Today we're going to look at three different MacBook Airs. I have the 2018,
the 2020, and the 2022. Now, if you're like the millions and millions of people
out there that bought the new redesign MacBook Air in 2018,
you're probably wondering, is this a good time to upgrade? And the quick answer is yes.
So there's two different MacBook Airs on the market right now. We have the M one version
and the M two. So in this video, we're gonna take a look at all three of these and see
which one makes the most sense. So there are literal. Millions and millions of these 2018
MacBook Geers with Intel chips inside, and they're starting to get a little bit long in the tooth at
about five years old, and if you're starting to experience some slowdowns or some sluggishness,
or maybe it's starting to break, or maybe even the keyboard has issues, You're probably looking
at upgrading to an M one map book air, or even an M two, and both of those are fantastic options.
So let's take a look at the specs between these two. Now,
all of these are actually the base model MacBook airs for their generation with the
2018 model. It's got a dual core Intel I five, Intel UHD 617 graphics, eight gigabytes memory,
and 128 gigabyte s. For the 2020 version, we have the M one processor with an eight core
cpu, U seven core G P U eight gigabytes of memory and 256 gigabytes of S S D.
And for the 2022 model, we have the M two with an eight core C P U eight core
gpu, U eight gigabytes of memory and 256 gigabytes of S S D. And let me
just go off on a little tangent real quick, because why is there still eight gigabytes
of memory in the base model in 2022 when that was the base model in 2018?
That's insane. There should be absolutely 16 gigabytes minimum in these MacBook Cares.
But I digress. Now talking about the designer real quick. They all
look. Pretty similar at first glance. Of course, the new model did get an upgrade,
and we'll talk about that in just a moment. But when it comes to the 2018 and 2020 model,
they look extremely similar from the top, from the bottom, from the inside.
They look so close. They both have that iconic MacBook Air wedge shaped that we've come to
know and love from the early days of the MacBook Air, but it looks almost unchanged design-wise on
the outside from the MacBook Airs in 20. On the right side, you have a microphone jack.
And then if you flip it over to the left side, you have two USB C shaped holes on this side.
And we'll get to those ports in just a sec. And when you open these things up,
the similarities continue. They have the same size screen, the same size bezel,
the same size keyboard, track pad. They both have these cutouts. For these speakers, these devices
looked the exact. Both of these models came with the options of silver space, gray, or gold colors.
Now, when you go over to the M two MacBook Air that came out in 2022, we got some big design
changes. With the 2022 model, that iconic wedge shape is gone. It is now a flattened out design
like the MacBook Pros and follows the rest of Apple's modern design language. Instead of a 13.3
inch display, it is now a 13.6 inch display, which does not sound like a whole lot bigger, but.
Feels bigger with the shrunk embezzles all the way around the side. But the resolution
is pretty similar, and we'll talk about that in just a moment as well. On the right side,
you still have that single headphone jack,
and on the left side you still have two US BBC shaped holes and you get MagSafe three.
Now I prefer silver as you can see, but you can also get these in space Gray, midnight,
or. Now there are a couple of differences between the ports on these computers. So
let's talk about the headphone jack first on both the 2018 and the 2022 model. This
is a standard 3.5 millimeter headphone jack. Now, one difference on the M two version is
that the 3.5 millimeter headphone jack is actually a high impedance headphone jack,
which means you can use higher end professional audio headphones for this.
Also in addition to the M two version is that MagSafe three port on the left hand side. This
allows you flexibility in charging, so you can charge with a separate cable,
not taking up data ports on the side, but you still can charge with those thunderbolt ports
on the side as well. And in fact, we charging both the M one version and the M two version
can actually fast charge as long as you're using a 67 wat power adapter or higher.
