I have read so many articles about the different types of connectors (USB-C and its various subtypes; Thunderbolt 2 and 3 and their various subtypes; and the various different cables that might be requires for each connector) that I'm afraid to even buy a new computer because I don't know which I should get. If only I had been an IT sysadmin for the last 30 years. Oh wait, I was.
It is a challenge to figure out which USB-C/Thunderbolt hub to get. Here is a link to several choices.
OK, honest question, and this seems like the right thread to pose it...
My Mac Mini mid-2010's days are numbered, because as an onstage live musician, I need a laptop, not a desktop. It needs to be able to run Logic/MainStage reliably (no onstage glitches), no more than 3-4 samples/zones simultaneously, and no CPU-hogging FX (most of that is outboard). I could give considerably less than a darn about graphics performance as discussed above.
Storage and RAM requirements are not at issue... my question is, what processor?
My lowly Core 2 Duo had no problems driving up to 32 automated channels for live shows, for up to 3 hours. But that was tech from a decade ago, and like everything else, the software and samples today seem to have grown larger/more sophisticated.
Studio pros automatically vote for the best i7 quad core or better... but there's the specter of budget. How much of a hit to Logic/MainStage performance would this new MBA be (dual i5)? What about an i5 MBP 13?
OK, honest question, and this seems like the right thread to pose it...
My Mac Mini mid-2010's days are numbered, because as an onstage live musician, I need a laptop, not a desktop. It needs to be able to run Logic/MainStage reliably (no onstage glitches), no more than 3-4 samples/zones simultaneously, and no CPU-hogging FX (most of that is outboard). I could give considerably less than a darn about graphics performance as discussed above.
Storage and RAM requirements are not at issue... my question is, what processor?
My lowly Core 2 Duo had no problems driving up to 32 automated channels for live shows, for up to 3 hours. But that was tech from a decade ago, and like everything else, the software and samples today seem to have grown larger/more sophisticated.
Studio pros automatically vote for the best i7 quad core or better... but there's the specter of budget. How much of a hit to Logic/MainStage performance would this new MBA be (dual i5)? What about an i5 MBP 13?
I own a MacBook, Mac Air, iMac, iPhone X, a couple of iPads & other assorted Mac products... I went to Apple today to test & review the new Mac Air & to be wowed... I was looking forward to seeing it & buying it... Unfortunately, in seeing in person, it was underwhelming, the screen didn't seem much bigger than the MacBook & felt too heavy like the old Mac Air & the pro like price stopped me dead in my tracks... One can find several well built Windows laptops whose hardware configuration are far superior to this new Mac Air... For the money & specs this Mac Air clearly missed being a "wow" Apple product... It clearly comes across feeling old even though it is "new"... My MacBook & Mac Air need not worry about being replaced any time soon... Sad, very sad...
Can you also point to reliable docks? Fancy USB-C is powerful, but so far very few accessories work reliably.
This is a problem - I went on the Apple Store to look for a Ethernet - USB C adapter and was struck by how poor the reviews were on not just the Ethernet adapter, but pretty much all of the usb c adapters. USB C/thunderbolt may be theoretically capable of doing everything, but actually getting an adapter that works appears to be an issue
Most of the complaints I've seen on Apple and Amazon seem to come from people having trouble distinguishing between USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt.
I have the Belkin ethernet adaptor, Apple Thunderbolt 3-to-2, a couple of the Apple C-to-A adaptors, and bunch of USB-C to whatever the device uses (B, micro-B, mini-B, Lightning) cables of various sorts, and all of them work perfectly.
The only let-down so far is a cheap 4-port hub that doesn't pass power for some reason (maybe it wasn't designed to -- it was really cheap -- or it might even be defective for all I know) but even that passes data just fine.
The only adapter I have so far is a USB A - USB C adapter that I got at Best Buy to read a security key for work, and it works fine. Looking at Apple's web site:
For some people they seemed to work great, but the number on one-star reviews is pretty damning.
The comments on those threads are interesting. Some aren't about the adapter at all, they're objecting to NEEDING an adapter (in other words, complaining about the absence of legacy ports on the Mac). Others are about the price, which is a valid complaint but doesn't say anything about how well it works.
I have the first two of the four you listed and they work fine for me.
