To get the trademark look, feel and durability of MacBook cases, Apple previously had to mine high-purity aluminum ore. However, that's no longer the case. Apple designed a brand new custom alloy for these Mac cases; these machines now use fine shavings of excess aluminum from production processes. These offcuts are then re-engineered at the atomic level, which means that the entire case can be constructed from recycled aluminum.

So much marketing talk to just tell - it is third grade metal. And "re-engineered at the atomic level" bullshit for imbeciles just means melted.

Hey- who knew of such amazing engineering feats, it must mean NASA must have designed Budweiser beer cans "re-engineered at the atomic level"

From the Apple China Macbook Air 2018 User Guide:

Please note: The Macbook Air 2018 may melt and cause atomic reactions when attempting to watch any 4K video clips.

Apples new policy to drop OpenGL cold turkey may actually be more devistating than soldered in SSD’s and slow RAM... :-(

Info on CPU used

It'll use Intel Core i5-8210Y processor.

The Core i5-8210Y has base frequency of only 1.6 GHz and low max turbo frequency - 3.6 GHz.

TDP is only 7W.

Note that even previous Air had been based on U 15W processor.

It is expected that Air will be very low performance notebook.

Unless editing 10-bit compressed footage, any laptop with a 1050ti should be plenty for basic 4k editing. Obviously, things like noise reduction/compositing/etc will not be well-suited, but at least for basic playback/cutting together footage, most mid-range modern laptops are sufficient. You can definitely use them to assemble and then (if necessary) do the heavier stuff on a desktop (or you can do things like noise reduction on the laptop - just do it last and expect long render times).

What's the obsession with running on battery? Just because it's a laptop doesn't mean you have to run it on battery power. Many public places (coffee shops, restaurants, etc) have power outlets available and the laptop's charger brick isn't usually all that big.

Sorry, I think I was a bit harsh. But mainly because many years ago I loved editing on laptops, it was great and portable, and fun. Yes I would edit in coffee shops etc, and without AC. (Some places don’t have AC, and it’s not always possible to shift just for AC)

However currently a laptop with good battery life and decent computing power is just not there.

I would be ok with quickcharge over USBC, which can be used with a portable battery as well.

I have a similar one for my MixPre, love it.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the form factor of laptops. For email, text, web, programming they are great. But currently the difference between mobile and desktop feels like it’s never been greater, especially for video. The jump to 4K (even for 1080p deliverable to allow crop in) is 4x the pixels no matter what codec one uses, and that doesn’t scale well to a stagnating CPU sector. Problem is that to make CPUs more powerful now, more cores are added, which raises temps.

I would like to have fun with computing again, and laptops are a big part of that. It’s not fun currently, and I don’t see it getting better soon. 8K will really be a test for laptop editors. (Yes I know proxie editing is a thing, but proxies don’t help when one needs to check focus - denoise etc.)

Inside

Compare to very budget Xiaomi Air that has much better cooling and is all user serviceable

Apple's been decidedly mum on the reliability of its 2018 MacBook keyboards. From what we've seen, though, Apple is trying to fix the situation: leaked documents explain how the 3rd-gen keys have a membrane layer (the existence of which was confirmed in an iFixit teardown) under the keys would protect the switches from debris. But flaws, apparently, still linger.

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/2018-macbook-air-keyboard-concerns

2019 update