So you can use U S B. Or you can use the MagSafe connection on the M two version
and get fast charging, which means Apple says up to 50% in 30 minutes. And if you're a heavy user,
that can definitely come in handy. Now, if we go back to the 2018 model,
the ports on the side are Thunderbolt three, which means you can get up
to 40 gigabits per second of transfer speed with devices like external SSDs,
the ports on the M one and the M two MacBook air are Thunderball three slash usb.
Besides using those ports for external SSDs or other accessories,
they're also for connecting external. The 2018 Mac Bulger actually has an advantage in this
domain because you can actually connect up to two 4K displays to this laptop,
whereas you can only connect a maximum of one display each to the M one and the M two version.
Now those displays can be up to six K in resolution,
so you can connect the Pro display XDR two, these two laptops if you want. But the max
resolution for the display you connect to the 2018 version is a 5K display. And if you do
connect five. It can only be a single display through the Thunderbolt ports.
And speaking of Thunderbolt Cal Digit makes this amazing Thunderbolt Station
four dock that works with both Thunderbolt three and Thunderbolt four. And Cal Digit
is sponsoring this video. The Cal digit TS four is a Thunderbolt four dock with
18 ports of connectivity that is backwards compatible with Thunderbolt three u s bbc.
and more, but I wanna focus on just two features today. And the first one is the host charging
speed. The TS four from Cald Digit provides up to 98 watts of charging power to your laptop,
and unlike competing docs, you get the maximum charge speed even when other
devices are connected. This is possible in part because of the included 230 wat power adapter.
For example, here I have the TS four, which can charge a laptop at up to 98 watts connected to
my 14 inch MacBook Pro. You can see that in the system information. I'm getting a. 98
watts of power for maximum charging speed. Now, if I connect a bunch of devices that
also require power from the TS four and refresh the display, you can see that the
laptop will still receive the full 98 watts of power while powering all the external devices.
And if you happen to have a TS three plus, the TS three plus will also provide a constant 87 watts
power to your. With other devices connected. If we look at another Thunderball four dock,
we can see that the maximum charge speed is 96 watts with nothing else attached.
Now watch what happens when we start to connect other devices to the dock.
We can now see that the power output to the laptop drops significantly leading
to a much slower charging speed or even a power drain on the laptop,
depending on your current workload. The next feature I want to tell you about is the rear
host. Other docks on the market have a host connection port on the front of the dock.
This leads to a messy setup that's hard to keep neat. You can run the cable in
different directions or try and coil it, but cable management will be an issue. The
TS four has a more elegant solution with a rear thunderbolt host port. This allows
you to run the cable from your dock to the laptop from behind for a much cleaner setup.
So the cow digit TS four is the most versatile and powerful Thunderbolt
four dock You can. With 18 ports of connectivity, a clean setup,
and enough power to run anything you connect to it. You can find the TS four using the link
in the description below. And my thanks to Cal Digit for sponsoring this video.
Now, if we look at the screens, we can see that the 2018 and 2020 models are the exact same. Both
of these are a 13.3 inch display. Running a resolution a natively of 25 60 by 1600,
and if we look at the 2022 model, we get an ever slightly larger display at
13.6 inches. This display is also 25 60 wide, but it's an extra 64 pixels high.
And that accounts for the cutout around the notch up top. Now,
this is not a big difference in actual screen size real estate, but it feels bigger when you
open it. It actually just feels more enjoyable to use as far as brightness. The 2018 model
gets 300 nets. The 2020 model gets up to 400 nets, and the 2022 model gets up to 500 nets.
Both the 2020 and 2022 model do get the P three wide color. And true tone technology
to adjust the white balance automatically when you move around a room, so if you're
moving from the older MacBook to one of the newer ones, you're gonna get a slight upgrade,
mostly in brightness, which you'll be able to tell in bright rooms or if you use it outside.
But overall, the display is going to look very similar. Now if we look straight down
on the keyboards, you're going to see just some slight differences.
The 2018 model has that third generation butterfly keyboard. The butterfly keyboard
originally came out with a 12 inch MacBook to create a much smaller, slimmer laptop.
