This summer’s M2 MacBook Air is looking like a Donna Summer—as in hot hot hot.
We didn’t expect to find active cooling in this base model M2 Air, but we didn’t
find much of a passive cooling system either—not even a heat spreader?
But … I’m getting ahead of myself.
Even without the slimming wedge, the flashy new M2 Air is not only thinner than its predecessor
but also manages to pack in more ports—The glorious return of MagSafe, two Thunderbolt
3 ports, and a headphone jack.
It’s also got a clever trick up its sleeve, or... spine—speaker grilles!
No more perforated top case, the sound is pumped out between case and display.
And while they’re not the best speakers ever, Apple’s obsession with sound still
comes through, and they sound great.
Speaking of speakers, Creative Electron gives us our first look at their new placement and
they look—small?
We also get a glimpse at the keyboard—not super serviceable, but at least it’s not
as fragile as the Butterfly keyboard era.
It’s been oh… 14 years since this joke was relevant, but the Air has come a long
way, so let’s open it up.
Just four screws, but the same mildly terrifying tugging as the 14” MacBook and the lower
case free.
where’s the battery connector, hopefully not under the logic board…
Time to go digging under some brackets for likely targets.
Some frankly pint-sized screws and brackets later—hey that’s a neat trap door.
Turns out the battery socket was right here all along, using a tiny iPhone-like connector.
Battery safely disconnected, we start excavating the logic board, more brackets, more screws—some
of them hidden—and yeah a couple more fiddly bits, the logic board is free.
But it’s not much to look at ‘til we take the clip-on shield off.
Underneath we find a wealth of chips.
Highlights include The soldered 64-bit octa-core M2 itself, including
GPU A single soldered 256 GB NAND flash memory
chip, instead of two 128’s A likely Apple-made Thunderbolt 3 driver,
instead of the Intel chips of yesteryear.
A USI chip that is likely just Wi-Fi and Bluetooth And a little birdy also pointed out an accelerometer,
the Studio Display has one too, maybe to support stable video?
but the Air doesn’t have Center Stage, so if you’ve got ideas why Apple might put
an accelerometer in their new laptop, let us know.
We also find a lot of empty space.
The empty pad makes sense—it’s for the extra SSD chip we didn’t pay for—but,
where’s the heat spreader?
What’s with this big gap?
How does this thing cool down?
Sure it had a lot of thermal paste and graphite tape, and yeah the M2 is efficient, but this
shield is super thin so it’s not helping much—and the case is lighter than last year,
so?
Maybe the M2 Air is secretly an iPad or maybe Apple is just letting it run hot.
Before my brain overheats, let’s get to some hardware that makes sense: a few screws,
and some escape-artist washers, and the trackpad is free, and I’m free from its annoying
cable…
I’m sure you want to hear about these two, sorry four, speakers, but it’s gonna take
a lot of digging to get there.
Some obvious screws—the ones that secure them the case—and some that are buried under
these annoying hinge covers.
These help reinforce the hinge, which is a good thing, but wow they are no fun to remove.
While we’re up here, let’s grab that super thin audio board.
It’s adhered, but comes right up.
Even better—every single port: The endangered headphone jack,
Prodigal MagSafe charger, And both USB-C ports
are modular, and not glued down—we love to see it!
Finally, the TouchID button comes out through the top case with ease.
On to the battery!
With no markings it’s hard to tell, but this almost looks smaller than last year?
The four cells are held into the case with a combination of a metal tray with repair-friendly
screws, and stretch-release adhesive.
Not to brag but I got every strip out intact—granted these are a very slick horseshoe-shape which
means if one tab breaks, the other tab will extract all the remaining adhesive!
Stretch-release honestly just can’t be beat—except by these screws—ah, reusable fasteners my
old friends…
Like iPhones these days, the specs are on the back, giving us a rating of 52.6 Wh.
And while it has four separate units, it operates the top two in parallel, and the bottom two
in series making it technically a 3-cell battery.
When it’s all said and done, the Air still fits in a simple envelope.
The Mac has been headed in a positive direction these days, more, better ports, a better keyboard,
and a return to some more repairable ideas.
I don’t know if I trust a fanless, heatspreader-less, non-upgradable laptop—especially at this
base model spec.
But the shadow of the original Retina era seems to be passing.
Plus, Apple tells us we’ll get parts for this one, so check back in a few months, maybe
we’ll do a repair together!
Until next time, keep on fixing!