M2 MacBook Air Review - Needs More Air

**The M2 MacBook Air: A Review**

As I've been using the new M2 MacBook Air, I have to say that it's been an incredibly enjoyable experience. The device is sleek and lightweight, making it perfect for anyone who wants a laptop that they can take with them on the go. However, there are some caveats to consider when evaluating this machine.

**Performance**

One of the most noticeable aspects of the M2 MacBook Air is its performance. Even in moderately demanding titles, it doesn't quite live up to the standards set by the M2 MacBook Pro. This isn't necessarily a deal-breaker for many users, as the majority of people won't be running resource-intensive applications like video editing software or gaming games. However, if you're someone who works with large files and requires fast storage speeds, you may find that the M2 MacBook Air falls short.

**Storage**

The base model of the M2 MacBook Air comes equipped with a single 256GB NAND drive, which results in significantly slower drive speeds when running benchmark tests. This is likely to be a concern for users who need fast storage for large files or projects. On the other hand, the optional 512GB storage upgrade is priced at $200, which some might find to be steep.

**Display**

The M2 MacBook Air features a 13.6-inch display with a nice panel and a notch on top. The notch may take some getting used to for new users, but it provides an extra screen real estate for the menu bar. The display is bright, with good color reproduction, and the bezels are slim and attractive.

**Design**

One of the most striking features of the M2 MacBook Air is its fan design. As I mentioned earlier, this machine is fanless, which means that it can get warm under load. However, the back area of the laptop stays at a reasonable temperature of around 40 degrees Celsius, while the keyboard deck area gets just as warm but remains comfortable to use.

**Keyboard**

The keyboard on the M2 MacBook Air is arguably the best keyboard ever fitted into a MacBook. It's spacious, has nice key travel, and is simply a joy to type on. The inclusion of a fingerprint sensor on the top right side of the keyboard adds an extra layer of security for users who want to keep their device personalized.

**Webcam and Speakers**

The webcam on the M2 MacBook Air is a 1080p camera that delivers good image quality, far surpassing that of the M2 MacBook Pro. The speaker system, however, is what truly surprises me. With four speakers, it provides excellent sound reproduction, particularly in the mid frequencies and lower frequencies.

**Battery Life**

The battery life on the M2 MacBook Air was impressive during my testing. It fell just short of the M2 MacBook Pro's battery life but still exceeded expectations. The 35W charger that comes with the device takes about an hour to fully charge it, while a 67W adapter can juice up the device in around 30 minutes.