The exception seems to be Apple's video adapter. Lots of comments from people who just plain can't get it to work. I haven't tried that one myself, as I bought a cheap alternative from Amazon. Mine works perfectly, though it did teach me an important lesson. The USB-C port on the adapter is not a data connection, it's there to power the computer. The one I bought does exactly what it was designed to do -- pass 45 watts to the computer. Unfortunately my 15" MaBook Pro wants twice that much to keep the battery charged while working. I bought it when I first got the machine and didn't think to check that spec. I know better now.
I haven't read through all the reviews - there are always a handful of 'it costs too much' or 'arrived damaged' reviews that don't really apply, but reading the first several ethernet adapter reviews I got "slow, slow, slow," "stopped working after 2 weeks," "Freezes my MacBook Pro," "Did not work," "Drains battery when plugged in" - seem like pretty legitimate complaints.
For the USB A-C adapter I saw "major latency issues with logic," Takes 15 attempts to plug in, doesn't fit in port," "Won't fit," (about 15 of these) "Hit and miss if it decides to work," "7 of 8 went bad in a year" "Doesn't work with anything I've tried" - again, these seem like legitimate beefs.
The sad thing is, most of this could have been avoided if Apple had included a single USB A port on the computer, but they were so focused on "USB C is the future" that they neglected to account for the fact that people need to live in the present.
I stand corrected. It's been a couple years since I looked at the threads. You're right, those are legitimate concerns. I don't know how to reconcile that with my own experience. Others must be holding them wrong.
OK, honest question, and this seems like the right thread to pose it...
My Mac Mini mid-2010's days are numbered, because as an onstage live musician, I need a laptop, not a desktop. It needs to be able to run Logic/MainStage reliably (no onstage glitches), no more than 3-4 samples/zones simultaneously, and no CPU-hogging FX (most of that is outboard). I could give considerably less than a darn about graphics performance as discussed above.
Storage and RAM requirements are not at issue... my question is, what processor?
My lowly Core 2 Duo had no problems driving up to 32 automated channels for live shows, for up to 3 hours. But that was tech from a decade ago, and like everything else, the software and samples today seem to have grown larger/more sophisticated.
Studio pros automatically vote for the best i7 quad core or better... but there's the specter of budget. How much of a hit to Logic/MainStage performance would this new MBA be (dual i5)? What about an i5 MBP 13?
My old 17" MacBook Pro died just weeks before the Touch Bar model was due to hit the shelves, so I picked up an Air to tide me over. I was surprised by how well it performed.
Thing is, that was an i7 while the new one only offers an i5. While I would have no problem recommending the old one for your application, I have no frame of reference to evaluate the new version. I suspect it will probably be fine, based on the benchmarks we're seeing for the lowly i3 in the mini, but I'd only be guessing.
Remember that you have a couple weeks to evaluate. You can buy one, try it out, and if it's not up to your expectations, return it and get a MacBook Pro.
Still a very weird strategy by Apple. Why not just ditch the current MacBooks and reintroduce the new MacBook Air as the MacBook? Now they have three laptops that overlap so much in price and features... The Air isn’t really positioned clearly. For $100 you have a better spec MacBook Pro (heavier but still very portable) and for about the same price you have a Macbook that has somewhat older specs but otherwise is pretty much the same concept as the Air. Why bother at all with the Air as a separate product line?
It has Thunderbolt 3 and T2 security chip => corporate market. Individuals may do better with the 13” noTB MBP without hardware security.
Oh sure, that is benefitial for the corporate market, but why do the MacBooks exist? It’s just a thunderbolt connector and the T2 chip that really differentiates the product, features that benefits the consumer market also.
Having just set up a brand new 2018 MacBook Air for my wife and tried using Migration Assistant from her previous model, I have to ask yet again (as this always happens and I always give it one more chance) WTF is wrong with Time Machine for restoration? I gave up after 5 hours and used Carbon Copy Cloner instead which took 15 minutes. Doing a restore from TM on a LAN simply should not be as slow as it is. I even tried using TM using a directly connected SSD drive using USB-C, same issue, it takes forever.
I have read so many articles about the different types of connectors (USB-C and its various subtypes; Thunderbolt 2 and 3 and their various subtypes; and the various different cables that might be requires for each connector) that I'm afraid to even buy a new computer because I don't know which I should get. If only I had been an IT sysadmin for the last 30 years. Oh wait, I was.
