If you’re a fan of the modern incarnation of the pleasantly portable MacBook Air, you should head over to B&H Photo today and check out the gold 2018 256GB model that’s on sale for $1,049.99. That’s $250 down from the $1,299 it sold for at launch and the lowest price I know of.
Only the gold model is on sale for this price, but you can also get either the silver or space gray models if you don’t mind paying $1,099. B&H is also offering the 128GB model for as little as $899, but I wouldn’t recommend buying a MacBook with so little space.
Apple released an updated model for 2019, but the specs aren’t considerably different. Speaking of specs, here’s what you can expect:
- 1.6 GHz Intel Core i5 Dual-Core
- 13.3-inch 2560×1600 Retina IPS Display
- 8GB of onboard RAM
- 256GB SSD
- Integrated Intel UHD Graphics 617
Apple made a big deal about how it brought back “everyone’s favorite MacBook” when it introduced this model, while totally missing the fact that people loved the MacBook Air because of its comfortable scissor-switch keyboard, the glowing Mac logo, and its comparative wealth of ports. This model has little of that, but it’s not bad, either.
The keyboard is of the modern butterfly variety, but it’s protected by as membrane that makes it quieter to type on (and less prone to getting crumbs underneath). It doesn’t have a Touch Bar—which I consider a good thing—but it does have a little sensor for Touch ID in the upper right, which is helpful for logging into websites quickly.
You can read more about it in our review from last year, which still holds up. As we said at the time:
“If you’re familiar with the 12-inch MacBook, using the new MacBook Air makes it immediately obvious that this is a slightly updated and scaled-up version of that model, with the “Air” name attached. If you’ve been waiting for years for Apple to finally re-imagine the MacBook Air in a way that will once again revolutionize the thin-and-light laptop market, you’re going to be disappointed to find that it has only been brought up to the standards of other modern Mac laptops, with all the good and bad that goes with that.”
Author: Leif Johnson, Contributing Writer
Leif is a San Francisco-based tech journalist. He's a big fan of fantasy RPGs, and you can find his previous work on IGN, Rolling Stone, VICE, PC Gamer, Playboy, Mac|Life, TechRadar, and numerous other publications.