But over time, those keyboards just turned out to be pretty unreliable. If you just got a little bit
of dust or debris underneath the keys, they would just. Stop functioning correctly. So Apple finally
gave up and brought back the scissor switch keys on the 2020 model. Now between the 2018 and 2020
model, the slight differences you're going to see is that some of the function keys are different.
With the newer version, you actually get the do not disturb and dictation button and search. But
you'll also see that the touch ID buttons are slightly different as well. The one on
the 2020 model is actually more of a matte finish. The one on the 2018 model is shiny,
and on the M two MacBook Air, those scissor switches continue.
But now you just get full height function row keys. Up top. And when it comes to audio quality,
I was actually a bit surprised at my testing. The Intel version
and the M one version have two speakers, whereas the M two version has four. Now,
that doesn't necessarily mean that the M two has better sound quality,
and in fact, I found that the best sound quality came from the Intel version.
It was clearer, it was louder, and it had more base. The M two version was
definitely more muffled, and that's because there are no speaker grills on the front,
so you don't have any front firing speakers to get a sound directly. So this is the camera
and microphone test on the 2018 Intel MacBook Air, and if you've ever heard the term potato.
This is why this is terrible. This is a seven 20 P camera with just the worst video processing
you can imagine, even with my studio lights in here. Now, this is the audio video test
from the M one MacBook Air. Now, just like the Intel version, this has a three mic array and
a seven 20 P camera. However, with the M one, we actually did get better image signal processing.
However, there's still all kinds of distortions and artifacts and weird colors showing up in this
video. And this is the audio and video test of the M two MacBook Air. And as you can see,
we get a little bit brighter picture, a little bit slightly cleaner, but there's
a lot of softness happening behind the scenes on that image signal processing.
I should have a lot more wrinkles up here and for some reason they're not showing. But you're
also hearing a three mic array on here for wireless connectivity on these devices. The
Intel version gets 8 0 2 11 AC and Bluetooth 4.2, whereas the M one and the M two version
get Bluetooth five and wifi. Now to test the wifi speed on all of these devices,
I actually did an I perf test to a local server in my house to show the true wireless performance.
You can get so connected to a wifi six access point on the Intel model. I'm
getting around 454 megabits per second, and you're going to see that I'm actually getting
very similar performance on all three of these computers. 440 or so megabits per
second on the M one and 470 to 400. On the M two when it comes to battery life,
you're going to notice a big difference in the M one and M two versions over the 2018 Intel I five.
Apple says that for wireless web browsing, this model can get up to 12 hours of usage,
where they say that the newer Mac Gators can get up to 15 hours,
and I can honestly say that these laptops have no issue at all getting through a
full day's work. Basically, anything I throw at it, except maybe video.
Where the 2018 model heats up and the fans spin and it just has to work a lot harder to do the
same tasks, so the battery drains quite a bit faster. I cannot get through a full day with a
2018 Intel MacBook Air, but I absolutely can no problem, quality of life changing
with the Mac silicon. Okay, so now we're gonna take a look at performance on these machines.
And this is probably going to be where you're gonna see the biggest jump from the 2018 model
to one of the current versions. And we're gonna do this starting with Geek Bench. But first,
the processor inside the Intel version is again, that dual core I
five. In the M one, it's an eight core M one, and in the M two it is a course as well.
First, we have the brand New Geek Bench six test results, and the new version of Geek Bench Test.
New real world scenario. And you can see that the performance differences here are
pretty staggering. For single core performance, you're getting up to 165% faster. Going with the
M two over the I five. And for multi-core speed, you're getting up to 470% faster than the I five,
and this means that every single thing that you do on your computer is going to be faster.
Whether you're opening an application or saving a document or opening a webpage or streaming media,
everything is going to load faster. Graphics performance alone is even crazier Using gfx
Bench and the 4K Aztec ruins. You can see that we're only getting three frames per
second on the I five versus 39 on the M two, and that is 1200% faster than the I five.
