Expert’s Rating

Pros

Cons

Our Verdict

Apple ’s first major redesign of the MacBook Air in a dog ’s years is largely a success . The webcam still disappoints , but in every other room this will be a delicious mundane electronic computer for most users .

Best Prices Today: Apple 13-inch MacBook Air (M2, 2022)

So you ’re quick to buy a newfangled laptop . What do you take it for ? What do youreallyneed it for ?

It ’s tantalizing to look at something top - of - the - line , but most of us are n’t doing complex professional video edits on 4 K video , heavy - duty scientific employment , or really big coding projects every day . Most of us pass our prison term with some web browser tabs open , a handful of apps for email and electronic messaging , editing photos or maybe some dewy-eyed videos , watch streaming telecasting , that sort of affair .

If you ’re a gamer that want to play the latest games , our baby sitePCWorld can bespeak you in the focus of a Windows laptop computer , but for everyone else – everyone who does n’t use their laptop for very intensive tasks all day long , the MacBook Air is precisely what you need .

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The new Air is just a tiny bit bigger than the old one, and thinner than the old Air’s thickest point. In practice, it feels about the same.

freshly redesign for the first clock time in class , the M2 MacBook Air has more than enough musculus to make ready work of everyday tasks , but it ’s wonderfully thin and light with a big beautiful display and sea wolf battery living . It ’s not quite as affordable as it used to be , but it ’s a lot less expensive than a14 - inch MacBook Proand still the best Mac laptop computer choice for most people .

Design improvements, but no surprises

The MacBook Air has essentially had the same profile since around 2010 , when Apple premise the tapered Al unibody design . Eight years by and by it got a few tweak ( the display induce a Retina upgrade and thin fatal bezel , and the porthole flip over to USB - C ) , but the MacBook Air has essentially wait the same for over a decade .

The new M2 MacBook Air last give us a different , if not young , figure . The novel body is flat , with flat sides and a slenderly thick eyelid . It ’s just as wide as the honest-to-goodness MacBook Air ( just under 12 inches ) and only one - tenth of an inch deeper . It ’s quite thin – thinner than the thickest part of the sure-enough Air , but much thick than the thin tapered bound of its predecessor .

As a result , even though this new design technically has less loudness than the old one , it doesn’tfeelsmaller . It experience just slenderly larger and about the same weight . The placid curve around the bottom edge feels better in the hand than the sharp edge of the old design .

Editors' Choice

The new Air is just a tiny bit bigger than the old one, and thinner than the old Air’s thickest point. In practice, it feels about the same.

It ’s a little disappointing to see the essential “ Air - ness ” direct out of the design ; it ’s just like the MacBook Pro squelch thinner . But it ’s hard to reason that it does n’t look and feel adept , and is still unmistakably a MacBook .

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The showing is larger–13.6 inches rather than 13.3 – thanks mostly to smaller bezels around it . It ’s a much more modern aspect than the old Air , though there are competing laptops with thin bezel . The keyboard and trackpad are more or less the same ( if it ai n’t break … ) , but the half - tiptop Function rowing has been expanded to full - height keys . And the loudspeaker system grill on the side of the keyboard are go away too , resulting in a much cleaner esthetic .

M2 MacBook Air vs M1

The new Air is just a tiny bit bigger than the old one, and thinner than the old Air’s thickest point. In practice, it feels about the same.

Apple has changed up the colour a minuscule , too . Silver and Space Gray ( still a fairly light shade of grey-headed ) are sticking around , but the one-time gold colouring material is start . In its place are two Modern coloring material : Starlight and Midnight , as watch on the iPhone SE and Apple Watch Series 7 . Starlight a essentially a bright silver with a hint of gold to it , and Midnight is a very drear Charles Grey with just a bit of blueish . They ’re both quite nice , but Midnight is going to be a runaway hit . ( Note to Apple : People want a black laptop computer . )

You ’ll still find two USB 4 / Thunderbolt interface on the left field , which is a little sparse though the addition of a MagSafe charging embrasure by all odds help oneself . It ’s a welcome recurrence after year of USB - C - only charging . The phone diddly-squat on the right now supports in high spirits - resistance headphones as well .

You ’ll notice the showing has a pass in which the 1080p webcam resides , just as it does on the 14 - inch and 16 - inch MacBook Pro . It ’s aboveboard not very distract and in reality bring silver screen real acres rather than taking it away since the areabelowthe nick is the stock 16:10 Mac display proportion , the notch and card bar hold out up above it , adding 64 rows of pixels . The exhibit is otherwise the same as that on the old MacBook Air , only it gets 25 percent brighter ( up to 500 nit ) . It ’s a decent display , but nowhere in the league of the XDR ProMotion displays on the high - end Pro laptop .

M2 vs M1 MacBook Air display size

The display is just a few percent larger, but the narrower bezels help create the illusion that it’s more than just a 0.3-inch difference.

