Internal hard disks, and especially SSDs, can quickly fill up when you’re banging out multiple versions of massive image files for clients, and even if you have plenty of room on your computer it still pays to have an external drive for backup purposes. Hi, I'm having problems with my hard drive filling up as I'm using the computer. I should have about 2.5GB free, but I don't. It seems that if I restart the computer, that 2.5GB frees up again, but as I use it it slowly fills itself up until I start getting warning messages about how full my harddrive is. It’s happened to all of us. We buy a new computer with a hard disk so big we’re convinced we could never fill it up. Six months or a year later, we wonder where all that free space went and we worry about having enough space for the next six months. The 9 Best External Hard Drives to Buy in 2018. Search the site GO. Guides & Tutorials. The 9 Best External Hard Drives to Buy in 2018 Back up your songs, photos and files with these external hard drives. Mac-friendly, super fast external hard drive that can handle plenty of bumps, dust, rain, and bounces, take a. Published on Mar 1, 2018 This Video is for the people who have noticed low space on their drives whether it is C or any other. The drive keeps filling up itself.

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The best external storage

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- Considerations before buying
- Hard drive vs SSD: which is best?
- The best external hard drives & SSDs

Welcome to our guide to the best external hard drives for Macs and PCs. Here, you'll find the very best devices that can quickly and easily expand the storage of your PC or Mac.

Getting the best external hard drive for your needs is essential, especially if you work in a creative industry where you regularly use or send large files – such as video editing. Rather than opening up your PC or Mac and installing a larger hard drive (which is particularly difficult with Mac devices), an external hard drive can be quickly and easily plugged into your device for extra storage space.

Of course, Cloud storage is another option, but that takes your work out of your hands, Picking something that's reliably safe and has lots of space, speed and value for money is your best bet.

First, let's go over the basics. An external hard drive or SSD (Solid State Drive) is a device that can plug into your machine, giving you an instant boost to storage space, without having to go down the road of pricey computer upgrades.

The other major plus is the portability of an SSD, take it with you and plug it into another device for instant file swapping – handy if you swap between PCs and Macs regularly.

Right now, our pick for best external hard drive for Mac and PC is the Western Digital My Passport 4TB. It offers the perfect balance of speed, reliability, portability and price. But there are many options out there – scroll down to see our full list of recommendations, and the best external hard drive prices too.

External hard drive storage considerations

There are a number of things to consider when looking for an external hard drive or SSD for your Mac or PC. First, is storage. You'll want to make sure you buy an external storage device that has enough capacity for your needs – without paying for high capacities you'll never use.

Around 500GB is a good sweet-spot for external storage, though you can buy smaller capacities, as well as larger ones at 1TB or greater.

Hard drive vs SSD: which is best?

Another consideration is whether to get an external storage device that uses a traditional hard drive, or one with an SSD. Usually, external hard drives with traditional drives are more affordable and come in larger capacities. There are external SSDs that come with large capacities – but these can be expensive.

SSDs are much faster than traditional hard drives, and because they don't have any mechanical or moving parts, they're generally more robust and smaller in physical size as well.

So, if you want to store huge amounts of data while keeping prices low, an external hard drive is the way to go. But if speed is your top priority – for example, if you move a lot of large files, or want to run programs off the drive – then choose an SSD.

External hard drive connections

The connection between the external hard drive and your Mac or PC is also important. The first generation rectangular USB-A ports are slowly being superseded by the newer, smaller reversible USB-C ports. These are now found on all modern PCs, and Macs.

Some high end PC and Macs, such as the new iMac and MacBook Pro, come with USB-C ports that support Thunderbolt 3. This is the fastest external storage connection there is, and it provides very fast data transfer speeds, though Thunderbolt storage is considerably more expensive than plain old USB. If you're in the market for a new laptop, don't miss our post on the best laptops for graphic design.

The best external hard drives: today's deals

Amazon Prime Day 2019 is officially over, but there are still some great deals to be had. It's often the case that you can find a total bargain on a slightly older/alternative models, and today is no exception. Here are the best external hard drive deals today..

Seagate 8TB External Hard Drive: £179.99 £154.99
Save £70: This brilliant deal sees a whopping 39% shaved off the retail price of this powerful Seagate 8TB external hard drive. Perfect for providing extra storage for your ever-growing collection of large files.

Seagate Backup Plus 4TB External Hard Drive: $119.99 $88
Save $31.99: Walmart has decided to get involved with all the Prime Day action too, running its own super sale alongside. As part of Walmart's event, you can currently get hold of this portable Seagate external hard drive for less than $90.

