Anyone else disappointed with the new M2 Air announcement?

[rocketpig]

I’m disappointed in the price. It made my forced decision to buy a MacBook Pro more justified after my toddler spilled water on my 2020 Air. I don’t want a $1400 Air just to get 16gb of memory when my MBP was new open box for $1800.

I just do not understand the notch hate. Would you rather have a smaller display? Because that’s what you get without the notch. I never even notice the notch is there until I fire up the camera and get the light.

 

[jav6454]

I’m disappointed in the price. It made my forced decision to buy a MacBook Pro more justified after my toddler spilled water on my 2020 Air. I don’t want a $1400 Air just to get 16gb of memory when my MBP was new open box for $1800.

I just do not understand the notch hate. Would you rather have a smaller display? Because that’s what you get without the notch. I never even notice the notch is there until I fire up the camera and get the light.

Price? It was bound to happen with inflation to the USD.

 

[PerfectChaos]

A little disappointed with the price increase, but I think it’s quite an appealing upgrade.

I’m probably going to hold onto my 2014 Pro for another year since it still works great, but I’ll be happy to get one of these when the time comes!

 

[Wizec]

It's too bad they lost the tapered design. That's what I like about my M1 Air. I had a Pro before that, and the higher edge actually bothered my wrists.

 

[Warped9]

The new Air announcement:

1. Looked chonky.
2. Is expensive.
3. Brought a notch which I haven't seen a single person prefer.
4. Lacked the anticipated 15" model.

How many of you were not impressed with the new Air?

How many of you would have greatly preferred if Apple just made exactly what was rumored last year, even if it may be a bit less powerful?

Just curious if anyone else had their hopes shattered, and felt disappointment with the WWDC presentation.

I’m not disappointed. Except the fact I was expecting brighter colours. Nonetheless…
- The new MBA looks pretty much as was expected with the more recent rumours, including the notch. I still prefer the wedge design, but the indications were strong the wedge was going away. The bigger 13.6 display means the notch won’t be any issue in practice, just as it isn’t on the MBP 14 and 16.
- Off-white bezels and keys would have been a bold move, but it looks like Apple chose to play it safer here to appeal to a broader consumer base.
- It’s price is on par with the MBP 13 while being a better machine and a better value given they are keeping (for now) the current M1 MBA 13 as entry level albeit with fewer spec options. I suspect, just as with the previous MBA 13, the current M1 MBA will stick around for awhile but be dropped at some point wherein the new M2 MBA will get a price reduction to be Apple’s entry level laptop.
- A 15in. MBA was pure wishful thinking given there were no solid rumours to suggest it could actually happen.
- The M2 was long said to be only moderately more powerful than the M1 and not anywhere as powerful as the M1 Pro or M1 Max, so absolutely no surprises there. It’s exactly as expected.

My one real disappointment is that computers priced at $1000+ should have 512GB storage as standard.

 

[ian87w]

I'm disappointed that there are still no pre-configured model with 16GB of RAM.

 

[Chateaunole-du-Pape]

I'm disappointed that there are still no pre-configured model with 16GB of RAM.

Agree. This will likely preclude my buying it from Costco, unfortunately.

Otherwise, I'm very pleased with what I have seen of the actual product itself.

 

[jav6454]

I'm disappointed that there are still no pre-configured model with 16GB of RAM.

Considering inflation and chip shortages... I would count it as a plus it's offered.

 

[Pugly]

I'm not disappointed, but I guess I was more excited for a design with the new iMac colors like all the rumored renders. This is more of a conservative upgrade than a bold new direction for an Air. Which makes sense for a laptop that needs to appeal to as many people as possible.

I appreciate the wedge design very much, so that's a big negative for me. I'm also a iPhone mini user, so it'll be 2021 tech design for the foreseeable future.

The good stuff is the M2 inside and the GPU improvements. And the price isn't too bad for a chip upgrade and new design.

 

[GSWForever8]

This MacBook Air update was stellar. In my opinion, it’s by far better than the MacBook Pro, which only got a chip upgrade.

 

[kp98077]

Oh lord, everyone is going to go buy the "wedges" up now.. lol!!

 

[m1maverick]

it's literally thinner and weighs less lmao?

it's more powerful than most laptops in its category and the build quality is superior.

macrumors has been beating the horse about the notch for 5 long years, I wonder if it it ever gets tiring. never once has it bothered me or worsened my user experience to the point it has been unusable. you'd think with the way people act like its the end of the world every time they see a notch, they would just move on to other platforms.

Just because it hasn't bothered you does not negate the fact others are bothered by it. The fact that it's been beat for 5 long years demonstrates there are a significant number of people who object to it.

 

[bluespark]

How could anyone not like the notch, if by that you mean that Apple is now taking advantage of what previously was useless space on either side of the camera array? I have the 16" MBP and that extra vertical screen space is extremely useful.

