It is inexcusable what Apple did with the M2 MacBook Pro and the SSD choices they made
there. Quite rightly, this generated a lot of noise and some people… perhaps jumping
to the conclusion the M2 MacBook Air will have the same issue.
Causing the M2 MacBook Air to face CPU throttling, overheating and being generally slow.
But should you worry about this REALLY being the case on the M2 MacBook Air?
I made a couple of videos about this subject and a lot of you have asked me about why I
chose the potentially “doomed” configuration, and I hope I made that clear now but many
of you are still concerned about this because of all the noise and the sensational aspect
of it.
I don’t subscribe to that. I don’t think I need to say this, I am usually the last
person to defend anything that Apple does.
To be clear, my current position on Apple in general is..I think they are 100% profit
focus, they are misleading in their Marketing, as I’ve shown in my previous videos and
have a lot to answer for in what they did with that M2 MacBook Pro.
But… When it comes to MacBook Air. We simply have to wait until real tests come in. It’s
a huge jump to assume that it will suck as some of those bigger YouTube channels seem
to suggest.
Here is why I think it’s too early to condemn the M2 MacBook Air, especially in that 256GB
configuration.
1. The type of usage 2. The software aspect
3. People’s preference
1. With the type of usage, it’s always tricky to generalise but bear with me… A
lot of people who Apple are targeting this machine at are people like students or young
professionals who just want to get on with work and not have to worry about battery life.
They want to watch high quality content and be able to have a decent FaceTime call.
Maybe the occasional gaming or light photo and video editing. They are not going
to be running multiple Pro apps and processing dozens of RAW images. They may use things
like Adobe Photoshop and LightRoom but not to the extent that it would cause the M2 MacBook
Air to struggle, like rendering a 4K video at the same time or having 50-60 tabs open.
2. The software aspect is an important as well. I know it’s potentially a stretch
here. But it’s not impossible that some software updates might be required for
the M2 chip, in the MacBook Air configuration. Like I said, a stretch because it’s not that
different to the M1 architecture. But the fact it can’t cool itself alone should a
factor. The other factor is that SSD configuration. If Apple did take the same
approach as the M2 MacBook Pro and used a single NAND chip to save costs, would some
apps need to be updated to make sure they are aware of that single channel? I am
not a developer so I could be talking out of my backside on this one. If you are
a dev please let me know what you think.
3. And the third aspect, perhaps the most important. Is YOUR preference. Even
if your workload means you have to upgrade the M2 MacBook Air and you know damn well
that it will cost the same if not more than the 14” MacBook Pro. If your preference
is that form factor of the MacBook Air, than THAT to me… trumps everything else. No
one can tell you otherwise. As I said in my previous videos, the information online is
great and it helps you be informed but your case is very unique. So of course take all
the information you need but make the final decision based on what’s more important
to YOU!
A lot of you are also concerned about the throttling issues that have been seen on the
M2 MacBook Pro and sure, those things do happen under some crazy conditions like exporting
8K videos and I think I’ve said enough about that now.
But when it comes to the M2 MacBook Air, taking into account the reasons I just mentioned.
[Someone] has already seen based on some early benchmarks (you know how much I love those)
But they have some indication…
that on the throttling issue that was seen on the M2 MacBook Pro, it does not seem to
be an issue on the M2 MacBook Air. In fact, the Air performs a tiny bit better based on
those results.
Is that gonna be a perceptible difference? This where I come in! So make sure you are
subscribed because I will be USING this machine.
Not through benchmarks but actually putting some real work through it, using different
scenarios, trying to find the REAL limits of the M2 MacBook
Air.
I will leave a link to that benchmark video here but basically it doesn’t prove anything.
It shows positive signs but…
To make sure I am balanced here, those benchmarks to me anyway, always seem a little dubious.
Because they are quite often… testing one thing, in this case the CPU. Also in this
case it was only using Geekbench.
Which doesn’t really represent real usage. To make a machine throttle you have to put
it under some serious stress. Like getting the GPU and CPU to max out at the same time.
Repeatedly. Not just one run.
Running a benchmark test once and only testing one aspect, will tell you something…Sure!
But not enough about the real world usage.
Ultimately, as I said in my last two videos, if you are even slightly concerned that your
workflow may struggle on this machine.
Then you probably need more processing power and proper cooling in the first place. And
that’s just NOT the MacBook Air.
I’d say the MacBook Pro would be the better way to go for you.
Not long till I get mine now and I can’t wait to share my findings and do some proper
reviews for you…
I still think what Apple did with M2 MacBook Pro is proper shady and inexcusable but let’s
get the M2 MacBook Air first before assuming it’s a write off.
So yeah don’t let all the Apple hype and the usual YouTube scaremongering affect your
decision to much.
Get some practical examples like the ones I share in this playlist here for you.
And YouTube reckons you’re gonna like this other video I did over here.
Hope to see you there.