Anyone else disappointed with the new M2 Air announcement?

[rmariboe]

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.

To me, that’s what the MBP should have been - instead of that chunky piece they presented last year.

I think it’s near perfect for a non-P, except for the feet and inclusion of minijack and MagSafe.

 

[DavidChoux]

Again, my point isn't that the MBA is the thinnest laptop around, only that it's still incredibly thin for a laptop and that it's very weird to me that people would describe it as excessively thick.

Yep, just been looking at some windows 13" laptops and the new Air is indeed very thin. I was quite surprised. I think the large feet make it look thicker than it actually is.

 

[Wahlstrm]

i'm disappointed, was really hoping for 32gb ram. 24gb seems like a stopgap.

From all the testing I’ve seen there’s almost nothing you can throw at the M1 where 16GB isn’t plenty.

For workflows that can benefit from more, you def also need active cooling to see any significant improvement.

The extra ram alone won’t make up for cpu/gpu in the Air running slower due to lack of cooling.

 

[rocketpig]

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

I get and understand that but it makes the Air a much less appealing machine outside the base configuration in comparison to the 14” MBP. The Air starts approaching the MBP price in a hurry if you upgrade anything while the MBP has significant upgrades built-in that the Air cannot match.

 

[m1maverick]

I think we're talking past each other here. You're of course correct that the Air isn't *uniquely* thin and light anymore, there are other ultrabooks on the market that are marginally thinner and lighter. My point is that from a practical standpoint, *all* modern ultrabooks are so thin and light compared to the laptops we carried around 10-15 years ago that complaining about a millimetre or two of thickness just seems like petty spec-chasing instead of a genuine practical concern.

Everyone's entitled to their own specific preferences and preferred design trade-offs of course, my main issue is the absurdity of calling a laptop that's barely more than 1cm thick "chonky" (which colloquially means "excessively/cartoonishly thick") when it's nearly 1/3 of the thickness of the main laptop I used daily until late last year (the X220, which is ~3.1 cm thick). Words have meaning, dang it!

...wow, I knew this was going to be a slow morning for me, but I didn't expect to spend this much of it arguing the semantics of the word "chonky" on an internet forum. Hope your Wednesday's going better than mine.

This was much easier to transport due to the included handle

 

[jav6454]

I get and understand that but it makes the Air a much less appealing machine outside the base configuration in comparison to the 14” MBP. The Air starts approaching the MBP price in a hurry if you upgrade anything while the MBP has significant upgrades built-in that the Air cannot match.

That's inflation for you....

 

[ilikewhey]

From all the testing I’ve seen there’s almost nothing you can throw at the M1 where 16GB isn’t plenty.

For workflows that can benefit from more, you def also need active cooling to see any significant improvement.

The extra ram alone won’t make up for cpu/gpu in the Air running slower due to lack of cooling.

i'm on 16gb right now and have yellow ram pressure, i'm no power user, just alot of tabs for work and personal. monterey has garbage ram management.

 

[Chateaunole-du-Pape]

This was much easier to transport due to the included handle

View attachment 2016083

We had the Panasonic version. It weighed 30 lbs. My Dad would take it back and forth to the office from time to time, and it eventually became my college computer for at least my first year or two. The built-in thermal printer was a nice touch, though I don't expect my professors appreciated the paper, which was on a roll and would tend to curl up even after printing, very much.

 

[NorrisKillsKids]

I get and understand that but it makes the Air a much less appealing machine outside the base configuration in comparison to the 14” MBP. The Air starts approaching the MBP price in a hurry if you upgrade anything while the MBP has significant upgrades built-in that the Air cannot match.

I mentioned this before but the same works the way other way around. The Air has things that pros either can't match at all, or mostly can't match (thinness/weight/battery life). Obviously the larger 16 inch has great battery. But 14 vs air...not so much.

