We have already translated the review of the new Apple MacBook Pro 13 2022 from The Verge. Now they have released material about the even more recent Macbook Air M2 (2022) . Reviewer Dan Seifert writes that this is a laptop with a new price and processor, an updated display and design. We translated the article and chose the most important thing from it.
After 14 years on the market, three revisions, and two processor architecture changes, the iconic wedge-shaped design of the MacBook Air is history. The new model received a completely new design with the same body thickness in front and behind. Almost everything has been updated in the laptop, and this is the biggest Macbook Air update for the entire period of its sales.
Such improvements are of great importance, because the Macbook Air is a laptop for millions of people. Plus, it’s now the new standard for all thin and light laptops from all manufacturers.
In addition to an updated design and other components, the 2022 Macbook Air features the latest in-house Apple M2 processor. All this has made the laptop more expensive than previous versions, so the minimum price tag now starts at $1,199 in the US, which is $200 more than last year’s starting price. If you want more memory, then you will have to take the version for $1499 and up. At the same time, Apple left the MacBook Air on the M1 chip in the official sale in order to enable people from the United States not to spend more than a thousand dollars on a new laptop.
The M1-powered MacBook Air was, and still is, one of the most impressive models we’ve ever tested. This is a high bar for anything else, so we’re wondering if the M2 chip version can outperform the previous version. Let’s just say that for the most part the answer is yes. But there are also many nuances that we would like to pay attention to below.
The new MacBook Air borrows a lot of its design and shape from the MacBook Pro 14 and 16, which debuted late last year. It’s symmetrical and boxy, with a more rugged design than previous MacBook Air models.
At the same time, it is surprisingly thin – just over 11 millimeters – and this is immediately noticeable when you open the lid. You can also see it when you put your laptop in your bag and take it with you. The previous model looked thinner thanks to its tapered shape, but the new laptop is actually thinner than its predecessor.
The laptop is also slightly lighter than the previous model (1.22 kg vs. 1.27 kg). And although the difference here is small, and the model itself is not the lightest laptop in the world, it is extremely portable and easy to carry around.
I have become a fan of this design. It is modern and fresh and also works well for the overall look of the model. Someone may miss the usual wedge-shaped shape, but I’m not one of those. The new MacBook Air is really beautiful, and its design will obviously change over the next five years and more, until Apple decides to update it again.
True, there are questions about the new color Midnight. Outwardly, it is magnificent, it has a deep blue-black hue that shimmers depending on the lighting. But as soon as you take it in your hands, there will be clearly visible fingerprints on the case that are difficult to remove. Apple is far from the only company facing this problem. But for me this is enough not to buy a new color. But on the silver-gold Starlight, fingerprints do not remain.
Despite being thinner and lighter in weight, the 2022 MacBook Air is less durable. The laptop has a rigid body, and the lid almost does not flex. But it can still be opened with one finger, and Apple is still the leader in build quality, fit and finish.
The Apple Macbook Air M2 is equipped with a MagSafe charging connector from the MacBook Pro 14 and 16. This allows you to charge your laptop without fear of tripping over the cable and knocking the laptop to the floor. There’s even a stylish braided wire in the box, something the more expensive Pro versions don’t have.
With the MagSafe port, users actually get an extra USB-C port that the old model didn’t have. Instead of using one port to charge your computer and the other to your peripherals, you can use both Thunderbolt-enabled ports to charge your accessories.
The base Macbook Air comes with a 30W power supply. But in more expensive versions of the laptop, there is a choice between a new compact 35W charger with two USB-C ports or a larger and more powerful 67W unit borrowed from the MacBook Pro line. This brick-like contraption charges your MacBook Air battery to 50% in 30 minutes.
But the laptop still has only two ports, and both are on the left side. It would be nice to have ports on the right as well. Especially the USB-A port, which is convenient for connecting many accessories. Instead, you will have to carry a USB hub with you.
The Apple Macbook Air M2 also only connects to one monitor. If you need to pair your laptop with two screens or more, then you need a 14-inch MacBook Pro. This model supports simultaneous connection to four monitors.
The 2022 Macbook Air borrows the keyboard from the 14-inch MacBook Pro. There’s a full-size feature set here with Touch ID and no questionably useful Touch Bar, which is inexplicably still available on the latest 13-inch MacBook Pro M2.
The keys have sufficient travel and are conveniently located. They are also much quieter than previous MacBooks with butterfly keyboards. If you’re planning to upgrade from an old MacBook with an Intel chip, then the new keyboard is one of the best upgrades you’ll definitely appreciate.
But the trackpad is not much different from older models, although it is slightly wider. Functionally, it works the same, with excellent scrolling and gesture support.
But the new Macbook Air has removed the speaker grilles on the case. They were placed between the keyboard and display, which gave the overall style of the laptop a neater look.
Apple Macbook Air M2 is equipped with a new speaker system. It consists of two tweeters and a pair of woofers, and also supports Apple Spatial Audio technology. Compared to the Macbook Air on the M1 chip, the new speakers deliver slightly more spacious and detailed sound. Especially at full volume. But they are inferior in bass to the speakers of 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro. However, the sound here is much better than many laptops from other manufacturers. The speakers sound great, good for video calls, watching TV shows and movies, listening to music, YouTube and more.
