* Starting price of $1,199
* 13" display with trimmed bezels
* 2.75 lbs
* Higher resolution screen ("Over 4M pixels")
* HD front facing camera
* No Touch Bar (Yay!)
* No USB ports (Boo!)
Assuming it doesn't have any odd dust or logic board issues cropping up in the next couple months, I can see myself getting one of these.
No USB-A ports. There are still 2 USB ports, but they are Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports.
The cords I've begun to accumulate to work with a USB C computer have varying capabilities, to the point where I can't safely interchange them for fear of blowing past their tolerances accidentally.
I'm not so keen on this change.
The new “spare charger” is a 10kmAh battery pack which will have USB-C and some double as a way to jump start your car (assuming you still drive ICE). It’s also a worthwhile upgrade and much more useful than something that has you hunting for outlets at the airport, or god forbid, under your seat on a plane!
But a C D Reader? What is that? Is that like the radio that truckers used to use to talk to each other in the road?
Yes, like that in terms of: expect decades for complete migration as all benificial use cases for them have not yet been superceeded by technology sucessors.
On the device end (for hard drives and hubs) you'd generally have a type-B connector (don't think I've ever seen one with USB-A, but I haven't had that many external drives). Type-B got got a bulkier version for superspeed, it looks silly but for something that lives at your desk, who cares?
https://www.google.com/search?q=usb+3+type+b&tbm=isch
If you get a new computer with USB-C, you can replace a single cable with USB-C to USB-B to keep using the same hub and the same USB-A devices plugged into it at the same speed as before:
https://www.amazon.com/TNP-USB-C-USB-B-Cable-Black/dp/B011BG...
As I understand it, USB-C-to-USB-C (with USB 3.2) is the only connector combination supporting Gen 2×2, 20Gb/s mode (since it leverages the pins included to support flipping the connector; it's also the only combination to support Gen 1×2, but that's the same speed as Gen 2×1, so it's unclear why you'd do that.)
USB A (w/USB 3.1+) can support Gen 2×1 (SuperSpeed+) at 10Gb/s. USB B (w/USB 3.0+), AFAIK, only supports Gen 1 (SuperSpeed) (5Gb/s).
I have a USB-C drive enclosure, but looking at the specs it's only USB 3.1. Newegg doesn't even have 3.2 as an option when searching by external interface in their hard drive enclosures section. The day when you're actually losing anything by not having USB-C devices seems a ways off still.
USB-A had these problems back in 1998. It's early days for USB-C, but I think a few more hardware iterations and hopefully things will start settling down.
Right now USB-C controllers are too complex and expensive to fit in low-end devices (think $49 TV dongles).
this is not how USB-C works. you might end up with a cable that doesn't support high voltage, but it simply won't upgrade to a higher voltage and your device will charge slower or not at all.
I agree that it's frustrating that all USB-C cables aren't interchangeable, but to imply they're potentially unsafe is wrong. There was a bunch of out-of-spec cables on the market shortly after USB-C came into use with the nexus phones and the macbook pro, but that problem has almost entirely been solved, and is still a much smaller problem than cheap aftermarket USB-A charging bricks sold by the same sketchy vendors.
While driving a long distance, I noticed that I had failed to bring any way to charge my phone in the car, so I bought a USB-A to USB-C cable at a rest stop convenience store.
It served its immediate purpose of not leaving me lost with a dead battery. But it doesn't charge many other devices, and it only works when plugged in with the USB logo facing down.
I don't consider the problem of fake USB-C cables solved.
(I have no idea what brand it is, and the convenience store themselves probably bought whatever the cheapest counterfeit thing on Amazon was)
You do understand that you can have BOTH ports on the laptop right - see for example how Lenovo Thinkpad Carbon engineers manage to stuff usable ports on the same chasis size.
Because they're not just Type C ports, they're TB3 ports, Intel's stinginess with respect to PCIe lanes & TB3 controller integration means it's hard to put many of those in a machine especially on low-end CPUs, and I guess Apple prefers uniformising capabilities to an extent (even if performances can differ see e.g. the 13" MBP) to having multiple ports with the exact same connector but completely divergent capabilities.
AT > PS/2 > usb A > usb C
If I were you, I'd stick all that crap inside the massive schoolbus sized AT keyboard where you can't see it. There is probably plenty of room.
Hell, go ahead an integrate a USB hub too, then you can use the keyboard itself to adapt other legacy devices to usb C.
Given that the new iPad has type C I assume that's the future for iPhones as well.
or you can connect wirelessly.
You don't need a cable at all, because they connect over AirDrop.
Speaking for normal people, though, how often do they turn over their devices and peripherals?
When I bought my laptop over a year ago, I made sure it had USB-C/TB3 from a future-proofing perspective, but I have yet to actually buy any device that connects to it via USB-C, and I don't foresee myself buying many either. On the other hand, I still have a ton of older devices that are USB-A that I still use.
