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M2 MacBook Air 2 Weeks Later - A User Review

14:21 video

The M2 MacBook Air is OK. It’s fine. It’s also very, very good if you’re coming from an Intel MacBook Air or almost any Intel-based MacBook. I’ve used the base model almost exclusively for two weeks for my day job and my YouTube workflow, and it kept up. If you don’t want to watch the whole video: it’s a very capable laptop for the regular user, who I think will be happy with it over the next few years.

Design

Apple brought its modern design language to the Air: like the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros, it has a flat top and bottom with slightly rounded bottom corners. Closed, it feels ridiculously light and compact, even next to the 14-inch Pro, yet rock solid. I’m excited to take it on a trip. I chose silver over Midnight: it’s neutral, clean, modern and classic, and being 40 now, I think it looks great. You also don’t see fingerprints.

Display and notch

The new 13.6-inch display is slightly bigger than the previous Air’s, only vertically (about 64 pixels), so it pushes the menu bar up more than it gives you working space. The bezels aren’t quite as thin as the 14-inch Pro’s but look nice and uniform. Apple says it reaches up to 500 nits vs. 400 on the M1 Air; I couldn’t really see a difference.

The notch holds an upgraded 1080p camera. In side-by-side tests with the previous Air I don’t see much difference; both just suck differently. As for the notch itself, like a phone notch or hole punch, you get used to it very quickly and it fades away in a day or two. It’s rare for a user to have so many menu bar items that one is obstructed.

Speakers, keyboard, ports

  • Speakers: a new 4-speaker system that sounds way better than the M1 Air’s, with more range, so hi-hats and bass lines are easier to hear, though maybe slightly less volume. They don’t touch the 14-inch Pro’s 6-speaker system but beat nearly any non-Mac laptop I’ve tried.
  • Keyboard and trackpad: the function row is now full height like the Pros’, and the trackpad is the same size as the 14-inch’s. I love Apple keyboards, and the consistent feel across devices. I prefer the dull thud of the Air’s click to the Pro’s higher-pitched sound.
  • Ports: still two Thunderbolt USB-C ports and a headphone jack, plus the return of MagSafe, which frees a port. I’m usually plugged into my CalDigit TS4 dock, so I don’t use MagSafe much, and when I travel I’d rather take one USB-C cable for the MacBook and iPad. There’s a one-external-display limit natively, which is fine for me.

Performance

This is the base model: 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 256 GB and 8 GB of memory. In regular work and personal use (15 to 20 Safari tabs, a few Brave tabs, Mail, Calendar, Notes and work apps) I didn’t feel slowdowns, but I did see a high amount of swap memory in Activity Monitor, meaning lots of SSD reads and writes because of limited physical memory.

For my video work, which is more intense than when the original M1 launched (multicam 4K 4:2:2 10-bit footage), the computer had issues. Most people won’t do that on an Air, but I think the fact that so much virtual memory is used for regular stuff means 8 GB is no longer acceptable as a baseline for a $1,200 computer.

The SSD is slower on the base model than on the M1 version, as the videos show. I didn’t notice it in regular use, but I understand people being annoyed that a newer, more expensive device has a slower component. Most people won’t care, and if you do, don’t buy it.

Apple says the M2 is up to 18% faster on CPU and 35% on GPU. Benchmarks show nice increases, but it didn’t translate to real-world use for me. I wiped my M1 Air, migrated from the M2 and used it for a day doing the same things, and it felt and responded the same: fine. The leap from Intel to Apple silicon was giant, so this is evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

Who should buy it?

At $1,200 it’s a hybrid between the M1 Air and the 14-inch MacBook Pro: the physical qualities of the 14-inch (MagSafe, design, bigger screen) with the performance of the M1 Air. I’d either go lower or higher:

  • You can get an M1 Air from the Apple refurb store for $850 with essentially the same performance, or an M1 Air with 16 GB and 512 GB for less than $1,200.
  • The M2 in that configuration is about $1,600, just $200 shy of a refurbished 14-inch MacBook Pro that’s better in almost every way, and sometimes cheaper new through the link in the description.
  • If you need more performance, get the 14-inch Pro. If you can’t afford it yet, get the M1, save more, then sell it and upgrade.

None of this matters if you’re like me and just want the newest, best-looking stuff; then get the M2 Air and upgrade the memory and storage. Overall, it’s a fine computer for most people. Does it have what you want, or are you holding out?

In this video

  • 0:00 Intro and Exterior Design
  • 2:33 Screen, Notch and Camera
  • 4:20 Speakers, Keyboard and Trackpad
  • 6:00 Ports
  • 7:03 Real-world Performance
  • 12:10 Can I recommend it?

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