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About the m1 vs m2 comparison:

Yeah, the M2 air got 100 more nits and is a bit larger and that will make it brighter and better that way. But on paper you can see that the M1 air has tiny bit higher pixel per inch, ppi (227) vs M2 air (224). But the difference is so minimal so I don’t think it will be noticeable. I rarely see anyone talking about it.

I’m waiting for my silver m2 air 8/16/1tb to arrive. The screen will be a huge upgrade compared to my iPad Air 3 and my MacBook Pro 13 from early 2011(!!).
But the PPI is still higher than the Apple Studio Display (218), which also lacks ProMotion and miniLED. So think of the M2 display as a mini Studio Display.
 
Apple’s LCD panels are the best in the industry. It’s going to be good no matter what. The only difference will be blacks which is not a big deal for most people.
 
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Do you find the air capable of being a primary computer? Or just for on the go light surfing the web etc?

This is in no way against you, but I feel like the notion that the MBA can only do light tasks is something that somehow stuck around from the intel MBAs - especially the base models with core i3 or whatever.

The M1 (and likely M2 as well, I don’t have one so I can’t tell for sure) are capable of way more and could absolutely be your primary computer - depending on what your use case is. If you’re a video editor, you might want to go with the MBP still, of course.
But I edit my fair share of photos in Affinity Photo (RAW and JPEG) for example and the M1 MBA doesn’t even get hot in the process. It’s faster than my 2020 i5 MBP with 16GB of RAM even though the MBA is the base config.
 
I think the screen is OK - brighter etc. than my last MacBook Air. However, I'm still playing with contrast and brightness since I find some stuff harder to read. But adjustments are always part of the game for me.
 
It's very good. Received the machine yesterday and already prefer it to my 11" iPad Pro, despite the fact that the iPad Pro has ProMotion and the M2 MBA does not. Scrolling is fluid, colors are vivid and appear accurate, and everything is bright and crisp. Just finished watching a baseball game via mlb.tv in Safari, and it looked great. Definitely better than watching on my iPad Pro. (Full disclosure: I don't have either the 14" MBP or the 12.9" iPad Pro.)
you cant compare pro motion from a iPad 11" to a air 2, comparing against a 14" is jarring
 
air 2 is not bad bit better than air 1 just, nothing like the 14" though

they really screwed over the market buyers for base air 2 though, and pushed even those wanting more storage to a 14"
 
I’m typing this on a return flight on my m2 mba. Left the 16 mbp home. Short business meeting around the conference table …light work. The m2 mba was perfect. The weight and size difference was such i got paranoid and checked my bag twice. No big power brick either. Did carry the hdmi dongle.

Having said that, for longer trips doing real work in a hotel room where I want the screen size I’d probably take the 16 mbp.

I’m keeping both
that's a good combo!!
 
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I didn't like the display at all on the M2 MBA. At first I thought the M2 MBA was thermal throttling, but it was simply the 60hz that gives me this impression.

But for the base M2 MBA, the display is good enough for me.
 
I’m typing this on a return flight on my m2 mba. Left the 16 mbp home. Short business meeting around the conference table …light work. The m2 mba was perfect. The weight and size difference was such i got paranoid and checked my bag twice. No big power brick either. Did carry the hdmi dongle.

Having said that, for longer trips doing real work in a hotel room where I want the screen size I’d probably take the 16 mbp.

I’m keeping both
I too have a new 16" MacBook Pro.. The size and weight is crazy. I'll take the 16 when I know I'm going to be doing a lot but otherwise the MacBook Air is perfect. I'm starting to really like the size and weight going back to my 16 makes it feel huge!
 
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For those of you who have been spoiling yourselves with higher ppi screens, miniled, and ProMotion, do you find you miss this stuff on the m2 MBA? Does the screen feel a little low quality when viewing pictures, or even small font, etc?
It's not bad at all, it's wonderful and not low quality at all.

How many "looking for a problem" posts are you going to make like this? Just get one and find out already and if you don't like it return it instead of starting post after post?
 
Notebookcheck just posted their review on the M2 Air (including a deep dive in the screen quality) and the verdict is that the screen is almost as good as the base MacBook Pro but short on black levels.

The M2 Air screen has worse black levels than the base M1/M2 MacBook Pro screen and just as bad as the M1 Air (which many complained about having poor black performance). For me this is a dealbreaker.
 
Notebookcheck just posted their review on the M2 Air (including a deep dive in the screen quality) and the verdict is that the screen is almost as good as the base MacBook Pro but short on black levels.

The M2 Air screen has worse black levels than the base M1/M2 MacBook Pro screen and just as bad as the M1 Air (which many complained about having poor black performance). For me this is a dealbreaker.
I just re-read the notebookcheck review where does it say the base MacBook Pro has a better screen that the m2 air? if that's the case then the 14/16 screens must be way better.
 
where does it say the base MacBook Pro has a better screen that the m2 air?
You didn't read what I said properly.

I didn't specifically say the base MacBook Pro has a better screen than the M2 Air, I said it has better black levels than the M2 Air (along with brightness distribution and backlight bleed). The base MacBook Pro does a better job at showing black than the M1/M2 Air. The colour black on the MacBook Pro is more of a grey on the MacBook Air, that is the difference.

Considering how similar the screens are but the MacBook Pro having better black levels, the base MacBook Pro does have the better screen. Now I've said it.
 
In regards to the M2 Air display to 14" MBP M1 Pro miniLED black levels and contrast to the above discussion:

Besides the slightly higher resolution of 2560 x 1664 pixels, Apple also bumped other specs of the liquid retina panel (IPS). The brightness climbs to 500 nits like on the MBP 13 and the panel now supports the wider P3 color gamut. We can confirm the higher brightness, but the black value (0.38) is comparatively high, so the contrast ratio is "only" 1400:1.

