This shows both the amazing progress of iPhone and disheartening progress of the Mac line simultaneously.
Would love a 16GB model.
For the last 4 years of me saying that, everyone and their brother, and the Apple reps all say "oh you can configure that on the site", because they have have access to the parallel darknet version of the Apple site where Macbook airs ship with 16gb RAM
I really like the air, but I can like the Macbook Pro its not really a big deal. JUST WISH THEY WOULD YA KNOW
The Macbook-with-no-suffix line is the implicit replacement for the Air anyway.
I wanted the 11'' MBA with retina and an updated CPU, not a bastardized laptop. I want to feel keys pressing.
All valid points, bar the trackpad. The force touch trackpad is a pleasure to use and I much prefer it to previous Apple trackpads (which are still excellent).
Performance wise I hear that both are comparable and you'll get similar battery life on both, but for me the Macbook_Raw barely crosses the line of "too minimalist". Though honestly, even a second USBC port would probably change my mind on it.
I also really like the feel of the 13" screen - it seems just right, but I suppose I could get used to the 12". Also don't really wanna go back to a Bluetooth Mouse again, but this is ultimately a minor quibble that I could get over pretty easily.
Expansion lives on the outside, tailored to the environment in which it resides, and the battery lasts long enough that I can spend most of my day without the power adapter connected.
That's because it is.
What's interesting however is that my 2011 Macbook Air still works like a champ. It has a 1.7 Ghz Intel i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM and a 128 GB SSD. And, amazingly enough, the battery still lasts for 3-4 hours, even after five years of heavy usage.
Macbook Pro is too heavy for me, and I don't like the lack of ports in the newer "Macbook" line, so I've held out. At this point the only thing I wish I had was a retina display, honestly.
Still perfect for me, I do casual video editing and some compositing in 1080p and rendering time is still great, I compile large programming projects and it is comparable to all the spiffy new macbook pros companies want to set me up with
I did replace the battery for around $100
It has all the right ports at the right speeds, multiple usb 3.0, sdxc card slot with sdxc speeds, thunderbolt at thunderbolt speeds
The user experience still beats out all the sub $1000 laptops because the target audience accepts a lot of compromises and their budget is $400 (okay, I haven't looked at the market, just see what I see. a lot of people switched to tablets)
So I just wish they'd release the 1 TB version with 16gb RAM
The macbook air 2012 is the machine I always wanted to exist for half a decade, and it is still great. Not the model before, or the model before that.