Best external hard drives and SSDs for Mac and PC

01. Western Digital My Passport 4TB

The overall best external hard drive for Mac or PC

Capacity: 4TB Interface: USB 3.0

When it comes to the best external hard drives, look no further than the Western Digital My Passport range. This is the latest model to have launched, coming in sizes from 1TB to 4TB. It features cloud storage and 256-AES encryption, along with WD's own backup software.

It also offers top data transfer speeds. And while it doesn't quite offer a similar speed to solid state drive devices, the Western Digital My Passport range hits a brilliant balance between high storage capacities and quick file transfers without knocking the price way up.

02. Samsung Portable SSD T5

The best high-speed external storage device

Capacity: 250GB - 2TB Interface: USB 3.1 (Gen 2)

The Samsung T5 SSD is a great performing storage device, reaching speeds up to 550 MB/sec, making the most of the USB 3.1 specification. It plugs directly into PCs and Macs with either a newer USB-C port or USB-A, is roughly the size of a matchbox and being a flash storage device, contains no moving parts, so can survive being dropped.

External SSDs may cost considerably more than hard disks, but the extra money and faster speeds go a long way. You’ll be able to easily load edit and save 4K video directly on the T5, which can be very slow with a USB hard disk, you can install applications onto it, or even run an entire alternative operating system off it at full speed, if you’re so inclined.

The downside is the pricing. SSDs give you less capacity for more money, so we don’t recommend the T5 for backup. It’s better to have a bigger hard disk for that and use the T5 in more specialised situations that need all that lovely performance

03. G-Technology G-RAID with Thunderbolt 3

The fastest and largest external hard drive for modern desktop Macs

Capacity: 8TB - 24TB Interface: Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1

G-Technology has long been a favourite of Mac creative professionals, and no small part of this is the clever use of silver aluminium that perfectly matches Apple’s iMac casing, keeping desktop areas with a uniform appearance.

The latest incarnation of its G-RAID dual hard disk Thunderbolt product isn’t just a start performer, capable of 440 MB/sec transfer rates in RAID 0, which is pretty incredible for hard disks, but it also gives you a few extras.

There's an HDMI 2.2 port on the back, which routes a video signal for an external display over the G-RAID’s Thunderbolt 3 cable, which has plenty of bandwidth to spare even with the hard disk going at full speed. It also has a USB-C port to connect to Macs or PCs that lack Thunderbolt.

Expect to pay a small fortune for the largest capacities, but thanks to the easy drive removal system, you could always buy a cheaper, lower capacity G-RAID and upgrade it with off-the-shelf hard disks yourself.

04. Buffalo MiniStation Thunderbolt

The most affordable Thunderbolt external hard drive

Capacity: 1TB, 2TB Interface: Thunderbolt, USB 3.0

If you want to make use of your Thunderbolt port, then this Buffalo MiniStation Thunderbolt is a great option, as it provides twice the speeds of standard USB 3.0 drives. It's also not especially expensive compared to other Thunderbolt drives. This is mainly down to the fact that it's a traditional hard drive, not an SSD, which means it's not quite as fast as it could be – though it will still give you an upgrade to your transfer speeds.

Helpfully, the Buffalo MiniStation Thunderbolt also comes with a USB 3.0 port for connecting to computers that don't have a Thunderbolt port.

05. LaCie Porsche Design Mobile Drive 4TB

Capacity: 4TB Interface: USB-C

The LaCie Porsche Design is one of the best external hard drives for Macs on sale today, and comes with both USB Type-C to Type-A and USB Type-C to Type-C connectors, making it a versatile way to expand the storage space of your Mac, regardless of what ports it has. This is also one of the most stylishly-designed external hard drives on this list, and it comes with a large 4TB capacity (with other sizes available as well), and it performs brilliantly.

06. Adata SD700 External SSD

The best cheap external SSD

Capacity: 256GB, 512GB or 1TB Interface: USB 3.0

The Adata SD700 will suit those looking for a rugged storage device that can provide ample capacity without costing too much. It performs superbly well and remains the only SSD we’ve seen that's IP68 rated.

Thanks to the solid state drive that resides in this external hard drive, it's a lot faster than external drives that use traditional spinning hard drives – so you're getting great transfer speeds as well as rugged protection.

It also comes in capacities up to 1TB, so you don't have to worry about missing out on storage space just because it uses an SSD. This Adata drive really does hit all the right notes.

