Hey friends, Andrew here, hope you're well.
Can you believe it has been almost 15 years since Steve Jobs pulled the original
Air out of an envelope? A lot has changed since that presentation when the Air was arguably more
looks than substance but now apple has ushered in a new generation of the air enter the Air M2
it sports a redesign and it's one of the first in the mac lineup to get the M2 chip treatment
outside the 13 inch MacBook Pro of course so here is my review on the new MacBook Air M2
after spending over a week with it since launch day and so as usual let's start with the negatives
and there's a few you should definitely consider carefully before you buy also if you like the
custom wallpaper that you see you can find it in the link below i personally think it looks amazing
with the midnight colored M2 Air so unlike the press models apple gifted to the creators before
launch day this one here is the base model i purchased out of pocket so specifically the 8 core
cpu gpu 8 gigabytes memory and 256 gigabyte ssd drive and there's a few drawbacks here i'll speak
later in this video about including performance throttling and the slower read write speeds of
the ssd i find the base model suits me pretty well and it should also be a great fit for casual users
students writers or business owners to name a few use cases but overall this is a MacBook that's
aimed for those who are on the go you probably already know that the new air comes with a new
airy price tag though yes that is a terrible pun this base model now starts at 1199 usd
200 more than the m1 model this is a considerable premium considering the fierce competition in the
ultra portables category and the new release of competitors like you know the Dell XPS 13 Plus but
i'm not sure i think it's fair that others are comparing the new air with the pro line of
macbooks but i can see why they are it is a full hundred dollars cheaper than the 13 inch m2 pro
and we're getting a better screen webcam mag safe 3 and a lighter thinner design on the air
but this doesn't necessarily mean you should jump to buy an air because for starters and possibly
the most disappointing thing about the new air is the significantly slower read write speeds
of the ssd this is something you should carefully consider before you buy this laptop and here's why
instead of using two nand flash drives working in unison the new m2 air and 13 inch pro use
single nand flash drives alone and because of this change the ssd read write speeds have almost
halved and i'm not sure why apple has done this it might be a cost cutting measure but it has
impacted the performance of the m2 air in almost every single test i run i'm getting a write speed
of about 1 600 megabytes per second and 1 400 megabytes per second read speed in comparison
to the 5 000 megabytes per second read and 5 700 megabytes per second write speed i get on my m1 14
inch macbook pro and that's across at least 10 separate tests at various times throughout the
week honestly though the read write speed on the error is still faster than what most people need
but slower ssd speeds does mean a slower and worse experience if you do things like export
large files you multitask you transfer large files consistently and you want to do some gaming apple
did respond to the verge and they said that the air uses and i quote new higher density
nand that delivers 256 gigabytes of storage using a single chip benchmarks might show a difference
in performance but these m2 based systems for real world activities are even faster and so
you know basically they're saying that yes the read write speeds are slower but the m2 processor
makes up for it good old apple i mean i guess they do have a point but it does feel a little like two
steps forward and one step back and i guess now is a good time to mention an app that will help
keep this new macbook airs ssd squeaky clean and that is clean my mac x today's sponsor it's an app
i download onto every new mac i get and for good reason it automatically cleans the unused system
junk and app files on my system and that's pretty important because junk files malware unused apps
it all adds up over time and prevents your storage from working at its peak and let's be serious we
don't want the read write speeds to be any slower than they need to be on the m2 air the best time
to get this app is frankly as soon as you get a new mac to keep it clutter free and performing
as it should be from day one if you click on this button here as you can see the app searches for
ways to quickly improve max performance and then once the scan is complete i'll click on run to
auto perform the recommended tasks like deleting system junk malware and flashing unused dns cache
so yeah definitely recommend clean my mac x as a must-have app on your new m2 air to prevent
it from being cluttered in the first place or to delete years of junk if you have an older mac you
can try out the app for free in the link below and test it out to see if it works for you too now the
other significant negative i've come across over on this m2 air over the last week is performance
throttling the underside of this laptop does get concerningly warm this is because this laptop
seems to have an overheating issue with its fanless design under heavy load so performance
is forced throttled to keep the temperatures under control so if performance is throttled
up to 25 percent apparently in some reports well then the n2 doesn't exactly have the chance to
flex its muscles to its full potential and this is reflected actually in the geekbench test that
i ran where it scored 7651 for the multi-core cpu test and 23011 for the gpu test so basically
depending on the external temperature and whether you're pushing your m2 air to its max
this laptop could be consistently held back against its full potential but luckily
the m2 air throttles less than the m1 air and to be completely fair too performance throttling is
pretty standard across most fanless tech these days besides this though the m2 is an absolute
powerhouse for what it is it doesn't stutter with my current workflow which includes light photo
editing video editing some light 3d rendering and having loads of miscellaneous applications and
