Today marks 2 weeks of using my base model (8/256) M2 Midnight MBA.
I find it odd how much controversy there is over this laptop, and since I have the midnight, and the base model it seems I have the worst possible combination...
How is it doing after 9 full charge cycles, and daily use?
Pretty damn well.
No scuffs though it has been in and out of my bag dozens of times, and used like I would use any other computer...
Keyboard is noticeably softer than it was when new (I type a lot), but that is to be expected.
Shows fingerprints.. Yep. I wipe it down more than my space grey MBP, but it looks awesome to me. Black 90% of the time, looks blue under bright lighting, or outside. I can deal with the fingerprints for the color.
No chips, and yes before I posted this, I examined it closely. I have used the USBC ports a few times each day, but no chips. The sharp edges of the ports do look a bit brighter than the surrounding area, but they looked like that when I opened it up, so I think it is normal. Not noticeable unless you are looking for it.
Battery life is awesome.
No slowdowns or beachballs. None. No problems with getting hot, or slowing down. True; I don't edit video on this notebook, it is for light mobile use. Web work, photo and raster editing, writing, basic normal computer use.
I do have a M1 16" MBP as my heavy lifting computer. Though I have hardly used it these past two weeks. I just grab the MBA, and haven't needed to do any video editing these 2 weeks. If I did need to edit video, I would use the MBP because I need the storage for the files and yeah, the 16" screen is much nicer to edit on.
I think the SSD issue is way overblown, I loaded it up as hard as I could just to get it to swap to the SSD, and still felt responsive and absolutely normal while editing photos and doing web editing work. In normal use I would never have 30 tabs open, and every program on the computer running, but it handled the load just fine.
As this is for when I am out and about, I don't need the larger storage capacity. I have 120gb free, and if I need to access more, I can pull off my NAS over the web. Why pay for more storage I won't need?
I did upgrade the 16" MBP to 1TB because I knew I would need to edit large video files, but that is always done at home, or at a desk somewhere...so no need for it on my run-around computer.
Its a great computer.
I do have 2 complaints, and that is the base price. Should have been $999 Apple could have done that no problem and still had healthy profit margins. Also I would have liked a 12" screen option, as I miss the 12" MacBook format.
For perspective:
I bought the original MBA for $1800 in 2008?, and this computer is 500 times better than that computer... (it was verrrry slow)
I bought the second generation 12" MacBook for about $1500? (can't remember the cost exactly) , and used it as my run-around last year, this is 100 times better than that computer. (slow, and keyboard problems)
So I suppose $1200 isn't a terrible price, but yeah should have been $999
I am flying out of the US on Sunday for 8 days. I would not have taken the 16" MBP, as it is just too heavy to keep with me all the time, but I am certainly taking the M2.
Have fun everyone.
I find it odd how much controversy there is over this laptop, and since I have the midnight, and the base model it seems I have the worst possible combination...
How is it doing after 9 full charge cycles, and daily use?
Pretty damn well.
No scuffs though it has been in and out of my bag dozens of times, and used like I would use any other computer...
Keyboard is noticeably softer than it was when new (I type a lot), but that is to be expected.
Shows fingerprints.. Yep. I wipe it down more than my space grey MBP, but it looks awesome to me. Black 90% of the time, looks blue under bright lighting, or outside. I can deal with the fingerprints for the color.
No chips, and yes before I posted this, I examined it closely. I have used the USBC ports a few times each day, but no chips. The sharp edges of the ports do look a bit brighter than the surrounding area, but they looked like that when I opened it up, so I think it is normal. Not noticeable unless you are looking for it.
Battery life is awesome.
No slowdowns or beachballs. None. No problems with getting hot, or slowing down. True; I don't edit video on this notebook, it is for light mobile use. Web work, photo and raster editing, writing, basic normal computer use.
I do have a M1 16" MBP as my heavy lifting computer. Though I have hardly used it these past two weeks. I just grab the MBA, and haven't needed to do any video editing these 2 weeks. If I did need to edit video, I would use the MBP because I need the storage for the files and yeah, the 16" screen is much nicer to edit on.
I think the SSD issue is way overblown, I loaded it up as hard as I could just to get it to swap to the SSD, and still felt responsive and absolutely normal while editing photos and doing web editing work. In normal use I would never have 30 tabs open, and every program on the computer running, but it handled the load just fine.
As this is for when I am out and about, I don't need the larger storage capacity. I have 120gb free, and if I need to access more, I can pull off my NAS over the web. Why pay for more storage I won't need?
I did upgrade the 16" MBP to 1TB because I knew I would need to edit large video files, but that is always done at home, or at a desk somewhere...so no need for it on my run-around computer.
Its a great computer.
I do have 2 complaints, and that is the base price. Should have been $999 Apple could have done that no problem and still had healthy profit margins. Also I would have liked a 12" screen option, as I miss the 12" MacBook format.
For perspective:
I bought the original MBA for $1800 in 2008?, and this computer is 500 times better than that computer... (it was verrrry slow)
I bought the second generation 12" MacBook for about $1500? (can't remember the cost exactly) , and used it as my run-around last year, this is 100 times better than that computer. (slow, and keyboard problems)
So I suppose $1200 isn't a terrible price, but yeah should have been $999
I am flying out of the US on Sunday for 8 days. I would not have taken the 16" MBP, as it is just too heavy to keep with me all the time, but I am certainly taking the M2.
Have fun everyone.
