Got my 10/1TB/24GB silver M2 MacBook Air today. It's a beast!

[Mcdevidr]

i use my M2 air closed, upside down (with an external keyboard and monitor). i like to stare angrily at the bottom plate while i work...

At the least using it this way makes it so you wont complain about the screen. Or tell us how its on par with a five year old windows laptop (it ain’t).

 

[jclardy]

Fingerprints were only a complaint on the new midnight color...because it gets super fingerprinty. The other colors have all been seen before on either iPads or MBPs and don't have the same issue.

 

[Wokis]

edit. wrong thread. sorry. Grats on you OP!

 

[AppleFan735]

Silver/10/16/512/67W here. Been using it for a couple of weeks. Was debating between 16 and 24 but i didn’t have a clear use case for 24 and decided that I can get away with 16 (doing relatively light dev work, no video production). So far it definitely looks like I’m able to do everything I need on 16gb. If I will need to run VMs or containers down the line I will consider 24 but for now it’s great.

Also, been a life long Windows user. This is my first Mac. Absolutely blown away by the quality and how well the machine integrates with my iPhone, iPad and AirPods. Everything just works. Universal Clipboard alone is a feature worth gold.

 

[kasei]

I have had my 10/1TB/24GB Midnight MacBook Air M2 for almost 2 weeks and I agree this is hands down the best system I've had so far. I would typically get a MacBook Pro, but this time decided to try the MacBook Air and I am not disappointed. I run a lot of programs simultaneously and watch a video or two while I am working. This system can handle a Zoom call, Miro, multiple browsers being open with multiple tabs, Word, Excel, Figma, Slack, and a host of other programs running at the same time and not hiccup.

The fingerprint thing is so ridiculous. I don't know why so many people got bent out of shape over it. And I have yet to feel the system get hot. I am sure if I added Unity, Unreal or Xcode to the mix of programs I run it might start to heat up, but that is expected.

I have had a lot of MacBooks and MacBook Pros over the years and my first MacBook Air has changed my opinion about this line of Apple computers.

​

 

[kp98077]

I used it for the entire day and here's what I noticed:

• It stays cool to the touch. Not once did it get even slightly warm. Seriously, I tried overloading it with daily tasks and couldn't get it to warm up, let alone get hot.
• I had 30+ browser tabs open and as I continued to open more, websites loaded instantaneously. Tradingview and many exchanges consume a lot of resources in browser windows that my MacBook 12 couldn't handle after a few minutes. No such issues with the M2 Air. None. Websites load at lightning-fast speed.
• Wife called on FaceTime and she couldn't believe how good the webcam looked.
• The battery lasts FOREVER lol. At least that's what it feels like. I'm still on factory charge after 8 hours of semi-heavy use with 20% left.
• Magsafe charging kicks ass. It feels so solid and effortless to connect.
• Screen is gorgeous and feels huge compared to my MacBook 12.
• All in all, to me, this is hands down the best looking laptop in the world. From all angles, it's simply stunning.
• Silver color looks spectacular is person. I'm so glad that I went this route. It looks like a very light silver (almost white at times), but that could be because I was so used to space gray.
• Quality-wise, it's perfection. Zero issues or defects that I could spot. Keyboard is smooth as butter. Hinges on the screen feel incredibly sturdy. What an amazing product.
• After all day use, I can't see any fingerprints. Nil. I don't understand why so many reviewers complained about this. Their hands must be extremely oily.

For the record, I don't do video editing and I never will. So there's that. But what I can tell you is that my old 16 GB MacBook 12 was complete trash when it came to performance. It would get scorching hot very quickly (yes, scorching hot to the point where it would burn skin if you touched the bottom) with 20 browser tabs open. It would also throttle like crazy after just 5-10 minutes of heavy use (and by heavy, I mean having many browser tabs open).

For me, this upgrade is like going from a Toyota Camry to a Ferrari. I don't know of any other way to describe it. Night and day. My goal was to buy the fastest, lightest, and most portable laptop with a native Apple ecosystem. Mission accomplished.

Lucky you! I ordered a BTO, only for it not to arrive via Fedex and then apple just gave me a credit! LOL... time to get in the 3 week line again!

 

[MajorFubar]

Edit: I'll stand by my criticism that the M2 MacBook Air is the worst performing notebook from Apple. As long as Apple sells the M1 MBA, that won't be true.

I actually keep forgetting that's still an option. I'm not sure how long Apple will keep selling it though. It's such amazing value compared to the M2, it's got to be stealing sales?