tabs open i saw minimal difference using the air m2 compared to my 14 inch macbook pro m1
until though it came to the literally hundreds of tabs i had open or video editing 4k files in final
cut pro that's when the m2 error began to struggle to keep up and i ran to those uh performance
throttling issues so realistically unless you have a similar workflow to me the performance
in this laptop is going to be more than enough for you and should slice through tasks easily
like a hot knife on butter for years to come so those were the two elephants in the room but
there are actually still other negatives i think are important to go over the ports we get max a3
two usbc thunderbolt ports and a headphone jack which lets you plug in wide headphones or even
a microphone and that's about it i found myself seriously missing the sd card slots and it was a
reminder how useful it is on the macbook pro for photography and videography but hey it's an error
and again it may be an unfair comparison and besides if you're using cloud storage the lack
of ports isn't really going to be a major issue for you what may be more of a problem depending
on who you might ask is the midnight color unless you wash your hands with soap every 10 minutes or
you've bought the air m2 as a shelf prop never to be touched you're going to see fingerprints all
over its otherwise immaculate design i mean this is literally what it looks like going a single
day without a microfiber cloth if you're part ocd like me it's really going to get to you but if you
have the patience and care to wipe it down daily then you can't go wrong with this color because
boy is it a good looker i don't know are you also team dark mode let me know in the comments below
if you're going for the midnight color or if you think the fingerprints and smudges would
drive you crazy there's no denying the redesigned m2 air is a beautiful laptop gone is the tapered
shape of previous heirs and yet it is somehow even slimmer at .44 inches thin it's now more akin to
a miniature macbook pro than anything else with the signature boxier look with uniform thickness
some might miss the tapered wedge shape but i personally love the updated look the previous
macbook air word mark has been scrapped and the speakers are hidden underneath the screen rather
than off the side of the keyboard and of course the midnight color has a beautiful deep blue tinge
in certain lighting to complement its overall dark mode black look which is midnight it all adds up
to a premium minimalist look that appeals to me is undoubtedly modern looking and should age well the
new design is home to a larger 13.6 inch screen with smaller bezels with the very same notch
for the new 1080p webcam just like the pro lineup which is noticeably better on video calls than the
previous outdated 720p webcam we also get treated to a 2560 by 1664 liquid retina display but
promotion is missing here apple claims the display is 25 percent brighter than the previous air at
500 nits of brightness and it's more than fine for outdoor work and sunlight but it doesn't compare
with my 14 inch macbook pros 1000 nits hdr display but that said color reproduction is great and the
display is as sharp and bright as most people need it to be outside of video and photo editing
oh in a heads up the air m2 is still limited to a single external display of up to 6k resolution so
if you have a dual display setup or more you're going to need a macbook pro which allows you to
have up to four displays the m2 air truly shines when it comes to its portability and that's really
the main selling point here and a good reason to consider i think buying this laptop with the ultra
thin 0.44 inch build and its feather like weights under three pounds you've got a seriously portable
machine that is one of the best tech companions you can take on the go the battery life backs
this up too it generally gives 12 to 13 hours of output without a sweat and that's on typical
mixed usage of web browsing video watching music playing and some more intensive apps like blender
and figma pair the battery life with the 35 fast charger upgrade which juices the m2 air
up to 50 in only 30 minutes and you're basically good to go anywhere around the clock so if you
travel often whether you're a student you work remotely or you're even a travel blogger you'll
probably want to make the macbook air m2 your home but the usual million dollar question which is
is it worth it there are a lot of things going for it but there's a lot of things that aren't
exactly great here i think more than others are actually leading us to believe the slower ssd
speed is backwards the performance throttling is a shame and the higher price point is something to
also carefully consider but guys i think we should remember that this is an entry-level
mac the airline is apple's most affordable laptop and so when we stop comparing it to the pro lineup
and understand who this laptop is made for i think it suddenly becomes a very solid offer sure it's
not the cheapest macbook air the previous m1 model is still available on the apple store if
you're looking for the most affordable air but i think with the time that i've spent with it so far
this is truly the people's laptop this laptop is going to suit most people outside of prosumers
it's a laptop for uni students it's a laptop for travelers it's a laptop for small business
owners who aren't in the digital space per se if the read write speeds are going to bother you if
you want the absolute best in performance then we really should be looking elsewhere the air lineup
isn't for you as for me i'll be keeping this m2 air around and i'll be using it every time
i'm outside the home office but if you consider yourself a power user i'd argue that the m1 pro
lineup is still where you want to look at right now and place your money on and so i'll leave
my long term review up here for you if you made it this far into the video drop the code word comment
macbook oxygen just to confuse those who don't make it to the end of this video don't forget
to also like if you enjoyed this video and subscribe if you want to see more tech and
business content from me as always thank you for watching and i'll see you in the next video