**Conclusion**

Overall, I think the M2 MacBook Air is an excellent choice for those looking for a lightweight and portable laptop for light to moderately demanding work. However, if you're someone who requires more power or has specific needs that require fast storage speeds, there may be other options available.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eneight months ago when rumors of the m2 macbook air first started to come out i was convinced that this was going to be the machine that i buy and use as my regular machine like i was so certain that i would be an m2 macbook air user because new m2 chip new form factor really nice design aesthetics on those leaks but having gone this thing in it's a really good machine but it's not quite what i expected now my review unit is this midnight color it's like a dark blue finish i like the look of it and when i unbox it it also came with this braided magsafe cable that is color matched it's also a midnight colored magsafe cable and also it came with color matched apple stickers as well as the 35 watt dual charger now this is an optional accessory that comes with the upgraded versions of m2 macbook air but it has two ports for charging multiple devices so this is a very nice looking machine it's got the design aesthetics of the bigger 14 and 16 inch devices but it's thinner and lighter and it comes in this wicked blue color uh this is if i'm not mistaken the first macbook that apple has made that has had a dark metal finish like we've seen dark plastic macbooks but never something as dark as this i like the look of it but the fingerprints are everywhere like you just touch it for a little bit and just smudges and fingerprints just start appearing it's not uncommon with dark colored metal laptops like the razer blades get covered like this as well but if you're sensitive to this stuff you go for a lighter color or get a skin to go over it on the top there are two usb-c ports on the left these support thunderbolt 4 but it still only supports one display out there's also the magsafe connection on that side and then on the right you have the high impedance headphone jack now on the bottom of the new macbook air the feet look a little bit different these are kind of in the style of the new 14 and 16 inch uh macbook pros it's just like a minor difference but i gotta say i like this new one more it's also an even bottom like the previous generation had a taper to it but this is like a flat bottomed m2 macbook air okay let's talk about performance so the chip that's in here in the air is the same chip technically as the one that's in the m2 macbook pro underneath there but the performance is a little bit different if you only look at short benchmarks the m2 macbook air is still about a 10 or 15 bump over m1 and same with the gpu it's like 35 maybe 40 better than m1 but because the m2 macbook pro has a fan it can remove heat that builds up over time this device doesn't the only way it can get rid of the heat is just to radiate it outwards and let your environment get rid of it and the result is that the m2 macbook air is not good at maintaining a high level of performance for an extended period of time i noticed that if you push the cpu and only the cpu it'll get to like five or six minutes before it starts to throttle if you're pushing everything you're going like maximum effort cpu and gpu going full tilt it's like three to four minutes and you'll start to notice some heavy throttling so the m2 macbook air has a fast processor but if you compare to the m2 macbook pro with its fan depending on the workflow and how long you're pushing the system at maximum effort for this can start to slow down significantly now the thing to keep in mind is that people who are buying this system like people who are looking at an m2 macbook air product as their regular computer they're not people adding like 8k films and like compiling huge projects like that's just not the regular workflow that goes into a system like this there are way more powerful tools from apple if that's your workflow but i was just surprised at how big of a difference there was between the fanless system and the fan equipped system on the m2 product like when the m2 macbook pro first came out and people were just looking at the reviews there's a conversation of like oh who's gonna buy that thing who's it for well i don't know man a little bit of airflow goes a long way when it comes to this chip it's also very noticeable in games even the moderately demanding titles don't do as well on the m2 macbook air compared to the m2 macbook pro the new macbook air just needs a little bit more air uh okay a quick note on the storage and the controversy that's surrounding it so the base models of the m2 products like both the the pro and the air coming in 256 gigs of storage but this year they're only using a single nand for that drive so it results in significantly slower drive speeds when you're running a drive speed benchmark now there's concern over this because apple silicon performance can sometimes lean quite heavily on fast drives like if you have a big project and you don't have a lot of ram and it's doing some disk swapping it can hurt performance in a noticeable manner the thing is i think the vast majority of people on an m2 macbook air are not working on crazy big projects with like 10 chrome tabs open it's just not a thing and even if you are working with huge video files you're probably using one of the bigger drives that don't have these reduced speeds i think regular workflows and even moderately demanding creative workflows are going to be fine on the system that being said i think that their 512 gig storage option costing an extra 200 is criminal i think that's just nuts but also i think if they're gonna have slower drive speeds on those entry level models they need to disclose that it should be on