The MacBook Air has been an iconic laptop design since Steve Jobs pulled it out of the Manila envelope in 2008. This year’s model, which Apple just announced at WWDC and also Apple’s first laptop to come with an M2 chip, leaves the famous wedge shape but also improves almost everything else for Air.
The wedge is gone!
The first thing you notice? Colors! The new design is 11mm thick and weighs 2.7 pounds, and although it is now a more traditional plate-shaped design, it comes in a very beautiful navy blue called “midnight” and light gold called “starlight”. in addition to the familiar silver and cosmic gray. They are not as colorful as, say, the new iMac, but the midnight color is a particularly cool dark option in the range.
The webcam of the new Air is already in the slot. Photo: David Pierce
The display is now 13.6 inches larger and closer to the edge of the lid, as the 1080p camera is hidden in a slot. On this smaller module, the slot looks a little bigger than on the MacBook Pro, but over time it seems likely to fade like any other slot on the display. The display is also able to reach 500 nits of brightness and supports a wide P3 color gamut for a billion colors, both nice improvements. We played around a bit with the camera and it looked great in Apple’s brightly lit practice area, but we’ll have to test the company’s claims for a 2-fold improvement in low light compared to the old Air when we get the review module.
The new Air recharges with MagSafe. Photo: David Pierce
Not much in terms of ports, but the notable addition is the MagSafe boot, which allows both Thunderbolt ports to remain available during boot. The audio jack supports high impedance headphones, which is nice. The full-size Touch ID button is also a nice addition, as it will be much harder to miss it when trying to turn on your computer.
It is slightly lighter and smaller than previous Airs, even with the larger screen. Photo: David Pierce
Of course, the biggest change in Air is inside the box, with the new M2 chip, which Apple says offers 1.4 times the performance of the M1 depending on the task, assuming you choose the one with an octa-core processor and a 10-core GPU. This is a $ 100 oversold compared to the standard M2, which has only eight GPU cores; the laptop also comes with only 8GB of standardized memory by default, with 16GB and 24GB configurations costing $ 200 and $ 400 more, respectively. During the exhibition, Apple said that the M2 MacBook Air offers 38 percent faster “video editing performance” and 20 percent faster “performance of image and effect filters”, but did not specify which applications it used for this indicator .
Apple also cites “18 hours” of battery life, but this number is for video playback with all radios off. I guess the M2 gets the same stellar all-day battery life as the M1 Air, but 18 hours is definitely not realistic.
Here is this two-port charger, which is not available with the base model. You get a matching color cable for your MacBook Air.
In addition to the matching MagSafe charging cables that come with each laptop, you can choose from up to three different chargers. We looked at the brand new dual port 35W USB-C charger above, and there is also a 67W USB-C fast charger, both of which are taller than the 30W charger that comes with the base model. You can get one of the upgrade chargers for an extra $ 20 with your purchase or choose one for free with the more expensive $ 1499 model.
Overall, the new Air definitely feels less like an iconic and unique device, and more like the rest of Apple’s range; this square shape and keyboard setting are remarkably similar to the iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard combination. But it’s still a good-looking, clean computer, and I have to say: the frame of my M1 Air suddenly looks gigantic.
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