07. WD My Book Duo

The best high capacity external drive for your Mac or PC

Capacity: 4TB - 20TB Interface: USB-C (Gen 1)

If you're looking for the absolute largest capacity external USB hard drive, then the WD My Book Duo Is the one to get, as it now goes all the way to 20TB.

If you don't mind sacrificing some of the ample storage space you can set the drives up in a RAID 1 array, so you have file backups of your files should one of the drives die. This is an excellent feature if you're going to use this device to back up irreplaceable data, such as your creative work, as it adds a level of protection in case things go wrong.

It provides two additional USB ports on the rear, so you can easily insert flash sticks. The device, which comes with two-year warranty, has 256-bit AES hardware encryption, and automatic backup software (WD SmartWare Pro).

It's also worth noting that the enclosure used is fully serviceable and that WD ships the drive already pre-formatted for Windows users (NTFS), so you'll want to reformat it to work with your Mac.

Read TechRadar's review here.

08. LaCie Rugged USB-C

This rugged design is great for storage on the move

Capacity: 1TB - 5TB Storage Type: Hard Disk Connector: Type-C Interface: USB 3.1

Lacie’s rugged hard disk series is instantly recognisable from its orange casing, which is a rubber enclosure that keeps the disk safe from even medium-height drops up to 1.2m, along with your precious data.

According to Lacie it can apparently withstand the pressure of a one-ton car, and is resistant to rain. Fleetwood mac tour 2018 schedule. That makes it a great choice for content creation when you’re out and about, whether you’re participating in daredevil sports, travelling the world, just a bit paranoid or simply clumsy.

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Verdict

The MacBook Air 2018 is a streamlined and powerful laptop brimming with up-to-date features.

Pros

• A classic design, refreshed for 2018
• Lightweight, premium-feel body
• Retina Display screen
• Pro features for a lower price

Key Specifications

• Review Price: £1199
• 13.3-inch high resolution screen (2560 x 1600)
• Touch ID fingerprint scanner for fast unlocking and secure purchases
• Butterfly-switched keycaps allows for a shallower keyboard
• T2 chip for added security features

What is the Apple MacBook Air 2018?

The new MacBook Air 2018 range has finally arrived. And by “finally” I mean Apple has given this much-loved laptop a proper update, instead of the iterative upgrades we’ve seen with the past few versions.

As well as rocking a Retina Display, which packs a resolution of 2560 x 1600 into a 13.3-inch panel, there’s the T2 security chip, which automatically encrypts your files and offers a secure boot option. That latter is likely to be mainly of interest to IT professionals, sysadmins or whoever buys the laptops for your company. But for everyday consumers, the T2 chip offers a level of security that, until now, has only been available toMacBook Pro 2018 and iMac Pro buyers – and, later this year, to anyone snapping up a Mac Mini 2018.

In terms of looks, the new MacBook Airs retain that classic wedge shape, which set the bar over ten years ago. Many laptops sport this look these days, but it’s Apple that can take much of the credit for that.

Compared to the 2017 MacBook Air lineup, this year’s models are about 10% thinner, with a smaller footprint. Apple says this has shaved just over a centimetre from the x and y-axis.

In addition, you get more up-to-date processors running the show and up to 16GB of RAM – a clear improvement on the 8GB maximum seen in the previous generation.

Related: Best MacBook

Apple MacBook Air 2018 – Design and features

The new MacBook Air is business as usual – but thinner, better, faster, smoother. Slimming down means it weighs just 1.25kg. That’s an impressive feat, considering the unibody case is an aluminium-heavy alloy, instead of the lighter and flexier magnesium-based material seen on competing devices, such as the 1kg LG Gram.

In the days I’ve spent lugging the MacBook Air around, there have been times I’ve barely noticed it’s there. Although prior to this, I’d been using the very chunky, 2.4kg Asus ROG GL504 Hero II gaming laptop as my daily driver, so that may be part of the reason for that. The only downside to the slim design is that the port lineup consists of just two USB-C ports, both supporting the Thunderbolt 3 standard.

The use of Thunderbolt at least means you can benefit from video passthrough (using the DisplayPort 1.2 video standard) data rates of up to 40Gbps, for example, and the ability to daisy-chain. As a result, you can set up the MacBook Air as the nexus of a powerful home studio with the right cables and peripherals.

Right out of the box, however, you’re limited. Note that most of the time, one of those USB-C ports will be taken up by the mains adapter, so in essence you have only one USB-C port at your disposal.

