- Apple has an all new MacBook Air
that'll be dropping tomorrow.
And I've been using this Midnight colored version
for a week straight, as my main laptop.
Now there is a lot to talk about here
so let's jump right in, starting with the unboxing.
The MacBook Air arrived in this cardboard box
with brown tape on one side,
and that was my first mistake.
I used this knife to cut through the tape
and when I opened it up, it turned out
that I also cut into the box itself.
Now I know when it comes to Apple products,
you wanna keep those boxes in pristine condition,
so don't be like me.
On the inside of the box, you'll find the MacBook Air
right on top, and setting that aside
you also have the 35 watt dual USBC charger.
So you can use this to charge up the MacBook Air
and it also has an extra port you can use
to charge another device at the same time,
without having to use one of the ports
on the Air itself to do so.
There's also an optional 67 watt USBC power adapter
that enables fast charging,
giving you 50% charge in 30 minutes
and that's honestly the one I personally choose
over the 35 watt dual port charger myself.
If you bump up from the base model MacBook Air,
they give you a choice of which charger you want,
if you want fast charging, go with that 67 watt version.
Now inside the sleeve, we have some info on the MacBook Air
along with a couple of black Apple stickers,
I assume black 'cause this is the Midnight color.
And if you get a different finish
I'd imagine you'd have different colored stickers as well.
Then there's the mag safe cable.
These are color matched to the finish
of the MacBook Air that you choose.
They're mag safe on one side and USBC on the other,
so you can use other USBC chargers,
as long as they provide the appropriate amount of power.
Now let's talk a bit about this new design.
This new M2 MacBook Air gives us the first major redesign
since 2010, so for 12 years, Apple have been using
the now iconic, tapered design
that we've all become accustomed to on the MacBook Air.
But now, that tapering is gone,
replaced with an enclosure that sees even thickness
all around, it's kind of like a miniaturized version
of the 14 inch MacBook Pro,
which is a good thing, in my opinion.
The new Air is just 11 millimeters thick
and weighs 2.7 pounds, which is crazy.
When you first pick it up, it's odd,
it almost feels like an empty shell of a laptop,
or like a toy.
It's 20% smaller in overall volume
when compared to the M1 and Intel MacBook Airs.
You get a headphone jack with support
for high impedance headphones on the right
and two Thunderbolt 4 ports on the left,
alongside a mag safe connector for charging.
Now on the previous model you had to use one of the two
Thunderbolt ports for charging,
so this is a very welcome change,
as is the full size function key row
and touch ID button on the keyboard.
Now, of course, one of the biggest design changes happened
on the inside, which brings me to the Apple M2 chip.
The new MacBook Air ushers in the next generation
of Apple Silicon.
Apple changed the game with the M1
and with the M2, you're getting even more power,
in a few ways.
While the base M2 chip supports an eight core CPU
and eight core GPU with 256 gigabytes of storage
and eight gigabytes of RAM, the model I've been testing
is the more powerful 10 core GPU version,
it has 512 gigabytes of storage,
but stays at that eight gigabytes base RAM.
The new M2 chip offers about one and a half times
the performance of the M1 model, depending on the task.
If you pick the one with an eight core CPU
and 10 core GPU, it should be noted that this costs
an extra $100 over the base M2.
You do have the option of bumping up to 16 gigabytes
of RAM for 200 bucks, which is where the M1 stopped
but the M2 offers an additional 24 gigabyte option
for $400, giving you 50% more RAM at the top end
than you could get on M1.
Next up, let's talk about the display.
The 13.3 inch display from the previous model
has been enlarged a bit, bringing the diagonal screen size
to 13.6 inches on the new version.
That 0.3 inches might not sound like a lot on paper,
but it does give you the feeling
of having more room to work with,
especially with the menu bar brought up and out of the way.
This also means that the bezel size has been greatly reduced
in order to accommodate the new larger screen,
and you'll also find a new 1080p camera,
up from 720p, inside of the display cutout at the top,
similar to the MacBook Pro.
The display is also 20% brighter
hitting 500 nits of brightness, and it can actually go down
to two nits of brightness if you wanna dim it.
And it also supports P3 wide color,
giving it the ability to display a billion colors.
Now, the best way to test this in my opinion,
is just by watching videos and looking at photos.