These are just different segments. I get that the lines would be blurred on an enthusiast forum who want the "perfect" product but most people aren't going "but I can get a base 14 pro for 300-600 more". Not everyone wants the ports and the weight and the less battery, not everyone even knows what pro-motion is, not everyone needs all the GPU cores they can get. More specs for a little more money might be completely meaningless if you don't plan on using it. But form factor and battery life? Everyone benefits there...

The new Air is a bit of a gift to people who wanted to get kinda close to a 14 pro, but don't need all those frills. So you can pay extra to get there but still maintain the form factor and battery life. For everyone else...just get the base. Or the base and some RAM.

Disclaimer that I'm canadian and all apple products are laughably priced here.

 

[paulchiu]

love the same looks as the 16.2" MBP, but was hoping for a HDR-ready screen of some sort.

 

[Haribokart]

Very pleased the white bezel/keyboard never materialised, with the bigger screen and the new Midnight colour. Disappointed at the price bump.

 

[SwedeC]

I'll keep my 11" with 1tb RAM till the dust settles.

 

[Chateaunole-du-Pape]

I mentioned this before but the same works the way other way around. The Air has things that pros either can't match at all, or mostly can't match (thinness/weight/battery life). Obviously the larger 16 inch has great battery. But 14 vs air...not so much.

These are just different segments. I get that the lines would be blurred on an enthusiast forum who want the "perfect" product but most people aren't going "but I can get a base 14 pro for 300-600 more". Not everyone wants the ports and the weight and the less battery, not everyone even knows what pro-motion is, not everyone needs all the GPU cores they can get. More specs for a little more money might be completely meaningless if you don't plan on using it. But form factor and battery life? Everyone benefits there...

The new Air is a bit of a gift to people who wanted to get kinda close to a 14 pro, but don't need all those frills. So you can pay extra to get there but still maintain the form factor and battery life. For everyone else...just get the base. Or the base and some RAM.

Disclaimer that I'm canadian and all apple products are laughably priced here.

Spot on. I was close to buying a base 14" MBP a month or so ago when it was on sale for $1749 at Costco. I don't need the power it brings, but I do want both MagSafe and a better webcam than what's in the M1 Air. The 14" Pro, of course, has those two things, and Costco's $200 discount was very attractive. But I ultimately decided that I didn't want to pay for processing power that I don't need, AND settle for something that's significantly heavier than the Air. Portability is more important to me than sheer power.

So, now I am very glad I waited. I'll get both MagSafe and the better webcam, the lighter weight which I preferred, and, with education pricing (my wife is a teacher), I'll upgrade to double the storage (1 TB) versus what I would have gotten with the base 14" MBP, all the while paying $90 less than Costco's sale price for that 14" machine.

 

[maswriter]

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.

The M2 Air was what I expected. The colors were better than I expected with no white bezels.

The second Mac they should have announced was an M2 Mac Mini. That's something developers could use. Updating the 13-inch MacBook Pro with the old design, Touch Bar, and no MagSafe made no sense. And they charge an extra $100 for it. Apple should have discontinued it or kept the M1 model and dropped the price.

 

[thadoggfather]

I like the design (overall), the price seems fair, wish they stepped up either 8gb or 256gb that has been the base for an eternity. Magsafe is back -- woo.

dont like that 16gb is BTO only.

Dont care for the notch, wish they went >=14.0", sad to see wedge shape gone, and a little disappointed M1->M2 performance is incremental. The boosted M1's seem more enticing. But really nothing since my M1 Air is good

if I got it, it would be strictly for the design and cosmetics of it all. Would be curious to hear the new sound system.

Disappointed? Nah. This will probably be my machine in a few years idk

 

[georgivelev]

Don’t worry, the MBP 14/16 will get a price increase by 20% when the newer model is released so the M2 Air will be a very attractive proposition.

Now if only did I get a 20% salary increase, I’d get the new MBA 16/1TB in a heartbeat, settling for the M1 makes no sense once the M2 is out.