There are a greater number of peripherals these days supporting the Thunderbolt standard, which is a good thing, but that’s only a benefit if you have a sizeable monitor with lots of extra connections, or a dock that you had to buy to use with a previous MacBook. Not to mention a budget/credit rating ample enough to accommodate the extra expense.

As with theMacBook Pro 2018, Apple doesn’t even include a USB-C to Ethernet adapter – a freebie that most other laptop manufacturers are happy to throw in with their high-end models.

Connectivity aside, the design remains impressive. Apple says that this generation of MacBook Airs is the first to feature a case that’s made entirely from recycled metal. Apparently, it’s formed from the shavings that remain of the blocks of metal from which other MacBooks have been machine milled. These shavings are simply gathered up and re-smelted, instead of using material that’s been mined, extracted and smelted from bauxite.

The company claims the 2018 MacBook Airs are the greenest laptops yet, and this step is being taken as part of a wider drive to reduce the entire company’s carbon footprint by 50%. The cases of the new Mac Minis will also be fashioned in the same way.

While I haven’t analysed Apple’s entire supply and manufacturing chain, or enquired as to whether or not that 50% figure includes manufacturing partners (and neither is this review really the place for that kind of analysis), we can all appreciate the fact that leftover materials that would otherwise be sold on are being repurposed. I also quite like the idea that the MacBook Air I’ve been holding in my hands might have once began life as a MacBook Pro, or maybe even an iPad Pro.

Bookending the keyboard are two sets of speaker grilles. Apple boasts that the speaker system is the most powerful ever seen on a MacBook Air, offering a wonderfully wide sound stage thanks to the inclusion of two new bass units (one on each side, natch).

I don’t have access to any sound level meters or data taken from previous-gen MacBook Air reviews in order to verify this, but having listened to music and watched TV shows on many laptops, I can affirm that the audio quality is generally very good, with lots of spatial separation between instruments and stereo panning.

Listening to the Broadway cast recording of Hamilton on Spotify was particularly pleasing. The crack of the snare drum on “My Shot”, for example, cut right through the swelling strings, brass, lead and backing vocals like a knife. The low end on the likes of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets”, and Rage’s “Bullet in the Head” sounded nice and bouncy. High-end noise, however, of the type that featured in Igorrr’s ‘Infinite Loop’ sounded a little tinny at full volume.

That said, the speakers on the MacBook Air are definitely a cut above what I’ve heard on most other laptops.

Apple MacBook Air 2018 – Keyboard and trackpad

The MacBook Air 2018 comes with the same third-generation butterfly-switch keyboard that we first saw on the MacBook Pro 2018 – and it’s something of an opinion divider.

Personally, I’ve grown to it. But there’s no denying that the keycaps have incredibly shallow travel. This, coupled with the fact the MacBook Air will typically lie flat on your desk (it isn’t angled up towards your hands, like, say, the keyboard dock of the Microsoft Surface Pro 6), does make for an odd sensation.

If you’re coming from a non-butterfly switch model then it will take you some time to get used to the MacBook Air 2018’s keyboard. I can normally comfortably cruise at around 80 words a minute on Type Racer, but I was dropping typos all over the place with the MacBook at first.

Despite my initial fumbling, I like the keyboard layout. Nothing feels too cramped and, with the exception of the up and down arrow keys, most of the keycaps are generously sized.

The trackpad is also very smooth and whip-smart, so much so that I’ve actually had to dial down its responsiveness in the settings. I had to do that with the MacBook Pro, too, mind. Thankfully, and unlike the MacBook Pro, I haven’t encountered any flexing.

Force Touch, a setting that lets you tap gently on the trackpad instead of clicking down, is turned on by default. Personally, I’m not a fan, as I find that it’s easy to mistakenly click on links when browsing the web. It’s easy to switch off, however. Clicking sensitivity can also be easily configured from the same settings menu, so whether you use Force Touch or not, you should be able to fine-tune this.

Touch ID is another great addition. The MacBook Air’s power key features a built-in fingerprint scanner that lets you quickly unlock the laptop if it’s in sleep mode. The feature is optional – you can choose to lock the MacBook Air with a PIN or password, if you wish – but I found it to be as fast and convenient as it was on the MacBook Pro 2018.

If you’re paranoid about Apple sneakily storing your fingerprint data on a remote server and a digital copy being stolen by hackers, you needn’t worry. All of your biometric data is stored directly on the T2 security chip; when you reset the laptop to factory settings, it will be erased.