While the display on the Air doesn't touch what you get
on the 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pro,
those are also a lot more expensive.
This is a great display for a computer, at this price point.
Oh, and when watching videos, you'll experience
the new four speaker array, which are compatible
with Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos.
It's not as good as what you'd find
in a dedicated Atmos setup, or again
on Apple's more expensive computers,
but the sound here is very good
and is a marked improvement over the M1
and Intel based Airs.
Now, in my opinion, no matter how cool a laptop
is supposed to be, I need the display, keyboard
and track pad to be absolutely on point
and for the MacBook Air I'm happy to say
that it meets those basic requirements.
There was a time, a couple of years ago,
where Apple's keyboards were questionable, to say the least,
but they've righted that wrong
and the full height function row with touch ID here,
makes the typing experience feel premium.
Okay, so what about actually using the M2 MacBook Air?
I was definitely excited to test video editing
on this computer, the M2 chip
provides 38% faster video editing performance
and 20% faster image filters and effects performance
which just sounds nuts for a machine so thin
and without a fan.
Now I know this isn't what everyone does
on their machines, and it's certainly not what
most people buy a MacBook Air to do,
but video editing is taxing
and it's something I'm very comfortable doing,
so it would give me a good sense
of any hiccups in performance.
Now I record these videos in 6K
allowing me the ability to zoom in and out
without losing resolution when exporting to 4K.
Opening projects and editing on the Air felt easy
and content played back like butter,
super smooth when both playing
and when scrubbing through the timeline.
This is something you would never have even tried
on the most powerful Intel based MacBook Air,
I was impressed.
Now impressed enough to replace
my 16 inch M1 Max MacBook Pro with the M2 Air?
No, but impressed that Apple's entry level M2
is this good, which only means great things
for the M2 Pro, M2 Max and M2 Ultra.
Speaking of which, it should be stated
that the M2 is a direct successor to the M1,
but the other chips like M1 Pro, M1 Max
and M1 Ultra found in the MacBook Pro and Mac Studio,
are more powerful and have more benefits over the M2.
It should also be said that if you're still
on an Intel based MacBook Air, the M2 model
is up to 15 times faster than what you're using today.
Up next let's quickly go over these new colors,
there's silver, which is the most classic
of the MacBook Air colors, Space Gray is still here
for those wanting something subtly darker, but not too dark,
Apple's new Starlight color that we've seen
on some other devices makes its debut on the MacBook Air,
basically just replacing the gold option in my opinion.
And lastly, Midnight also comes to the MacBook Air,
giving you a much more bold, dark color,
for those who like that look.
That's specifically the color I chose
because it's such a departure from anything else
in Apple's laptop lineup.
Similar to Midnight on other devices,
it basically looks black until you hold it up
in just the right light, where you realize
that it's really a very rich, deep blue color.
Now at WWDC, I thought the Midnight units
were fingerprint magnets, it still does,
it still does pick them up, don't get me wrong,
but it's nowhere near as bad, I guess,
as when hundreds of people are touching it
back to back to back, a quick wipe down,
if you don't like it, gets rid of them, and it's fine.
Okay next, let's talk about another important one,
battery life.
According to Apple, the new MacBook Air
gets up to 18 hours of battery life,
which is similar to the previous generation model,
but that is just based on watching videos
with all radios turned off.
And I don't know anyone who actively shuts
down WiFi and Bluetooth when watching videos,
especially since most people are streaming them.
Now in my test, just using the MacBook Air
for typical tasks, so taking video editing out
of this equation, typical task would be my day to day stuff,
email, web browsing, messaging, Discord, Slack,
RSS reader, calendar, those types of things,
I saw just over 14 hours of battery life, give or take.
That is still great and definitely feels like
all day battery life to me.
Basically, if I had to go into an office,
I could take my fully charged MacBook Air with me
and I won't even need to plug in
during the typical eight hour work day.
And seriously for a computer this thin
to have that much battery life, once again,
it's just a testament to Apple Silicon
and what they've been able to do here.
Now, those are my initial impressions, but of course
a more in depth review is coming as well.
We're just getting started with the M2 MacBook Air.
Let me know your thoughts on the new Air
in the comments below, along with any questions
you have for the review.
Thanks for watching as always,
I'm Andru Edwards and I'll catch you in the next video.