Overview of 6 key features of the new MacBook Air (2022)
Apple unveiled its brand new MacBook Air M2 on July 8 of 2022 with an expected arrival time of July 15. At the time of writing this article, the “hype” has settled and love goggles have faded, a bit at least. But we are happy to report that Apple’s magic formula for Air laptops is still present.
With a standard screen size of 13.6 inches, Apple’s MacBook Air M2 comes at 2.7 pounds (1.24kg) with a height of only 0.44 inches (11.3mm). The laptop is enclosed in a recycled aluminum body that serves as a passive radiator helping to redirect and dissipate heat from internal electronics, which is pretty convenient for a fanless machine.
And now let’s enjoy some features that had put smiles on our faces.
1. MagSafe is back
Love carelessly dancing around your charging laptop? Now you can! Plus with “MagSafe” you don’t have to sacrifice one of the two USB-C ports provided for charging. With a base model MacBook Air M2 Apple gives you a 30W charger that fully charges the laptop in 140 minutes. For extra 20 dollars, you can upgrade to a 35W dual USB-C or 67W single USB-C adapter that will charge 50% battery in about 30 minutes (90 min full charge). You can learn more about Macbook Air M2 chargers here.
2. New M2 processor
The New MacBook Air now rocks the latest M2 processor and Apple claims it’s 1.4x faster than its predecessor M1. There are two variations of M2 you can get – with an 8-core and 10-core GPU. Expect to dish out around $300 more for the 10-core version.
The only limitation is running GPU and CPU heavy tasks for a long time. It’s not that M2 can’t get the job done, it’s the lack of active cooling that leads to thermal throttling. For day-to-day tasks, it’s hard to imagine you’ll ever have a hiccup in the performance department.
3. Display redesign
Apple finally redesigned Air’s display taking design cues from its big brother Macbook Pro. Now it has more screen real estate (13.6 inches compared to the previous 13.3 inches) thanks to reduced bezel size. The display is Apple’s own Liquid retina with 500 nits of peak brightness (100 more than the previous model). It has a P3 wide color gamut which makes the display show more juicer colors. Compared to the sRGB standard which is what most displays use today, the P3 standard has a 25 percent wider color range.
MacBooks Air laptops always have had a very above-the-average display quality but now with all the upgrades, even more, demanding users will find it much more useful.
4. 18h battery life
Now let’s turn to battery life. Apple claims MacBook Air M2 can last up to 18h on a single charge which is a very impressive number for this little powerhouse. The only thing to keep in mind is that those numbers are for light use. For users who will use it for more advanced tasks such as rendering, image processing, and gaming – a more realistic number is around 8 hours.
We are happy to see that with extra power and a better display Apple can still manage to deliver the same battery performance as the previous generation MacBook Air.
5. Touch ID
Not that the previous models didn’t have Touch ID, but we can’t imagine a modern laptop without this feature.
The M2 Air features a very snappy Touch ID fingerprint scanner. It’s integrated into the upper right corner of the keyboard and it’s 5 times faster than the one on the Intel model. After setting up your fingerprint you can use it to unlock your MacBook Air or lock the screen and make purchases from various Apple services.
6. Camera and speakers
Webcam now hides in the notch, just like on the MacBook Pro models. Love it or hate it but this quirky feature is what distinguishes Apple laptop’s from the rest. Webcam has been upgraded from 720p to a 1080p FaceTime HD and it has a significantly better image quality than the M1 Air webcam.
Apple is a wizard when it comes to laptop and tablet speakers and it has been that for quite some time. The new MacBook Air M2 has one of the best-sounding speakers we have ever heard from a laptop of this size. Rich, full-sounding, and it even has a slight hint of bass. It has a 4-speaker array instead of 2 compared to the previous models and offers 3D audio (Spatial Audio) support.
Conclusion
The new MacBook Air M2 is now more powerful, looks more modern has a lot of small but impactful upgrades that are hard not to notice.
So is it’s worth the upgrade? Well, it depends if you’re coming from the Intel era then it’s easy – upgrade. There are too many features to count that are way better than the Intel model.
If you have M1 Air, then it’s more complicated. For the casual user that browses the web, occasionally edits some documents, and watches videos we don’t really see the point unless you are into the new design. But if you’re in the habit of pushing your Macbook Air to the absolute limit, by loading it up with video or photo editing then upgrading would be very logical, especially to the 10-core GPU model.
The Apple Macbook Air M2 is a very capable machine if you’re not into heavy gaming. But like with all Apple products be prepared to pay a bit extra. In the case of the new Air, the price bump from the previous model is about $200 making an entry price of $1199.
Where to buy it?
Apple MacBook Air M2 (2022)
Apple’s entry-level laptop with serious performance
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