The M2 Macbook Air is….OK, it’s fine….Its also very very good if you are coming from
any intel macbook air or almost any intel based macbook.
This is the base model MacBook air and I have been using over the last 2 weeks, almost exclusively.
I have used this laptop to do every one of my daily tasks and workload for my day job
and this computer has been able to keep up with me the whole time.
I have also had the chance to test out my youtube workflow on this machine and despite
a couple of issues I was able to complete my tasks.
So I want to tell you what it is like to use this laptop and if you dont want to watch
the whole video I will say that this is a very capable laptop for what it is and for
the regular user I think you will be very happy with it over the next few years.
But let's start off with the design…
This new MacBook air is super sleek and nice and pretty.
Apple brought their modern design language to this new Air and it is amazing.
Similar to the 14 and 16” macbook pros you now have the flat top and bottom with slightly
rounded bottom corners.
When this thing is closed and you carry it around it feels ridiculously light and compact
even compared to the 14” macbook pro.
It just doesnt feel heavy or bulky enough to be a relatively powerful full featured
laptop but it is and even though it feels so thin and light this thing is rock solid.
The standard apple aluminum build plays well here and feels as solid as any other apple
laptop.
I will be going on a quick trip soon and I am excited to take this super light machine
with me.
Oh, and if you are wondering why I didnt get the midnight color, its because silver is
the best color.
Its neutral, clean, modern, and classic i guess.
I went through a space gray phase but there is something about being 40 now and silver
just looking great.
Also, you dont see fingerprints.
Opening this thing up reveals one of the biggest changes which is the new display, including
a notch.
The bezels are not quite as thin as the 14” macbook pro but they do look nice and uniform.
The new 13.6” display is slightly bigger than the previous macbook air but only in
the vertical direction about 64 pixels or something like that.
This does not give you a lot more working space because it just pushes the menu bar
up a little, but it does change the overall look and feel of the device.
Its just joyful to open this thing up.
Apple says this display gets up to 500nits now compared to 400 nits on the m1 air but
inside I was not able to really see a difference.
Inside the notch is the upgraded 1080p camera which with side by side tests with the previous
Air I dont see much difference.
Video from both cameras is lacking in certain ways….
they just suck differently from each other.
But, its a built in webcam on a thin and light laptop, so….
Its ok.
Now if this will be your first mac with a notch you are probably thinking its gross
or ugly, or maybe even you hate it.
But honestly, just like a notch on a phone or a hole punch cutout, or whatever weird
thing on a display, you get used to it very quickly and it just fades away.
It’s probably rare for a user of this laptop to have so many things crowd the menu bar
that something may be obstructed so this should be a non-issue for most people.
But again, I promise you it just fades away after a day or 2.
Another big change to the new M2 Air is the speakers.
Apple added a new 4-speaker system in the M2 Air and they sound way better than the
M1 Air.
Even without speaker grills and upward facing speakers they have much more range than the
M1 Air and it's a lot easier to hear things like High hats and the base lines in rock
music.
To my ear they may have slightly less volume than the previous Air but they sound a whole
lot better overall.
Of course, compared to the 14” macbook pro and it’s 6-speaker system, these do not
touch it but these are still better than nearly any non-mac laptop ive tried.
The keyboard and trackpad have been given an upgrade as well and I still say that I
love apple keyboards.
I find they have the right feel and travel and as one who switches between a lot of apple
devices I love that they all have a consistent feel and I do not have to adjust mentally
between devices.
The function row of this keyboard has been expanded to full height keys just like the
MacBook Pros and the trackpad is the same size as the new 14”.
Although, I do like the sound of the click on the Air more than I do on the Pro.
I think Apple purposely gives the pro a higher pitch sound like metal clanking together but
I prefer the dull thud sound of the Air.
It's less distracting when you hit it 1000 times per day.
When it comes to the ports we still just get 2 single thunderbolt 3 USBC ports as with
the m1 Air along with a headphone jack and the return of MagSafe to the macbook air line.
For people who need to connect multiple devices at the same time the MagSafe connection for
charging frees up an extra port and that will be nice.
I was a huge fan of magsafe in older macbooks and thought it was insane that they removed
it but nowadays I am usually plugged into my dock at my desk with the CalDigit TS4 and
a display connected so I really do not use MagSafe.