Amazon is your friend. I kind of had the same feelings and I have been over 40 years in the computer business. Then I found several amazing wee dongles that are very well made and ludicrously cheap. So cheap, in fact, I have several and leave the dongles where they are needed not with the MacBook Pro I bought myself recently. Plus I should mention these dongles come in a huge variety with different configurations festooned with ports. For example, I have one that connects an electric guitar, midi keyboard and external storage that stays on top of my keyboard. I simply put the MBP down on the keyboard and plug the dongle in, done. Same for several other setups around my office/playroom. One single thing to plug in and go and one to unplug and move elsewhere. It turns out this is far faster than my previous set up where I had all these things to plug in and unplug from my port infested earlier model MBP. Pure genius from Apple.
Having just set up a brand new 2018 MacBook Air for my wife and tried using Migration Assistant from her previous model, I have to ask yet again (as this always happens and I always give it one more chance) WTF is wrong with Time Machine for restoration? I gave up after 5 hours and used Carbon Copy Cloner instead which took 15 minutes. Doing a restore from TM on a LAN simply should not be as slow as it is. I even tried using TM using a directly connected SSD drive using USB-C, same issue, it takes forever.
I feel your pain. We recently reconfigured our home network and retired our old Time Machine setup. That meant starting over with full backups for each machine. I started with my laptop, which has about 750GB of stuff on it. When it hadn't finished after three days I gave up on Time Machine altogether. We're going back to manual backups to directly connected external drives.
One of the things I do a bit is transcoding video to H265. If you transcode with the HEVC hardware in the T2, what is the relative speed to using the CPU? It is basically the most compute intensive thing my 2013 iMac 27 does. Would the T2 be faster than 4-core or 6-core CPUs? Faster than QuickSync?
I have read so many articles about the different types of connectors (USB-C and its various subtypes; Thunderbolt 2 and 3 and their various subtypes; and the various different cables that might be requires for each connector) that I'm afraid to even buy a new computer because I don't know which I should get. If only I had been an IT sysadmin for the last 30 years. Oh wait, I was.
Amazon is your friend. I kind of had the same feelings and I have been over 40 years in the computer business. Then I found several amazing wee dongles that are very well made and ludicrously cheap. So cheap, in fact, I have several and leave the dongles where they are needed not with the MacBook Pro I bought myself recently. Plus I should mention these dongles come in a huge variety with different configurations festooned with ports. For example, I have one that connects an electric guitar, midi keyboard and external storage that stays on top of my keyboard. I simply put the MBP down on the keyboard and plug the dongle in, done. Same for several other setups around my office/playroom. One single thing to plug in and go and one to unplug and move elsewhere. It turns out this is far faster than my previous set up where I had all these things to plug in and unplug from my port infested earlier model MBP. Pure genius from Apple.
Same here. I have one for when I'm using Pro Tools that connects power to the computer, ethernet, connection to the audio interface, and the iLok, all on a single plug. For things like external drives, I just retired the old cables that had USB-A connectors on them and replaced them with ones that have a USB-C connector instead. Unlike my wife's older MacBook Pro, I never have to think about which port I plug into, nor do I ever find myself staring at an empty port of the wrong type when what I really need is one of a different type. All my ports are ALL types!
"If you opted for the MacBook with a Retina screen instead, you'd be getting a much less powerful machine, no Touch ID, and a single USB-C rather than dual Thunderbolt 3. However, it is smaller and cheaper than the Air."
Am I missing something? The new Air is cheaper than the MacBook is it not?
One of the things I do a bit is transcoding video to H265. If you transcode with the HEVC hardware in the T2, what is the relative speed to using the CPU? It is basically the most compute intensive thing my 2013 iMac 27 does. Would the T2 be faster than 4-core or 6-core CPUs? Faster than QuickSync?
I have similar questions. It's hard to compare, because the software you use has to specifically address the hardware. If it doesn't have the right hooks, the job winds up going to the CPU anyway, ignoring the accelerator chip.
I'm also having trouble determining how something like the T2 handles customized transcoding settings. Different kinds of material benefit from different settings. What looks best with clean, sharp animation is different than what looks best for dark, moody, cinematic stuff. Do accelerator chips support my custom settings, or do they simply come pre-programmed with a stock setting?
I don't know how we find answers to these questions.
"If you opted for the MacBook with a Retina screen instead, you'd be getting a much less powerful machine, no Touch ID, and a single USB-C rather than dual Thunderbolt 3. However, it is smaller and cheaper than the Air."
Am I missing something? The new Air is cheaper than the MacBook is it not?
You are correct. The rMBA is $100 cheaper than the Macbook.
Just got to play with one at the store… and surprised to find that I don't really like it at all.