While I don’t tend to buy many things off iTunes, I did like that I was able to buy stuff with the tap of my index finger, instead of having to enter my incredibly long and difficult-to-guess Apple password every time.

Related: Best laptop 2019

Apple MacBook Air 2018 – Display

The MacBook Air’s screen measures 13.3-inches diagonally and crams 2560 x 1600 pixels into that space. This gives you a pixels per inch (ppi) count of 226.9.

Everything looks pin sharp, whether that’s photos, video, web pages – even the serifs on typed text look the business.

Using an X-Rite i1 Display Pro colorimeter and DisplayCAL software, I recorded 304.48 nits of maximum brightness. With the screen cranked all the way up, I recorded black levels of 0.6 nits. Both results give us a contrast ratio of 501:1. These results are about the standard of what you should expect from a product line that starts at just over a grand.

A figure of 300 nits is absolutely fine for working and watching movies, but it might be a little dark for anyone wanting to do some photo editing. By contrast, the MacBook Pro 2018 I tested earlier in the year gave me an extremely high 514 nits of peak brightness.

Colour gamut coverage is in line with what I’d expect from a premium device. The MacBook Air’s screen hit 93.3% of the sRGB colour space, which is what most people will use/notice. This means web pages and any content you’re working on will look rich and vibrant. It’s a cliché to say that colours “pop” on laptop displays, but they really do on the MacBook Air’s screen.

Coverage of the Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 gamuts favoured by digital photographers was less impressive. Generally, anything scoring 80% or above in these spaces will be serviceable, but I got 68.2% and 70.8% respectively. If you primarily want a device for creative work, you ought to be looking at the MacBook Pros anyway.

All the same, here’s how the MacBook Air’s screen compares to similarly priced and specced rivals in terms of colour space coverage:

In summary, the Apple MacBook Air’s display is excellent. It isn’t quite as good as that of the 13-inch MacBook Pro, which also benefits from Apple’s True Tone software – but again, the Pro’s screen is best-in-class.

Related: Best student laptop

Apple MacBook Air 2018 – Performance

In this section I’ve added benchmark results from the LG Gram and Microsoft Surface Pro 6, as well as the 13-inch MacBook Pro 2018, to provide an idea of how this compares to Windows 10 devices in a similar price range, and to the more powerful Pro.

For general work performance, the MacBook Air 2018 is a solid performer. The disk read and write speeds of the MacBook Air I recorded were excellent, suggesting that saving your work, launching projects and apps will be super-quick.

This bore out in my personal experience, with Spotify, iTunes, Chrome and pretty much any application I launched literally leaping into action.

Despite the MacBook Airs not really being suited for high-end gaming or video editing, I ran Cinebench to better gauge its CPU and GPU performance, along with Geekbench 4, a CPU stress test.

Editor’s Note: Disk read and write speeds for Windows 10 devices are currently calculated with CrystalDiskMark, which isn’t available for macOS. For macOS devices, we use Blackmagic.

While these numbers aren’t totally reflective of the MacBook Air’s overall performance, they should at least provide an idea of how it will handle everyday tasks compared to key rivals.

For everyday work, the MacBook Air is powerful enough, but don’t expect it to do anything graphically intensive (such as edit video or play 4K games).

The MacBook Air I tested is powered by a dual-core Intel Core i5-8210Y, which has a base clock speed of 1.6GHz; both the LG Gram andMicrosoft Surface Pro 6 have quad-core i5-8250Us with the same base clock.

Therefore it isn’t surprising that the multi-core results of these laptops beat that of the MacBook Air – but, interestingly, the single-core score of the Apple laptop was slightly better.

Both CPUs are 8th-gen i5 U-series processors, and U-series processors typically perform a little better than Y-series equivalents. On the flipside, Y-series chips are less thirsty, which I think goes some way to explaining the reason the MacBook Air’s battery performance is so good.

This is despite the new MacBook Airs using DDR3 RAM. DDR3 memory is slower and more power-hungry than what you’ll find in the top-end versions of the MacBook Pro, which have DDR4 RAM. The same will be true for any laptop equipped with DDR4 RAM, for that matter (the LG Gram 14Z980, for example).

Apple MacBook Air 2018 – Battery life

Being unable to run an equivalent to Powermark – a program that simulates typical laptop use (Trusted Reviews uses Powermark to loop 10 minutes of simulated web browsing with five minutes of video streaming in laptop reviews) – makes it difficult to assess how well the MacBook Air’s battery compares with rivals.

What I can say, based on the real-world tests I performed, is that you should expect to get around 9-10 hours of power most of the time.