Still a disappointing webcam

I wish I had good things to say about the Modern 1080p webcam , but I do n’t . certain , 1080p fathom like a step up from the old 720p webcam , but in practice , it ’s still exceedingly grainy and performs awfully in low light .

Even in comparatively good office spark , image will be full of noise and grain . Apple ’s processing has better over the years , but it ’s still not a very good overall experience . declaration is n’t everything ; it ’s potential that Apple simply needs a much dear sensor and electron lens organization .

Fortunately , a newfangled feature coming to iOS 16 and macOS Ventura this crepuscule called Continuity Camera will let you expend your iPhone as a webcam in almost any Mac app that uses the received webcam frameworks . It makes a scandalous difference , as you may see above .

M2 MacBook Air magsafe

You get the same two USB 4 / Thunderbolt ports as the old Air, but the return of MagSafe means they’re both available all the time.

The new Air has a four - speaker array that sound pretty great for a laptop computer this size , easily even than two speakers in the M1 MacBook Air . The three - mic array does n’t seem any unlike – it ’s still great for telecasting calls and the like but you would n’t want to use it for medicine recording .

Some entry-level caveats

We already catch a look at what to carry from the raw M2 mainframe in our review of the upgraded13 - inch MacBook Pro . The M2 in the MacBook Air is no different , so you may look some the same performance here .

Our constellation of the MacBook Air has the come specification , and is priced at $ 1,899 :

There are three things to mark before we get to the numbers . First , the MacBook Air ’s new design is still totally fanless . That think of blissful secrecy , but it also means that under sustained heavy workloads it will not be capable to deem to the same performance as the MacBook Pro , which has a buff to keep the processor cooler . The difference is small ( a few per centum ) , and only noticed in fussy circumstances that hammer on the processor for an extended metre , but it ’s there .

M2 MacBook Air notch

The new Air has a notch just like the new MacBook Pro, and it really isn’t very distracting in practice. One wonders why it’s so big, though.

Second , the entry - grade MacBook Air has only 8 of the M2 ’s 10 GPU pith enabled . you’re able to expect that configuration to present around 20 per centum lower graphics performance than what you see here .

And finally , if you get the entrance - level model with 256 GB of computer memory , Apple has confirmed that you ’re get the same undivided 256 GB chip as in the M2 MacBook Pro , which will reduce speed by as much as 50 pct liken to models with more storehouse . We suggest avoiding the 256 GB models , not only for that reason but also because you ’ll probably be running out of storage preferably than your think .

Expected performance gains

Let ’s start off with Geekbench 5 C.P.U. operation numbers , which are a coarse cadence of peak CPU performance for both a unmarried core and all pith . As you could see the M2 MacBook Air delivers peak performance right in line with the M2 MacBook Pro , and a bit better than the M1 . It ’s a nice advance , but it ’s not on equation with thehigher - close M1 Pro and Max processor .

Cinebench R23 uses the CPU to perform beam of light - trace interpretation on a static vista , and the test runs through several loop to assess sustained functioning . Here , you could see the combat-ready temperature reduction of the MacBook Pro makes a difference . While the new MacBook Air is 15 per centum faster than the M1 model , it ’s still 10 percent slower than the M2 MacBook Pro .

While the MacBook Air is not really meant for those who work in Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere all day , it ’s for certain reasonable to gestate workaday user to do a little light video redaction in iMovie . In our tests , we take an elongated 4 kibibyte TV clip and do video stabilization on it , then export it at full solvent in both ProRes and H.264 .

MacBook Air M2 webcam

In all but the brightest light, the M2’s webcam…

Here , we start to see a marked departure between the M1 and M2 . The M2 ’s video hardware supports encoding and decrypt ProRes , which makes a huge difference when export in that data format . Performance is once again similar to the M2 MacBook Pro , sometimes just a tiny spot slow ( perhaps thanks to the MacBook Pro ’s sports fan ) .

permit ’s take a tone at a dissimilar video trial run , this fourth dimension using the popular Handbrake tool . We use Handbrake 1.5 to transcode Blender ’s freeTears of Steelvideo from 4 KB to a 1080p H.265 data file . When using just the CPU cores , it finished almost 33 pct quicker than the M1 MacBook Air . When using the computer hardware encoder , that metre gets cut down a peck , and the M2 MacBook Air is about 21 percent faster than its predecessor .

Apple does not play around when it comes to SSD performance . Our Blackmagic Disk Speed Test show just under 3 GB / sec of read performance ( about the same as the M1 ) and just over 3GB / sec of write performance ( about a 30 percent improvement ) . It ’s not a groundbreaking change , but it ’s quite skilful for a thin and light notebook computer . ( take down , though , that carrying out for the 256 GB model will be reduced by up to one-half . )

MacBook Air M1 webcam

Looks a lot like the M1’s webcam.

The Geekbench 5 Compute scores expend the GPU to perform special - purpose computation tasks like facial recognition , depth - of - field , or horizon detection . It can use either the OpenCL or Apple ’s Metal API . It ’s a quick test , so it ’s not surprising that score are right in line with the M2 MacBook Pro . It ’s almost 60 pct faster than the old M1 MacBook Air ( just a surprise given that is was the entry - level theoretical account with 7 GPU gist ) , and about 40 percentage quicker than the “ full ” M1 with 8 GPU heart in the M1 MacBook Pro .