 

[WP31]

The new Air looks like a nice machine, but I'd had hoped that with M2 they'd have brought support for more than 1 external display to the lower end chips... Maybe that is now a "pro feature"?

This is my dilemma. I'm actually a little bit surprised that there isn't more noise about the 'one external monitor' issue. I know it can be done with DisplayLink, I know my iPad can be a second monitor, and I get that many (most?) users just don't want it in the Air but boy it just seems like such an odd thing to leave out. I'd pre-order if it could natively drive two, real external monitors. It seems like if all the other manufacturers can figure it out why can't Apple, ya know? (I also know it's a TB controller thing and apple could figure it out if they had planned it years ago but I really hoped the "M2 Air" would be able to do it).

 

[Cognizant.]

This is my dilemma. I'm actually a little bit surprised that there isn't more noise about the 'one external monitor' issue. I know it can be done with DisplayLink, I know my iPad can be a second monitor, and I get that many (most?) users just don't want it in the Air but boy it just seems like such an odd thing to leave out. I'd pre-order if it could natively drive two, real external monitors. It seems like if all the other manufacturers can figure it out why can't Apple, ya know? (I also know it's a TB controller thing and apple could figure it out if they had planned it years ago but I really hoped the "M2 Air" would be able to do it).

The midnight color is beautiful. Everything about the laptop is slick. But the lack of dual monitor support is seriously a deal breaker.

 

[Dealmans]

So, now I am very glad I waited. I'll get both MagSafe and the better webcam, the lighter weight which I preferred, and, with education pricing (my wife is a teacher), I'll upgrade to double the storage (1 TB) versus what I would have gotten with the base 14" MBP, all the while paying $90 less than Costco's sale price for that 14" machine.

I got a new 14" 16/1TB for same price as 16/1TB air 2 will be yesterday, plenty of deals going around here. AU.

 

[Chateaunole-du-Pape]

I got a new 14" 16/1TB for same price as 16/1TB air 2 will be yesterday, plenty of deals going around here. AU.

I'll be able to buy a 14" M2 Air with 16 GB/1 TB and the 8-core GPU for $1,659 US. The cheapest 16 GB / 512 GB 14" Pro I have seen was at Costco, for the aforementioned $1,749 US. If you found a better deal on a 1 TB 14", great, and enjoy ! But even if they were the same price, I'd take the M2 Air and its more portable form factor.

 

[Dealmans]

I'll be able to buy a 14" M2 Air with 16 GB/1 TB and the 8-core GPU for $1,659 US. The cheapest 16 GB / 512 GB 14" Pro I have seen was at Costco, for the aforementioned $1,749 US. If you found a better deal on a 1 TB 14", great, and enjoy ! But even if they were the same price, I'd take the M2 Air and its more portable form factor.

mine was $50AU cheaper than same config air 2, no brainer

 

[Chateaunole-du-Pape]

mine was $50AU cheaper than same config air 2, no brainer

Enjoy. I don't want to lug around the extra weight.

 

[boxrick]

Disappointing to not get a smaller model.... I really miss my macbook 12" I just want a small powerful mac, and a 12" in this style would have been AMAZING.

Instead we get a weird halfway house. As already mentioned a 12" and 14" lineup would have been perfect

 

[unchecked]

The only thing I don’t like is the price. It’s too close to the 14” MBP. I’m afraid what that means is the M2 14” MBPs are also going to be more expensive.

Other than that, I like how the Air turned out and I do plan to get the M2 Air for mobility and eventually the M2 Mac Mini for more intensive stuff like streaming and video editing. Not getting a MBP because the Mini will have more ports anyway.

 

[Yoms]

It's a great update overall. The new colours are lovely.
But, 16GB / 512GB is a minimum in 2022 imho. And that configuration sets the price close to that of the MBP 14" which has other things to offer. So, unless form factor and weight are paramount, I think it's not a great buy vs the MBP 14".