And if I travel I would rather not take an extra cable when I can just use a USB-C cable
to charge my macbook and iPad.
Yes, it stinks that there is a 1 external display limit natively, but luckily for me
I only use a single external display.
OK, now we of course need to cover the performance of these machines and controversies.
This IS the base model m2 air with 8cpu cores, 8gpu cores, 256gbs of storage and 8gb of memory.
During the last 2 weeks I have done all my work on it, all my personal stuff (which involves
surfing, shopping, watching video, listening to music, going through photos, and everything
else a normal person does with a computing device),,,,,,And I have done my youtube stuff
on here as well which includes editing multicam 4k 4:2:2 10-bit footage.
During my regular work and personal use I did not feel slowdowns or lag even with 15-20
safari tabs, a few brave tabs, mail, calendar, notes, work apps and a few other things all
running at the same time.
I did, however, observe a high amount of swap memory being used with just those things going
on so there is a lot of read-writes happening to the ssd because there is not enough physical
memory.
Sometimes websites spike and use a ton of resources that they shouldnt and the computer
has to use swap.
But the computer is doing its job and doing this in the background and the only reason
I am aware of this is that I checked activity monitor.
Now when it comes to my video work, which is a lot more intense than it was when the
original m1 was released, the computer had some issues.
……
Show video of issues ………………..
And yes, again, most people are not doing this with a MacBook Air so I can understand
that what I am doing is taxing this base model computer, but even without exporting video
the fact that so much virtual memory is being used for regular stuff means to me that we
are beyond the point were 8gb of memory is an acceptable baseline for a $1200 computer.
Along those same lines is the SSD performance, which yes, is lower on the base model compared
the the m1 model, and yes, I have seen all the videos proving how slow it is and how
it affects system performance.
I did not notice any slowdowns in regular use of this computer but I understand how
people could be annoyed that a newer more expensive device has a slower component.
On the other hand, most people will not care and if you do, dont buy it.
But in my regular usage I did not feel any slowness.
The M2 chip inside is the second version of apple silicon for Mac and Apple says it is
up to 18% faster in CPU and up to 35% faster in GPU.
Basic benchmark tests show nice increases in performance from the M1 but this did not
translate at all in regular real-world usage for me.
Benchmarks and performance comparisons are subjective and a lot of factors can change
the results so putting all those aside, this computer did not feel any faster compared
to the M1 Air.
And I know because I did a full wipe of my M1 Air and did a migration from the M2 to
the m1 and used that computer for a day doing all the same things and you know what?
It felt and responded the exact same to me.
Which is to say….fine.
The jump in performance we got going from the Intel macbook airs to the apple silicon
macbook airs was such a giant leap that this feel much less revolutionary and just simply
evolutionary…..which is ok, but that puts this laptop in a weird spot for me and I am
not sure I can recommend it.
This machine sits in a weird spot at $1200 and really is a hybrid between the M1 macbook
air and the 14” macbook pro.
The M2 Air gets the physical qualities of the 14” like magsafe, better design, a larger
screen…….but gets basically the performance of the M1 macbook air.
In my opinion you should either go higher or lower.
You can get a M1 MacBook Air from the Apple refurb store for $850 and get essentially
the same performance.
You can even get the M1 Air with 16GB of memory and a 512Gb ssd for less than $1200 if you
still want to spend less and get a little more headroom.
If you get the m2 with the same configuration you are looking at $1600 which is just $200
shy of a refurb 14” macbook pro which is better in almost every way.
Heck, you can even get them cheaper sometimes, brand new, using the link in the description.
So if you want to save money, get the M1 Air.
if you know you need more performance than the m1 get the 14” Pro because spending
more on the m2 air is not going to give you extra performance that matters.
If you need performance and cant afford the 14 yet, get the m1, save some more money then
sell it and get the 14.
Of course, none of this matters if you are like me and just want the newest best looking
stuff.
In that case, get this new m2 air and you will probably want to upgrade the memory and
storage.
Overall, the M2 macbook air is a fine computer for computer things and most people will be
happy with it, but what do you think?
Does this computer have what you want or are you holding out for something else?
Let me know below.
If you want to see a more in-depth comparison between this and the m1 air check out this
video over here.
Hit the thumbs up button if you liked it, hit subscribe if you want and Ill see you
next time.