A MacBook Air has never been a great play laptop , and even the advance we find oneself in the M2 do n’t convert that . But it ’s interesting to see how much sound it is at running premium secret plan than the M1 .

The M2 MacBook Air , with a full 10 - core GPU , is about 40 % faster than the M1 Air with 7 GPU cores in ascension of the Tomb Raider , and between 20 - 50 pct quicker in Civilization VI , depend on the circumstance . That ’s the good news . The uncollectible news is neither of these games rescue a substantial 60 systema skeletale per second without seriously compromise visual configurations . Do n’t expect gambling miracle out of a fanless ultraportable laptop and you wo n’t be disappointed , I guess .

MacBook Air continuity camera webcam

Continuity Camera with your iPhone (in iOS 16 and macOS Ventura) produces much better results.

Awesome battery life and faster charging

Apple claim up to 18 hour of movie playback with the M2 MacBook Air , about the same as the M1 model and a couple of hours less than the M2 MacBook Pro , which has a magnanimous battery .

That was n’t quite our experience , but it ’s close . With the display set at 150 nit and play back a movie on an endless cringle in the telly app , our battery lasted 17.5 time of day — very close enough to Apple ’s 18 - hour claim . It also outstrips the M1 MacBook Air and M2 MacBook Pro by almost an minute and a half .

In even day-by-day use , battery life is just as gravid . It ’s a eldritch touch , opening up your laptop computer and doing work for 20 transactions and seeing that the barrage fire percentage has n’t commute even a single percentage , but that ’s how it is with Apple atomic number 14 . Obviously battery life varies based on what you ’re doing , but for this laptop ’s target market – the everyday home and productivity user – it ’s toilsome to think that you ’ll ever have to charge up before the day is done .

Apple dual USB-C Power Adapter

The M2 MacBook Air comes with a nice braided MagSafe cable and compact 35W dual-USB-C Power Adapter (in all but the base configuration).

When you eventually do plug in , you ’ll be glad to see that Apple has amped up charge velocity if you have a good USB - C power adapter . With the 35W dual - port adaptor that fall with all models of the Air away from the introduction - level model ( another reason not to buy it ) , I dumbfound back about a 10 percent care every 10 minutes . When I swapped out for Apple ’s 61W USB - C Power Adapter , I die from 25 percent to 72 pct in 30 minutes , essentially sustain Apple ’s “ 50 per centum in 30 minutes ” claim .

External display limitations

Apple states that the M2 MacBook Air corroborate just one international display . However , we can help here with tips onhow to add multiple monitors to an M1 or M2 MacBook Air .

Should you buy an M2 MacBook Air?

For most of us , the new M2 MacBook Air is all the laptop we ’ll ever take . Unless you do some badly high - end video editing or other computationally - intensive study all the metre , you have no need for MacBook Pro . Sure the extra ports of a Pro might seem handy , and the HDR ProMotion display is really decent , but you ’re paying a lot more for tycoon you ’ll never require , not to mention lugging around a adult , thick , leaden laptop computer .

Apple ’s unexampled MacBook Air is n’t a revelation , but it ’s a nice upgrade over the previous theoretical account . The declamatory , brighter display with thinner bezel is a squeamish improvement , MagSafe charging is back , and it ’s fetch frankly incredible execution for a 2.7 - pound computing machine that can do well over a full day of real work on a individual charge .

It ’s got a great keyboard and trackpad , really good speakers and mics for a laptop this size , and you do n’t have to concern about sports fan noise becausethere is no fan . I care the webcam was expert – it ’s just “ serviceable ” which create it the worst aspect of this entire laptop . Touch ID works well but it ’s clip for facial expression ID on Macs , too . And any advanced display engineering – HDR , ProMotion , whatever – would have been welcome in a laptop computer in this price range .

But it ’s a great laptop computer overall , and a bright start for this newfangled MacBook Air design that is in all likelihood going to be with us for twelvemonth to occur . I conceive most users would prefer this over theM2 13 - inch MacBook Pro , which has fewer features , a dated excogitation , and a negligible performance welfare .

As I say , steer clear of the 256 GB interlingual rendition , as the reposition performance is much dull and you only get an 8 - core group GPU ( 256 GB plausibly is n’t enough quad for the next few geezerhood anyway ) . The $ 1,499 good example with a 10 - core GPU , 8 fizgig of RAM , and 512 GB SSD is the perfumed spot , and those with a little spare money to drop should probably opt for 16 GB of RAM for $ 200 more . translate about why if you could pass more the $ 1,499/£1,549 MacBook Air is a good selection inthe $ 1,199 M2 MacBook Air is n’t as upright as it count .

For more advice read : MacBook Air vs MacBook ProandMacBook Air M2 vs M1 MacBook Air .