Apple unveiled the new MacBook Air in October of 2018, it was a long needed update. However, the price of the laptop has put off a lot of people, it’s definitely over expensive and nothing justifies it(imo). The new MBA starts at $1199 whereas the previous generation started at $999 and Apple also increased the price of MacBook Pros starting 2016.
Nonetheless, the older generation MacBook Air is still a great machine for a lot of people. It’s weird that, Apple didn’t reduce the price of the old MacBook Air and still sells it for $999. However, if you need a Mac for writing, creating iOS & Mac apps or to learn Swift, MBA makes for a great first Mac machine.
New vs the old?
Amazon being good at offering worthy deals, sells the MacBook Air for $899 which is a complete $100 less. It’s still expensive for an old machine but hey, it’s the only cheapest MacBook you can get right now. I personally prefer Macs over Windows because they last long and the service Apple provides in unmatched by any other in the industry.
The non retina old MacBook Air that is being sold right now was last updated in 2017. So, its sports the Intel 2017 5th generation i5 processor coupled with 8GB of RAM. Also, the storage caps at 256GB, however, it’s preferable to go with 128GB and use an external hard drive. But if you can stretch, sure get the 256GB model if you are to store a lot of stuff locally.
MacBook Air or the Pro?
It sports a 1440×900 display which is sub 1080p, however, it’s perfectly fine unless you start comparing it with the Retina MacBooks. But the display on the Retina MacBooks is definitely much more easily readable in directly sunlight, however, the new MacBook Air has been reported to not very bright. So, if you need a good viewable display, go with the MacBook Pro.
To conclude, the old MacBook Air is still a great machine if you’d like to save some bucks. However, if you need more, go with the non touch bar MacBook Pros rather than the new Air.