Even when it comes to USB keys, I still prefer USB-A, because it's more than likely that I'll need to connect it to a device that doesn't have USB-C.
I do have some mobile devices that charge by USB-C like my phone, but I still charge them off of USB-A power sources.
At least one USB-A port should be the minimum though.
Between no USB-A with Apple notebooks and no USB-C on the Surface Laptop I don't know whats worse...
No, USB-C ports are not 'USB' ports. Not as 'USB' ports have been for at least a decade and a half. Almost two.
USB 1.0 and USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 managed to all use the same connector, and not charge us out the ass for adapters to use the same hardware.
If you're not pissed about USB-C, or you somehow think that having a port you can no longer plug any of your previous devices into without a costly and non-bundled adapter is equivalent to having an actual, standard USB port, you probably simply haven't had to deal with dongle life.
We have an inside joke at my work where we literally call these ports 'not-USB'.
The fact that Apple's flagship phone and flagship computer can't connect out of the box without paying for an additional cable indicates blatantly how horrible this situation is. That they had the audacity to release phones only a month ago that were still incompatible after all this time almost makes me feel that they are intentionally messing with us.
No, they didn't.
USB 1.0 used A and B connectors
USB 2.0 added Mini A and Mini B
USB 2.0 Revised added the Micro A and Micro B connectors
USB 3.0 modified the A and B connectors, and the Micro A and Micro B connectors, and deprecated the Mini A and Mini B connectors.
USB 3.1 added the C connector.
USB 3.2 didn't mess with connectors, for once.
(And it's even a little more complicated if you talk about sockets, because then you need to talk about the Mini and Micro AB sockets, as well as sockets corresponding directly to each of the connectors.)
While it’s mildly inconvenient that none are bundled, USB-C ports are passively compatible with USB-A - I can purchase a 3-pack of adaptors on Amazon for £3.59.
In practice I’ve rarely found it an inconvenience. More often the problem is having to plug into a display in a conference room or whatever, which sometimes makes me miss the HDMI port that was built in to the older MacBook Pro.
As to "costly", a USB -> USBC hub can be had for around the same price as a regular hub on Amazon, starting around $4.99 and going up from there.
It's literally going to be the same CPU as in the current 12" Macbooks with a slightly relaxed power envelope which now begs the question why is the Macbook Air even a separate product? at this point it brings nothing to the table other than being slightly larger and slightly cheaper version of the Macbook.
This new MBA is the entry-level system. The 12" MB is an upgrade option if you value thin/light/battery life -- the new "executive laptop". The MBP is an upgrade option if you need power or screen space.
Is it? I was under the impression that these were different chips.
Macbook 12" 2017 = i7-7Y75 (top spec, cheaper ones are lower clocked i3/i5 Y)
Macbook Air 2018 = i7-8510Y (617 graphics supposedly faster)
Like it wouldn't surprise me if the whole i7-8510Y thing is literally Apple going to Intel and saying please increase the SKU of the same CPU you gave Google for the Slate so it would appear as like ours is faster on paper.
https://gfxbench.com/compare.jsp?benchmark=gfx50&&did1=64774...
The results are so close that they are both within the margin of error of each other and within the normal thermal/power constraints you have between two different mobile systems.
The challenge with mobile parts is that 25-30% performance delta's are not unheard of between two systems with identical parts on paper but very different thermal and power delivery solutions.
[1] https://www.apple.com/au/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air/silver-1.6...
https://ark.intel.com/products/189912/Intel-Core-i5-8210Y-Pr...
It’s still the same Amber Lake dies which are the same as KBLY.
Both are Dual Core, 4 Threads, 4MB Cache same Intel GT2 Graphics, there is literally not a single difference between them besides the SKU numbers.
But no, they'd rather try and sell people $20,000 Xeon Mac Pros with half the cores of an AMD Threadripper and like 4x the price.
While Ryzen has good power efficiency as far as power gating goes and power management it's still behind Intel considerably which we can see in actual usability batter tests it will take probably 2 more generations until AMD has the same power management capabilities as Intel does not only for the CPU but for the entire system since Intel has been developing the centralized power management since the Centrino platform.
It amazes me that notebook makers still advertise a 720p camera as being a feature. Are we never going to get anything more than 720p for webcams? Am I the only one who wants 4k video conferencing?
I'm still limping along on a 2012 Air. This could finally be the upgrade.
Keys don't stop working because of dust anymore..?
They mean the entire keys descends evenly even if you press the key near the edge, see: https://youtu.be/afNHG3jyPU4?t=265
The keyboard on my old 2016 MBP stopped functioning after 3 months: repeated characters, missing characters.
Who cares about stability!? Those keyboards don't work as keyboards!
The new keyboards cease functioning with dust particles.