The subjective picture quality is very good, even though modern OLED screens and also the Mini-LED panels of the larger MacBook Pro models offer even crisper images. However, the new MacBook Air M2 shows no sign of PWM flickering in return, which will definitely be an advantage for some users.


"Apple traditionally uses very good displays and the new MacBook Pro 14 is no exception. The subjective quality impression of the new Liquid Retina XDR screen is just amazing. Like OLED panels, the Mini-LED screen manages extremely low black values, which results in very high contrast ratios. The resolution of 3024 x 1964 pixels also ensures sharp and vivid pictures on the 14.2-inch screen (254 ppi).

We have already reported about the brightness of the new panel, because Apple only lists the brightness values for HDR contents in its spec sheet. We can confirm that the panel manages a maximum brightness of 1,607 nits with corresponding HDR contents all the way up to an APL of 50 (average picture level; even distribution of bright and dark contents) and still more than 1,100 nits on a completely white screen (at least a 16:9 video with small black bars on the top and bottom). The HDR image is really impressive, suitable contents just look amazing, and the HDR capabilities (except for the screen size) are comparable to good TVs."


Black levels and contrast on 14" M1 Pro miniLED = 0.01 black level / 48900 contrast

Compared to Black levels and contrast on M2 Air = 0.38 black level / 1384 contrast

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I personally think the comparisons should stay within the Air family (or previous gen MBPs). You're never going to be happy if you're comparing against MiniLED HDR displays.

My M2 Air just arrived today, haven't had much of a chance to set it up and play around yet as it is a busy work day. But, I did do a side by side comparison to my M1 Air and the M2's display is noticeably nicer to the eye right out of the box, even before correcting Apple's signature green/blue tinted factory calibration.

I set both displays to default settings, turned TrueTone off, auto-brightness off, and set brightness to the 50% mark on each and the M2 Air's display has cleaner more solid whites (if that makes sense), better blacks, more contrast, and has a more pleasing overall tone compared to the M1.

Of course, when you crank up the brightness, the difference will be night and day due to the extra nits alone, but I think the takeaway here is that the M2 Air's display is an upgrade over the M1 Air's display (and the slightly larger size and thinner bezels are just icing on the cake).
 
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I personally think the comparisons should stay within the Air family (or previous gen MBPs). You're never going to be happy if you're comparing against MiniLED HDR displays.

My M2 Air just arrived today, haven't had much of a chance to set it up and play around yet as it is a busy work day. But, I did do a side by side comparison to my M1 Air and the M2's display is noticeably nicer to the eye right out of the box, even before correcting Apple's signature green/blue tinted factory calibration.

I set both displays to default settings, turned TrueTone off, auto-brightness off, and set brightness to the 50% mark on each and the M2 Air's display has cleaner more solid whites (if that makes sense), better blacks, more contrast, and has a more pleasing overall tone compared to the M1.

Of course, when you crank up the brightness, the difference will be night and day due to the extra nits alone, but I think the takeaway here is that the M2 Air's display is an upgrade over the M1 Air's display (and the slightly larger size and thinner bezels are just icing on the cake).
how can you not compare the air to miniled HDR most of apples products have them the MacBook pros and the iPads.
 
how can you not compare the air to miniled HDR most of apples products have them the MacBook pros and the iPads.
You can certainly compare them, but it wouldn't be a fair comparison in my opinion. I will of course look at my M2 Air next to my 16" MacBook Pro, but just to see how they compare out of curiosity as I wouldn't expect them to be on the same level since they use different technologies. Just like I am not expecting an M2 to run like an M1 Max.

I love MiniLED, and if it's a must for some, by all means get the 14" MBP.

Only 3 Apple products have MiniLED HDR displays (two MacBook Pros and one iPad Pro), and they are all higher-priced pro models in higher end product categories. And then there are the higher-priced and higher end OLED iPhone models.
 
You can certainly compare them, but it wouldn't be a fair comparison in my opinion. I will of course look at my M2 Air next to my 16" MacBook Pro, but just to see how they compare out of curiosity as I wouldn't expect them to be on the same level since they use different technologies. Just like I am not expecting an M2 to run like an M1 Max.

I love MiniLED, and if it's a must for some, by all means get the 14" MBP.

Only 3 Apple products have MiniLED HDR displays (two MacBook Pros and one iPad Pro), and they are all higher-priced pro models in higher end product categories. And then there are the higher-priced and higher end OLED iPhone models.
are you adding a m2 air to your 16 inch MacBook Pro m1? that's what I am thinking about.
 
are you adding a m2 air to your 16 inch MacBook Pro m1? that's what I am thinking about.
Yes. I love my 16" MacBook Pro - this is my main work computer, but it's just too big, heavy and bulky to move around with. So the M2 Air will be my highly portable, thin and light 'everything else' Mac. My M1 Air's smaller SSD couldn't fill this role, so this time around I got the 2TB in the M2 Air.
 
Yes. I love my 16" MacBook Pro - this is my main work computer, but it's just too big, heavy and bulky to move around with. So the M2 Air will be my highly portable, thin and light 'everything else' Mac. My M1 Air's smaller SSD couldn't fill this role, so this time around I got the 2TB in the M2 Air.
why not a second pro the 14 inch? is the the air screen jarring to look at after the pro assuming you already got it.
 
why not a second pro the 14 inch? is the the air screen jarring to look at after the pro assuming you already got it.
The 14" Pro is great, but I wanted something thinner and lighter. After I setup and live with the M2 for a bit, I will see if I notice big differences with the display after going back and forth between the M2 Air and my 16" MiniLED. I know I am going to miss those deep blacks for sure.
 
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