen, or a crappy trackpad, or slow ssd, or no thunderbolt, or battery life goes to crap when all 4 cores are used, or etc.,etc.There's always a trade off with every product.
boeush - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
But... that's a 16:10 display!What the hell? Has someone out there finally started to regain sanity? No way... hell must be freezing over
Dug - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
It's always been like that.tipoo - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link
Apple has long been the holdout keeping 16:10 displays.It seems to be catching on, the Ice Lake XPS 13 will also go to a 16:10.
nikon133 - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
It is not bad machine, depending on how it compares - price-wise - with premium Windows ultrabooks. I'd personally stay away from 128GB... but 8GB of RAM, I fell, is still plenty for all the things I'd do on this machine.Even my 4GB Surface Pro still does everything I need from such portable and compact format. My 8GB laptop at work rarely goes over 80% of memory usage, and we do use some memory hogs on a daily basis (such as ConnectWise with around 10 tabs opened all the time, more when required).
Hurn - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
I don't see a touch bar in the photo - maybe the "Apple’s Entry-Level 13-Inch MacBook Pro Gets Quad-Core CPU & Touch Bar" title needs editing?Hurn - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
Nevermind - clicked on wrong article. Operator error.jydvader - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
The displays are not DCI-P3. The 2019 version now have True Tone but I do not believe it gained DCI-P3. 2018 never had DCI-P3.Flying Aardvark - Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - link
These are good little machines, but no word if the keyboard was fixed? I like the MBA and the Thinkpad X1 Yoga. I have an Extreme, and had the last XPS15. Also have the new Samsung 9 Pen. X1 Yoga is my favorite of the bunch, but the MBA makes its own case too.smilingcrow - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
That's pretty impressive that it makes its own case and very unlike Apple.I suppose that means it comes with a 3D printer unless it comes with 2 Vietnamese children on loan?
thesloth - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
£200 for +128GB SSD upgrade....I see we're still well and truly in "Planet Apple"
peevee - Friday, July 12, 2019 - link
2 cores, LPDDR3 and 128GB of SSD for $1100+tax. Are they insane or... are their customers that stupid?Even phone CPUs are 8 cores and support LPDDR4X. At least it has 2 TB3s.
tmanini - Saturday, July 13, 2019 - link
you go ahead an put that 8-core phone processor in your laptop... and give an honest review of the performance in comparison. *sheesh*