M2 MacBook Air 2022
finally we have a new macbook air but who on earth is it for the m1 macbook air this is mine which is now covered in stickers these days redefined apple's notebook line suddenly you could grab apple's cheapest lightest and quietest portable mac and gain access to pro level performance however all of that power and next generation performance was housed in a rapidly aging body which is this kind of wedge-shaped design and as loved as this might be the wedge shape design of the macbook air has been due an update for quite some time last week and to my surprise the update arrived in the form of the m2 macbook air the wedge has been swapped for a mini macbook pro aesthetic and the return of magsafe is joined by a brand new apple silicon chip a notched screen and a higher price tag but with the m1 macbook air still very much alive and kicking on the apple store who is the m2 macbook air 4 exactly so the base level m2 macbook air is remarkably similar to that of its predecessor the 8 core cpu comes with 8 gigabytes of unified memory and 256 gigabytes of ssd storage however while the basebeck m1 macbook air comes with a 7 core gpu the basebeck m2 macbook air comes with an 8 core gpu you also get a slightly larger 13.6 inch display which now carries the liquid retina moniker an improved 1080p facetime camera apparently and the return of magsafe as i mentioned earlier that configuration will set you back 1199 in the us or 1249 pounds in the uk for some unfathomable reason the second spec offered immediately by apple on their website retains the 8 gigabyte of unified memory but takes the gpu cores up to 10 and increases the ssd storage to 512 gigabytes that lot will set you back an additional 300. or 300 pounds on top of the base price if you fancy some more memory you'll pay 200 or 200 pounds for 16 gigabytes or 400 or 400 pounds for 24 gigabytes which is a new option for the m2 macbook air and that additional unified memory option will offer some comfort to those who felt short-changed by the m1 versions maxed out 16 gigabytes when it comes to adding additional storage to your m2 macbook air it's as expensive as we've come to expect from apple just like its m1 based sibling the m2 macbook air can be configured with up to 2 terabytes of ssd storage but that will add 800 or 800 pounds to the price tag it doesn't stop there though this time around we get some rather interesting power adapter options as well if you want you can choose to stick with the standard 30 watt brick or upgrade to either a dual usbc 35 watt charger or a 67 watt fast charger and that fast charger will allowyou to charge your m2 mavic air to 50 in just 30 minutes now if you tick every single box during the configuration process for the m2 macbook air the most you can pay is a rather troubling 2 499
M2 MacBook air Review
or 2549 pounds so this is an undeniably powerful yet increasingly expensive macbook the purchasing decision therefore deserves far more thought than this laptop i'm so glad apple decided to keep the m1 macbook air in the lineup they should have dropped the price i think but given the fact that this laptop offers so much bang for buck it can just about be excused as i noted last week i think the continued presence of the m1 macbook air is a real thorn in the side of its shiny new big brother i cannot emphasize this enough and i'm sorry you will hear this from me quite a bit over the next few weeks and months the m1 macbook air remains the perfect laptop i think for 95 of people who want a macbook air we're living in challenging economic times for instance in the uk we're battling through a cost living crisis thanks to the soaring energy costs astronomical prices at the petrol pumps and the continued economic fallout from the pandemic so that 250 pound price difference between the base spec m1 macbook air and the m2 mapper care is a lot of money when most of us are still trying to figure out how to keep our personal finances in check the same goes for businesses if i needed to buy a team a bunch of macbooks i wouldn't think twice about getting them the m1 macbook air to be honest the m2 version wouldn't even come into consideration so if you're trying to figure out which one to buy out of these two laptops and you're watching your pennies at the moment stop watching this video now and just go and buy yourself an m1 macbook air you will not be disappointed still watching thought so after all how could i so brazenly swipe aside that brand new m2 macbook air the reason is simple and it comes down to everyday use trust me if you took the m1 macbook air and placed it directly next to an m2 macbook air and did your kind of normal everyday stuff like email web browsing youtube viewing spreadsheet stuff whatever it might be they would both feel identical they'd boot up just as quickly as one another mac os would feel equally snappy on both of those laptops and all of your apps would open with barely any hesitation regardless of which machine you're using now i occasionally receive comments from people who bemoan the 16 gigabyte unified memory limit on the m1 macbook air but i receive far more comments from people who have bought the base spec like this one and absolutely love it this confirms my suspicions i think the macbook air power users really are in a minority now the m2 is an impressive chip there's no doubting that the percentage increases over the m1 chip tell their own story you get 50 more memory bandwidth 18 greater cpu performance and up to 35 percent more graphics performance but we should revisit the unified memory situation again as noted earlier if 16 gigabytes wasn't enough for you on the m1 macbook air the presence of that 24 gigabyte option will be very good news indeed you can get more in a macbook pro obviously but if you do any kind of memory intensive computing the m2 macbook air should provide the headroom you need during those sustained intensive workloads however i'd argue that the biggest opportunity for pushing the m2 macbook air to its limits lies within that gpu the increase to 10 cores of graphical power is joined by a next generation media engine which is capable of playing back multiple streams of 8k video just think about that for a moment a macbook air without a fan that can handle multiple streams of 8k h.264 footage it's just utterly bonkers despite this i highly doubt that anyone working with 8k footage would make the m2 macbook air their default production machine but i think that's missing the point the fact that it is capable of such feats makes the m2 macbook air an incredible backup for a very specific audience a case in point last year i had to travel to montreal on business and i landed on the day that apple announced the new macbook pro lineup that meant i had to shoot edit and publish a reaction video that evening from my hotel room now the only laptop i had to hand was my basebeck m1 macbook air this one here and it got me through in fact it barely murmured as i edited 10 bit 422 4k footage it did stutter occasionally and understandably but imagine how much more headroom i'd have had if i'd had the m2 version in my backpack now that won't be the default role of an m2 macbook air for most people but if your main production machine is let's say a mac studio you could do a lot worse than grab yourself an m2 of care as a backup for when you're out and about like i was last year and you need to get something done just having all of that computing and graphical power in such a small thin and light map book which is admittedly cheaper than a macbook pro would be a massive benefit to people like me in those situations so who on earth is the m2 macbook air for well i think it comes down to three types of users the first one is those who have the budget for it and want the latest and greatest that's fine the second is those who have a specific performance gripe with the m1 macbook air so if there's something in this laptop that you don't like and that's put you off buying it but the m2 version addresses that then it makes sense to get one and the third is video editors who need an occasional portable production machine but who don't want to splash out on a macbook pro as you guess i am going to dig into the m1 versus m2 comparison quite a bit more over the next few weeks so if you don't want to miss those videos make sure you subscribe and hit that bell but if you do fit into one of those three categories that i've just mentioned i'm confident that you will be blown away by your brand new m2 macbook air whenever it arrives if you don't fit into any of those categories and you are watching the pennies at the moment just get
yourself an m1 macbook air if you want to find out what i thought about all of