As to the Air, I think Apple nailed it in every way.

 

[ahurst]

1) It may look "chonky" but its all-around thickness is 0.19" thinner than the maximum thickness of the M1 Air, and it's 0.1 lb lighter.

As a former ThinkPad and Dell Latitude user I found it funny enough that people complained about the 14" MBP being too "chonky" for their tastes, but seeing someone complain about the new Air being unreasonably thick and unwieldy is just sending me, holy crap.

Try hauling one of these bad boys around for a month or two and then please tell me how unreasonably thick the new Air is:

 

[R3k]

They're just making decisions based on the marketing department again. Bring back the engineers.

I hated the taper, though. And the Arrow keys used to be cool, but now they have a space above the left and right arrows. Dumb.

Actually that space really helps locate the keys. The 2016 MacBook Pro done away with them meaning you had to hunt for the up down arrows more. Apple brought the spaces back next generation. Im personally much faster and accurate with the spaced design, guess I’m not the only one.

 

[skottichan]

I'm not disappointed, but then again, I'm not the main target in my household. Now, my wife, she's a little disappointed that they didn't do the iMac colors.

 

[turbineseaplane]

As a former ThinkPad and Dell Latitude user I found it funny enough that people complained about the 14" MBP being too "chonky" for their tastes, but seeing someone complain about the new Air being unreasonably thick and unwieldy is just sending me, holy crap.

Try hauling one of these bad boys around for a month or two and then please tell me how unreasonably thick the new Air is:

View attachment 2015781View attachment 2015782

How about some comparisons that are even remotely recent?

 

[ahurst]

How about some comparisons that are even remotely recent?

My comparison isn’t a Mac vs PC thing, but rather an “I can’t believe people are complaining about the thickness of an incredibly thin laptop when the average laptop was 3-4x thicker only a decade ago” thing.

To me it’s like calling the Empire State Building “medium-sized” because there’s a few taller buildings in other countries, it misuses the term so absurdly that it loses all meaning. My beloved X220 was “chonky”, an Air that’s easily 1/3 of its thickness is categorically not.

 

[Mainsail]

The new MBA looks great to me, and I am tempted but will wait for reviews. As for the price, there is no surprise here. The $1,199 US is consistent with prior MBA releases of new models with design changes that require new production tooling etc.. As production ramps up and the new M2 chip is implemented across more product line, the unit cost will drop and so will the price back to the familiar $999. This happened with the prior iterations of the MBA, so I would expect it to happen again. But, it might take a couple of years.

 

[ian87w]

My comparison isn’t a Mac vs PC thing, but rather an “I can’t believe people are complaining about the thickness of an incredibly thin laptop when the average laptop was 3-4x thicker only a decade ago” thing.

To me it’s like calling the Empire State Building “medium-sized” because there’s a few taller buildings in other countries, it misuses the term so absurdly that it loses all meaning. My beloved X220 was “chonky”, an Air that’s easily 1/3 of its thickness is categorically not.

The MacBook Air won easily a decade ago. However, today, plenty of laptops that are actually lighter than the MacBook Air. My HP Pavillion Aero 13 is less than 1kg, lighter than the M2 MacBook Air.

 

[jav6454]

The MacBook Air won easily a decade ago. However, today, plenty of laptops that are actually lighter than the MacBook Air. My HP Pavillion Aero 13 is less than 1kg, lighter than the M2 MacBook Air.

And what CPU does the HP Aero use?

 

[NoelWalker]

The M2MBA looks amazing and sexy IMO, definitely the best purchase for those new Mac users who have some extra cash to spend. But I still like my M1MBA more considering I still haven't fully utilised its potential. I love the new form factor, very cool looking and modern, but I like the current wedge design and half-sized function row. I don't set the brightness over 50% most of the time, nor participate in video calls that frequently (in fact, I had a zoom interview last week and it was the very first time I used the webcam), so I don't find myself needing to upgrade in the coming years.

 

[jdoyle]

Firstly hate the notch but I suppose it’s in the menu bar which is wasted space. Love the new midnight colour. Form factor is fine but really they should drop the MacBook Air name now. It’s not even written on it anymore.

The M2 naming convention is odd. It’s only 18% faster than M1. Why isn’t this the M1 Max? M2 should be a huge leap over anything with the M1 in the name.

 

[Wizec]

Firstly hate the notch but I suppose it’s in the menu bar which is wasted space. Love the new midnight colour. Form factor is fine but really they should drop the MacBook Air name now. It’s not even written on it anymore.

The M2 naming convention is odd. It’s only 18% faster than M1. Why isn’t this the M1 Max? M2 should be a huge leap over anything with the M1 in the name.

If the 18% is the single threaded performance boost, then it’s a very respectable generational increase in performance.

Looks like the 18% was multicore, but overall, a very nice generational improvement. More details here:

 

[pintolcv]

To much expensive in Europe. Air base model 1529€...