I was using a 13" No-Touch-Bar Pro (aka "Macbook Escape") all day… the new Air doesn't way significantly less, and has a noticeably dimmer screen. The Macbook Escape is also significantly faster.
With the exception of Touch ID, I think the Escape is a much, much better computer. Apple should have done a better job of positioning it in the line-up two years ago.
What's the point in this device? It's WAY heavier than the 12". When you want a light device weight is super important - for that extra 500 grams all you get is 1 more port and 1" more screen and slightly faster CPU. Just not worth it - you'll feel that weight on your back every day - and this thing will just be less portable and usable / convenient to carry around and use any time you use it.
I've been using my very reliable 2012 Air happily for years. My wife treated me for my birthday yesterday to almost the exact same machine featured in this review (except silver with 256Gb storage). I am still pleased with my old faithful Air, which was the main driving force that changed me from a staunch Apple hater into one of its most loyal supporters 6 years ago. But, holy smoke do I ever love this machine! My brother-in-law has last year's Pro, and it is amazing, but for my needs this Air fits the bill. Saved a few bucks and I personally appreciate the Air's form factor. It's quite a bit slimmer, and noticeably lighter to me. The fingerprint reader and the screen just blew my mind compared to what I was used to, and I'm also pretty happy with the new keyboard. While in lecture at University I've found its keys are less obtrusive than the clicking of several classmates' laptops. So far I am extremely happy with my lovely new surprise gift, and am looking forward to hopefully several years' worth of use.
The two speakers of the Apple MacBook Air 2018 are located next to the keyboard and direct the sound towards the user. The maximum volume is not as high as on the MacBook 12, but the subjective audio performance is still very rich and powerful. There is even some bass and it is no problem to listen to some music or watch videos. Our measurements also confirm the good results and the overall performance is even ahead of the MacBook 12.
I'm not sure how they got this result. The spekaer on the new Air only got 75 dB compared to 83dB from a 12" MacBook.
The two speakers of the Apple MacBook Air 2018 are located next to the keyboard and direct the sound towards the user. The maximum volume is not as high as on the MacBook 12, but the subjective audio performance is still very rich and powerful. There is even some bass and it is no problem to listen to some music or watch videos. Our measurements also confirm the good results and the overall performance is even ahead of the MacBook 12.
I'm not sure how they got this result. The spekaer on the new Air only got 75 dB compared to 83dB from a 12" MacBook.
Nor I. Doesn't make a lot of sense. We maintain 80dB and 81dB respectively.
Comments
https://www.amazon.com/EUASOO-Thunderbolt-Ethernet-Charging-Chromebook/dp/B07GDHD3VC/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1541652997&sr=1-4&keywords=adapter+thunderbolt&dpID=41zmzMoQ3QL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch
Thing is, that was an i7 while the new one only offers an i5. While I would have no problem recommending the old one for your application, I have no frame of reference to evaluate the new version. I suspect it will probably be fine, based on the benchmarks we're seeing for the lowly i3 in the mini, but I'd only be guessing.
Remember that you have a couple weeks to evaluate. You can buy one, try it out, and if it's not up to your expectations, return it and get a MacBook Pro.
One of several I have: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B076KFDFYJ/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Same here. I have one for when I'm using Pro Tools that connects power to the computer, ethernet, connection to the audio interface, and the iLok, all on a single plug. For things like external drives, I just retired the old cables that had USB-A connectors on them and replaced them with ones that have a USB-C connector instead. Unlike my wife's older MacBook Pro, I never have to think about which port I plug into, nor do I ever find myself staring at an empty port of the wrong type when what I really need is one of a different type. All my ports are ALL types!
Am I missing something? The new Air is cheaper than the MacBook is it not?
I'm also having trouble determining how something like the T2 handles customized transcoding settings. Different kinds of material benefit from different settings. What looks best with clean, sharp animation is different than what looks best for dark, moody, cinematic stuff. Do accelerator chips support my custom settings, or do they simply come pre-programmed with a stock setting?
I don't know how we find answers to these questions.
I was using a 13" No-Touch-Bar Pro (aka "Macbook Escape") all day… the new Air doesn't way significantly less, and has a noticeably dimmer screen. The Macbook Escape is also significantly faster.
With the exception of Touch ID, I think the Escape is a much, much better computer. Apple should have done a better job of positioning it in the line-up two years ago.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Air-2018-i5-256-GB-Laptop-Review.357481.0.html
I'm not sure how they got this result. The spekaer on the new Air only got 75 dB compared to 83dB from a 12" MacBook.