The last design element to pay attention to is branding. Compared to previous models, the Apple logo on the new Macbook Air is about 30 percent larger. This is not immediately noticeable, but if you put two models side by side, the difference is noticeable.
Along with the updated design, the laptop has a completely new display. The screen of the Macbook Air M2 is slightly larger than before – 13.6 inches versus 13.3. The frames around the screen have been made even thinner, and the corners have been rounded, which makes the design of the model more modern.
The new display is also brighter – Apple claims 500 nits versus 400 for the old one. The screen scored 434 in our tests, making it easy to use outdoors, especially in bright sunlight. The display scores well in color accuracy and reproduction, with 100% SRGB, 84% AdobeRGB and 95% P3 coverage.
But the brightness is not impressive. It’s worse than the Mini LED screens on more expensive MacBook Pro models. Black levels and overall sharpness can’t match these displays either. There is also no higher refresh rate for smooth page scrolling.
Still, the new screen is a marked improvement over its predecessor. And it’s better than the one on the 13-inch MacBook Pro. It is more convenient to work on it, especially if you look through documents a lot or sit in the browser.
Unfortunately, like the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, the new MacBook Air now has a display cutout. And, like on other models, this notch creates some problems in use. The new cutout is heavily covering the menu bar in Mac. Especially if you have a lot of apps there like I do. So I can’t access them. Better to tolerate a thicker top bezel than that annoying notch.
Fortunately, a 1080p webcam was placed inside this notch, as in more expensive laptops in the series. Pro. This is a significant improvement on the old 720p model. The image is sharper, it has more detail and better display of colors. And in general, the picture looks richer. Combined with three built-in microphones, the new camera is great for video calls.
Inside the 2022 Apple Macbook Air is the latest Apple M2 processor. It is also used in the 13″ MacBook Pro. The manufacturer claims that the new chip is 18% more powerful than the M1, and it also has 35% faster graphics.
The base model Macbook Air M2 received an eight-core processor and the same number of cores in the graphics chip. The laptop has a minimum of 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of SSD storage. The $1,499 version we tested comes with a 10-core GPU and 512GB of storage. In the maximum assembly, the laptop allows you to install 24 GB of RAM and 2 TB of SSD memory, which will cost $ 2,499.
All of these configuration options make the laptop noticeably more expensive than before. And users have a good reason not to buy the base version of the new Macbook Air. Like the standard 13-inch MacBook Pro M2, the 256GB SSD version has only one NAND chip. This significantly reduces the speed of the drive, which affects the overall performance of the laptop. If you don’t want your new Apple PC to stutter when copying large files or opening multiple apps, look only for the 512GB SSD version and above. And this is a minimum of 1499 dollars for the US market.
In our standard testing, the new M2 Air-based Macbook Air outperforms the M1-based model in all tests. Although the differences are minimal and most often not significant. At the same time, the new product is noticeably slower than the MacBook Pro M2. The Macbook Air M2 performed better in PugetBench than the M1 version. But these numbers are worse than the MacBook Pro on the M2 processor. What all this means is that the 2022 Macbook Air is great for regular workloads. At the same time, the laptop is silent, because it does not have active cooling, which prevents it from performing more complex tasks.
Despite poor performance in benchmarks compared to the MacBook Pro M2, the new Macbook Air didn’t give me any problems with day-to-day tasks. I opened dozens of tabs in multiple Chrome windows, switched between Slack windows, email, and other apps, chatted endlessly on Zoom, and played media in the background. I note that the laptop did not heat up either at the bottom or under the keyboard. Such a thin and light computer is ideal for a variety of tasks, including office work, web browsing, video calls, simple photo and video editing, series or movies, writing term papers, and so on.
If you use a laptop for the tasks described above, then it makes no sense for you to take the more powerful and expensive MacBook Pro M2. The new 2022 Macbook Air M2 will suffice. The model has a better screen, an updated webcam, MagSafe wireless charging, a thinner body and reduced weight. If you need to frequently edit photos and edit videos, work with bulky RAW files, and so on, then the new laptop is definitely not suitable for such tasks.
In battery testing, the Macbook Air M2 lasted the same as the M1-powered model, with eight to ten hours of actual use with the display at medium brightness, running Chrome, Slack, Zoom, and more. That’s not as impressive as the battery life of the 13-inch MacBook Pro M2, which remains the longest-running champ for computers of this size. If you’re upgrading from a MacBook Air to an Intel, you’ll be delighted with the battery life.
The new 2022 MacBook Air is better in almost every way. It has a cooler screen, a thinner and lighter chassis, upgraded speakers, a vastly improved webcam, a great keyboard and trackpad, easier charging, and some serious build quality.
But this success literally comes at a price, and the performance improvement compared to the M1-based model is not as noticeable as we would like. The novelty is the best choice for the vast majority of users compared to the 13-inch MacBook Pro M2. Although the Pro version has better performance and longer battery life. If the price of $1499 and above is high for you, then the best choice would be the MacBook Air on the M1 chip.
Rated by The Verge 9 points out of 10
Pros: Thinner and lighter design, significantly improved screen, upgraded webcam, improved battery life, great performance for most tasks, convenient MagSafe charging
Cons: high price tag, strong heat and performance drops under heavy loads, the base model is equipped with much slower memory, the notch on the screen sometimes gets in the way, the Midnight version shows fingerprints on the case, there are still few ports