Oh, and one thing to point out when doing these benchmarks, you know what you don't
hear on these two fans. That's right. The M one and the M two do not have any internal fans to
get noisy and loud, and they stay relatively nice and cool compared to the Intel version,
which gets really hot and the fans spin up and it's really loud.
So to put all of this to work real quick, I did a final cut Pro export. Now this is an
old video of mine unboxing and iPhone 12, and it's got a couple of different layers and it's
got a really heavy color. When exporting an H 2 64, both the M one and the M two actually
completed in the same amount of time at 943 seconds, and that's right around 16 minutes.
If you're counting the Intel model, exported the same video with the same settings at a
whopping 4,800 seconds. That's. An hour and 20 minutes, and I almost went insane
thinking that I did something wrong because it was taking so long. But no,
that's just how long it takes. These new computers are so much faster.
They have such more modern processors and architecture inside that they can do big tasks,
small tasks, all tasks much faster. Now, the last performance indicator I want talk about
real quick is the disk speed test, which was kind of interesting. On the 2018 model,
we got 2,353 read and 533. On the M one, we got 3,298 read and 2,219,
right on the M two we got 1,761 read and 1,653.
Right now, the only reason that this really matters at all, Is because these computers
come with a base of eight gigabytes of memory, which means you have to use a
lot of virtual memory in regular everyday tasks. And when you're using virtual memory,
what you're going to want is fast read and write speeds, but especially read speeds.
Now this can lead to a performance issue and some videos have shown that the M one map book
air with eight gigabytes of memory. Can be faster than the M two MacBook air with eight
gigabytes of memory in certain tests. However, in my experience using both
of these computers in regular everyday scenarios and for my actual job job,
I'm not experiencing anything performance wise on the M two air.
That makes me think, oh my God, it's the virtual memory. Sure,
you can see it in diagnostics, you can see it in the Activity Viewer,
but unless you're actually doing the same thing on both computers side by side,
the rare instances that this could be an. You're just not going to notice. Okay, so
that covers everything I want to talk about with the differences between all of these computers.
So should you jump from a 2018 MacBook Air to an M one or an M two MacBook Air? Yes,
both of these laptops are just way better than the previous generation, and you're gonna notice
things in everyday use with its way faster cpu. It's way faster, gpu. It's way better battery
life, that for sure will get you through a full day and it runs cool and quiet with no fail.
Now the M one and the M two are both going to cover most users for most things. These
devices can easily handle productivity, education, making videos, watching videos,
photo editing, web browsing, running a business, basically anything that you
can throw at them. So which of these two should you get the pragmatic side to me?
Knows that the M one is probably the device you should get. There's
really not much of a performance difference between these two devices,
and even the M one can be faster in some tasks. You can get these things for as low as 8 99,
sometimes 7 99 on Amazon. Check the link below for the best price, which is a steal
for the performance and the power, and just everything you get from this M one MacBook Air.
There's just not a lot of performance difference between the M one and the
M two. You're going to get a massive difference. The M two map air starts at
1199. Sometimes you can get it for about a hundred dollars off on Amazon as well,
but that's still at least three to $400 difference sometimes, depending on the sales.
On the other hand, the M two MacBook Air just looks better. It's clean and it's got a refresh
design. It's got a bigger display that just makes you feel good when you open it. It's
got a full height function row key, and it's got Mag Save three. And if any or all of those
features are worth three to $400 more for you, then definitely pick up an M two MacBook Air.
However, you're going to get the best bang for your buck period on the M one MacBook
Air. And I think that's really all I have to say about that,
but I want to. What you guys think. Are you rocking a 2018 or even older MacBook Air and
looking for an upgrade? Let me know below. If you're looking for a bigger in-depth comparison,
comparing the M one MacBook Air and the M two MacBook Air, check out this video right over here.
Hit the thumbs up button if you liked it. Hit subscribe if you want, and I'll see you next time.