While working, I’d typically get through a standard nine-hour working day – tasks included writing articles, sending emails, creating playlists on Spotify and streaming them via Bluetooth to the office speaker – with around 10% of power left in the tank. This was with screen brightness set to 150 nits.

Keeping the screen brightness at 150 nits and setting the speaker volume to 50%, I used QuickTime to loop a 2min 30sec-long 4K video clip saved to the hard drive. The laptop achieved 9hrs 7mins worth of playback time.

I ran the same test with the 13-inch MacBook Pro 2018 (the quad-core Intel i7-8559U version), which gave 7hrs 33mins of local playback time.

Elsewhere, the device managed 10 hours of iPlayer action (all of Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema and BBC Two’s Civilisations, FYI), all streamed in Full HD. The battery was at 2% as the credits rolled here.

Does Apple’s claim of being able to offer 13 hours of video playback time stand up? The small print on Apple’s site says that it calculated that figure by looping a Full HD iTunes movie with the screen set to “12 clicks from the bottom, or 75% [brightness]”.

For reference, I reached 150 nits by turning the MacBook Air’s screen down to approximately 50%. Apple doesn’t explicitly mention whether or not Wi-Fi or Bluetooth was turned off in its test, or the volume level the device was set to either. Assuming that all the radios are off and the speakers aren’t blasting at full volume, I’d say that you’d probably get 13 hours of playback time, at a stretch.

Based on my own experiences, a more realistic expectation for battery performance – whether you’re working or streaming media – would be around 9-10 hours, which is excellent. Anecdotal figures for the Surface Pro 6 and LG Gram were 7-8 hours and 12 hours respectively.

In terms of charging, it doesn’t take long for an empty MacBook Air to be filled all the way back up using the supplied mains adapter. I hit around 10-12% after 15 minutes on the mains, and 25-28% after half an hour. After 60 minutes, I’d typically hit around 40%. It took me around 2hrs 30mins to get back up to 100%.

Related:Best Intel processor

Apple MacBook Air 2018 – Specifications

Here’s how the specs for the MacBook Air 2018 range compare. The model sent for review has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, 250.69GB of which is user-available out of the box.

Here’s a rundown of the MacBook Air 2018 range with pricing options and a full list of specifications:

• 8GB RAM, 128GB storage – £1199
• 16GB RAM, 128GB storage – £1379
• 8GB RAM, 256GB storage – £1399 (tested)
• 16GB RAM, 256GB storage – £1579
• 8GB RAM, 512GB storage – £1599
• 16GB RAM, 512GB storage – £1779
• 8GB RAM, 1.5TB storage – £2399
• 16GB RAM, 1.5TB storage – £2579

Why buy the MacBook Air 2018?

If you’ve been waiting patiently for an upgrade to the MacBook Air, then it’s no contest – this is a significant update that hugely improves on the softly-softly iterations we’ve seen over the past few years. The chunky bezels and low-res screens are gone, replaced by a much slimmer, smoother machine with a high-resolution Retina Display panel.

In many ways, the MacBook Air 2018 represents a less expensive way to get a semblance of the MacBook Pro experience. There are a lot of shared key features: the Retina Display resolution, extra security thanks to the T2 chip, Touch ID for easy and more secure unlocking, ports supporting the Thunderbolt 3 standard and third-gen butterfly switched keys.

If you want a powerful Apple laptop that’s primarily for working, but maybe you can’t justify the cost of shelling out for a MacBook Pro – or, you’re not a creative so you don’t need that extra power – then the MacBook Air 2018 is the device to consider.

Hard Drive Filling Up Quickly

However, there’s no getting away from the fact that, as great as the Thunderbolt standard is, you get just two ports here. That’s a real limitation, one that you can arguably sidestep if you buy the right dongles.

Consider that theLG Gram is a slim Ultrabook with plenty of connectivity options, though, and casual buyers who aren’t into the Apple ecosystem might be better served by one of these instead.

Also note that at the higher end of the MacBook Air pricing spectrum, you begin to stray into MacBook Pro territory too. A MacBook Air 2018 with 16GB of RAM and 1.5TB of storage will set you back £2579, while a 13-inch MacBook Pro 2018 with the same memory, slightly less internal storage at 1TB, but with a better processor and more powerful screen, will actually cost you a little bit less at £2529.

Verdict

The MacBook Air 2018 is a streamlined and powerful laptop brimming with up-to-date features.

Hard Drive Filling Up For No Reason

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