macbook air 2018 review: apple's most popular mac gets an impactful upgrade

Apple has described MacBook Air with years of neglect leaving some intimidatingly large shoes for the new 2018 upgrade to fill.   With Intel UHD Graphics 617, MacBook Air can support one external display with 5120 x 2880 resolution at up to 60Hz or to two external displays with 4096 x 2304 resolution at up to 60Hz over Thunderbolt 3...   Our tested configuration has Core i5-8210Y at frequency of 1.6GHz, with 128GB of storage, and 8GB of RAM...   It now looks very much in line with the rest of Apple's lineup, between Retina MacBook and MacBook Pros...   they both looked solid, and we noticed at least one difference — Air does not get quite as bright.   Apple outlines Pros can reach up to 500 nits of brightness, while Airs only max out at 300.   Those are decent results for 7W Amber Lake Intel chipset, though not elevated over MacBook Air with 1.8GHz Broadwell Intel chip.   Apple's MacBook Airs used Intel chips with 15W thermal design power, ing some improvements..   you'd be getting much less powerful machine, no Touch ID, and USB-C rather than Thunderbolt 3.   On the other end of the scale, and it comes packed with two more Thunderbolt 3 ports and better performance..   Read more