the website like maybe not plastered on the options but like in the fine print even it should be available for people to look at because that's just information people need to know okay the display this is running a 13.6 inch display it's a really nice panel there is a notch and for the people that are just new to the whole idea of the notch you get used to it you can hide it if you want and it's just extra screen real estate at the top for the menu bar it's still a 60 hertz panel so no pro motion but it's bright the colors are good and the bezels are nice and thin now now this is a review unit that i can't open up like i can't pop it open to show you the internals but it's a fanless system so there's probably not much to look at anyways i used a thermal camera on the m2 macbook air and this thing gets warm warmer than i thought it would so the back area gets around 40 degrees celsius like just right in the middle and it radiates like outwards like you would expect but on the flip side like the keyboard deck area this gets just as warm but it's never uncomfortable to use now the keyboard is arguably the best keyboard that's ever been in a macbook air this is a nice keyboard spacious nice to type on nice travel uh it's just i think this is the way that every laptop keyboard should be it's just a fantastic keyboard it also has the fingerprint sensor on the top right which works well like you'd expect from apple the webcam on the top is a 1080p webcam this has good image quality and it is noticeably better than the one on the m2 macbook pro uh speaker system so there's four speakers and they're great the shocking thing to me is how good they're able to get like the mid frequencies and lower frequencies like the bassy stuff on a system so thin like there are gaming laptops that are probably five times thicker than this that don't sound as good it's bizarre but apple does their speakers really well battery life was good for my testing it's a little bit less than the m2 macbook pro but still super solid and again it's amazing how much better apple's battery life on their laptops is compared to any of the windows competitors out there like they do a fantastic job with energy efficiency my review unit came with this 35 watt adapter and it takes about an hour to charge this thing fully with this adapter but they do have a optional 67 watt adapter that juices it up in i think like 30 minutes but i did connect just a usbc cable to the usbc port uh and you can get up to 70 watts from my testing through that port so my overall take on the m2 macbook air this is a fantastic device for people looking for something that can handle light to moderately demanding work but if you're someone that wants like a very powerful system and you're hoping that something super thin and super light can handle it unfortunately i would say that it can't it's it's weird that just the presence of a fan makes such a big difference in terms of sustained workflow i was surprised by it but that's just the nature of the m2 chip it's just a more demanding chip than the previous generation okay there you have it the m2 macbook aireight months ago when rumors of the m2 macbook air first started to come out i was convinced that this was going to be the machine that i buy and use as my regular machine like i was so certain that i would be an m2 macbook air user because new m2 chip new form factor really nice design aesthetics on those leaks but having gone this thing in it's a really good machine but it's not quite what i expected now my review unit is this midnight color it's like a dark blue finish i like the look of it and when i unbox it it also came with this braided magsafe cable that is color matched it's also a midnight colored magsafe cable and also it came with color matched apple stickers as well as the 35 watt dual charger now this is an optional accessory that comes with the upgraded versions of m2 macbook air but it has two ports for charging multiple devices so this is a very nice looking machine it's got the design aesthetics of the bigger 14 and 16 inch devices but it's thinner and lighter and it comes in this wicked blue color uh this is if i'm not mistaken the first macbook that apple has made that has had a dark metal finish like we've seen dark plastic macbooks but never something as dark as this i like the look of it but the fingerprints are everywhere like you just touch it for a little bit and just smudges and fingerprints just start appearing it's not uncommon with dark colored metal laptops like the razer blades get covered like this as well but if you're sensitive to this stuff you go for a lighter color or get a skin to go over it on the top there are two usb-c ports on the left these support thunderbolt 4 but it still only supports one display out there's also the magsafe connection on that side and then on the right you have the high impedance headphone jack now on the bottom of the new macbook air the feet look a little bit different these are kind of in the style of the new 14 and 16 inch uh macbook pros it's just like a minor difference but i gotta say i like this new one more it's also an even bottom like the previous generation had a taper to it but this is like a flat bottomed m2 macbook air okay let's talk about performance so the chip that's in here in the air is the same chip technically as the one that's in the m2 macbook pro underneath there but the performance is a little bit different if you only look at short benchmarks the m2 macbook air is still about a 10 or 15 bump over m1 and same with the gpu it's like 35 maybe 40 better than m1 but because the m2 macbook pro has a fan it can remove heat that builds up over time this device doesn't the only way it can get rid of the heat is just to radiate it outwards and let your environment get rid of it and the result is that the m2 macbook air is not good at maintaining