Apple MacBook Air review: The best Mac for you
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Apple’s MacBook Air is its top-selling laptop, and it’s no wonder. The 13-inch notebook is slim, sleek, and just about one of the best computers you can buy. The company’s most recent iteration of the Air, however, had one key flaw: its keyboard.
The loud, clacking noise of the keys, and responsiveness issues that plagued the butterfly keyboard design, were a bear for Apple’s laptop line for some time, and even led to a proposed class action lawsuit.
But the new Air. My God. This notebook’s keyboard is buttery smooth and far quieter than anything Apple has put out in years, save for the 16-inch MacBook Pro that sports the same board.
Priced at $999, and available now, this MacBook Air is a return to form for Apple’s best all-around laptop.
No more clickity-clack
Apple’s (AAPL) laptops started experiencing issues with their keyboards in 2015 when the company introduced a new style of butterfly key to help make the firm’s computers thinner. But the keys were loud, and would often become unresponsive because of the new mechanism.
Apple offered keyboard replacements for impacted laptops, and tried to address the issue with subsequent updates, but it never was able to really fix the problem.
That changed when Apple released its 16-inch MacBook Pro with the new scissor-style keyboard last year. Now the Air is getting that same setup, and it is a godsend of a change.
I have a MacBook Pro with a butterfly keyboard, and I can attest to the issues many consumers have raised. My tab and directional keys frequently malfunction, forcing me to mash them to get them to respond. The keys also felt shallow, and were surprisingly loud when pressed.
The Air, so far, has none of those issues thanks to its new keyboard. I find typing worlds more comfortable. The keys haven’t gotten stuck, though I’ve only been using it for a week, and the sound has been, mercifully, reduced.
It sounds strange to go on about a keyboard so much considering we put so much stock into performance and display quality. But you use the keyboard constantly, and one that isn’t up to snuff can ruin your overall experience.
The Air’s keyboard is fantastic, though, and truly makes a major difference for the better.
What else is new?
Okay, so the MacBook Air has a vastly improved keyboard. What else is new? Well, there’s a 20% larger trackpad that makes navigating far easier and using multi-touch gestures more natural.
Perhaps most importantly, though, is the fact that the new Air gets Intel’s latest 10th-generation Core processors. The base model gets Intel’s Core i3 chip, but can be upgraded with i5 or i7 processors. That power boost is certainly welcome, too.