a high level of performance for an extended period of time i noticed that if you push the cpu and only the cpu it'll get to like five or six minutes before it starts to throttle if you're pushing everything you're going like maximum effort cpu and gpu going full tilt it's like three to four minutes and you'll start to notice some heavy throttling so the m2 macbook air has a fast processor but if you compare to the m2 macbook pro with its fan depending on the workflow and how long you're pushing the system at maximum effort for this can start to slow down significantly now the thing to keep in mind is that people who are buying this system like people who are looking at an m2 macbook air product as their regular computer they're not people adding like 8k films and like compiling huge projects like that's just not the regular workflow that goes into a system like this there are way more powerful tools from apple if that's your workflow but i was just surprised at how big of a difference there was between the fanless system and the fan equipped system on the m2 product like when the m2 macbook pro first came out and people were just looking at the reviews there's a conversation of like oh who's gonna buy that thing who's it for well i don't know man a little bit of airflow goes a long way when it comes to this chip it's also very noticeable in games even the moderately demanding titles don't do as well on the m2 macbook air compared to the m2 macbook pro the new macbook air just needs a little bit more air uh okay a quick note on the storage and the controversy that's surrounding it so the base models of the m2 products like both the the pro and the air coming in 256 gigs of storage but this year they're only using a single nand for that drive so it results in significantly slower drive speeds when you're running a drive speed benchmark now there's concern over this because apple silicon performance can sometimes lean quite heavily on fast drives like if you have a big project and you don't have a lot of ram and it's doing some disk swapping it can hurt performance in a noticeable manner the thing is i think the vast majority of people on an m2 macbook air are not working on crazy big projects with like 10 chrome tabs open it's just not a thing and even if you are working with huge video files you're probably using one of the bigger drives that don't have these reduced speeds i think regular workflows and even moderately demanding creative workflows are going to be fine on the system that being said i think that their 512 gig storage option costing an extra 200 is criminal i think that's just nuts but also i think if they're gonna have slower drive speeds on those entry level models they need to disclose that it should be on the website like maybe not plastered on the options but like in the fine print even it should be available for people to look at because that's just information people need to know okay the display this is running a 13.6 inch display it's a really nice panel there is a notch and for the people that are just new to the whole idea of the notch you get used to it you can hide it if you want and it's just extra screen real estate at the top for the menu bar it's still a 60 hertz panel so no pro motion but it's bright the colors are good and the bezels are nice and thin now now this is a review unit that i can't open up like i can't pop it open to show you the internals but it's a fanless system so there's probably not much to look at anyways i used a thermal camera on the m2 macbook air and this thing gets warm warmer than i thought it would so the back area gets around 40 degrees celsius like just right in the middle and it radiates like outwards like you would expect but on the flip side like the keyboard deck area this gets just as warm but it's never uncomfortable to use now the keyboard is arguably the best keyboard that's ever been in a macbook air this is a nice keyboard spacious nice to type on nice travel uh it's just i think this is the way that every laptop keyboard should be it's just a fantastic keyboard it also has the fingerprint sensor on the top right which works well like you'd expect from apple the webcam on the top is a 1080p webcam this has good image quality and it is noticeably better than the one on the m2 macbook pro uh speaker system so there's four speakers and they're great the shocking thing to me is how good they're able to get like the mid frequencies and lower frequencies like the bassy stuff on a system so thin like there are gaming laptops that are probably five times thicker than this that don't sound as good it's bizarre but apple does their speakers really well battery life was good for my testing it's a little bit less than the m2 macbook pro but still super solid and again it's amazing how much better apple's battery life on their laptops is compared to any of the windows competitors out there like they do a fantastic job with energy efficiency my review unit came with this 35 watt adapter and it takes about an hour to charge this thing fully with this adapter but they do have a optional 67 watt adapter that juices it up in i think like 30 minutes but i did connect just a usbc cable to the usbc port uh and you can get up to 70 watts from my testing through that port so my overall take on the m2 macbook air this is a fantastic device for people looking for something that can handle light to moderately demanding work but if you're someone that wants like a very powerful system and you're hoping that something super thin and super light can handle it unfortunately i would say that it can't it's it's weird that just the presence of a fan makes such a big difference in terms of sustained workflow i was surprised by it but that's just the nature of the m2 chip it's just a more demanding chip than the previous generation okay there you have it the m2 macbook air\n"