 

[MajorFubar]

Sorry, you are correct. Your post was entirely on topic. It was a knee jerk reaction on my part from seeing so many people saying that only a spend-thrift (in not so many words) would buy an upgraded M2 MacBook Air. Sorry about coming across as angry/triggered etc. Carry on.

Forgot to say, no apology needed

 

[1BadManVan]

Congrats. But looks to me it's kind of overkill for web browsing?

its very future proof for web browsing lol.

 

[appleguy123]

I got my silver model a few days ago. My first thought continued to repeat in my head, as I used it, held it, and set it up on my desk...

This is a spectacular laptop.

Physically holding it for the first time, I found it to be a perfect balance of light and solid. This is no toy.

I agree with all of OP's points, so I won't bother gushing about it. There's an interesting thing I noticed while considering this new model overall: There are only two things I would change, in order to make it perfect for me.

The screen, and one USB port on the right. That's it. And even those are me just nit-picking for fun, and oddly makes me realise how incredible this laptop is.

The screen is very good as it is. It’s sharp, smooth, and has good contrast. The only reason I mention it is because it’s one of very few areas where I think there’s room for improvement. Truthfully, if I hadn’t had one of the 14” MBPs for two weeks, I doubt I’ve had even mentioned it.

Swap out this screen for a 4k 120hz microLED screen, and this would be beyond a joy to work on. Like I said, it’s already very good — this is merely an exercise in nit-picking fantasy.

The USB-C port on the right is absolutely the least of my wishes. I like things to be neat and tidy, and having a port on the right-hand side would simply allow for more options in how cables and doo-hickeys are arranged. Nothing else to be said, really — it would just be nice.

I am extremely happy with my purchase. I am also an extremely picky person, so to only have two areas I'd change is a testament to how magnificent this device is. Everyone who worked on this should be proud; hardware, silicon, design, and everything else that goes into making something like this masterpiece.

This is a spectacular laptop.

Agreed. The MacBook Air with MiniLED would be the dream machine. I’m pretty sure this was supposed to happen with the price increase and even Kuo said it would ship with MiniLED. It sucks it was shelved at the last minute.

 

[Mcdevidr]

Agreed. The MacBook Air with MiniLED would be the dream machine. I’m pretty sure this was supposed to happen with the price increase and even Kuo said it would ship with MiniLED. It sucks it was shelved at the last minute.

Don’t worry im sure its in the works. We will get an M3, then 4 months later M3 air with promotion XDR display for $200 more. At least this is what my Tim Cook themed crystal ball says.

 

[DD88]

I used it for the entire day and here's what I noticed:

• It stays cool to the touch. Not once did it get even slightly warm. Seriously, I tried overloading it with daily tasks and couldn't get it to warm up, let alone get hot.
• I had 30+ browser tabs open and as I continued to open more, websites loaded instantaneously. Tradingview and many exchanges consume a lot of resources in browser windows that my MacBook 12 couldn't handle after a few minutes. No such issues with the M2 Air. None. Websites load at lightning-fast speed.
• Wife called on FaceTime and she couldn't believe how good the webcam looked.
• The battery lasts FOREVER lol. At least that's what it feels like. I'm still on factory charge after 8 hours of semi-heavy use with 20% left.
• Magsafe charging kicks ass. It feels so solid and effortless to connect.
• Screen is gorgeous and feels huge compared to my MacBook 12.
• All in all, to me, this is hands down the best looking laptop in the world. From all angles, it's simply stunning.
• Silver color looks spectacular is person. I'm so glad that I went this route. It looks like a very light silver (almost white at times), but that could be because I was so used to space gray.
• Quality-wise, it's perfection. Zero issues or defects that I could spot. Keyboard is smooth as butter. Hinges on the screen feel incredibly sturdy. What an amazing product.
• After all day use, I can't see any fingerprints. Nil. I don't understand why so many reviewers complained about this. Their hands must be extremely oily.

For the record, I don't do video editing and I never will. So there's that. But what I can tell you is that my old 16 GB MacBook 12 was complete trash when it came to performance. It would get scorching hot very quickly (yes, scorching hot to the point where it would burn skin if you touched the bottom) with 20 browser tabs open. It would also throttle like crazy after just 5-10 minutes of heavy use (and by heavy, I mean having many browser tabs open).

For me, this upgrade is like going from a Toyota Camry to a Ferrari. I don't know of any other way to describe it. Night and day. My goal was to buy the fastest, lightest, and most portable laptop with a native Apple ecosystem. Mission accomplished.

It looks dirty, in the best way possible 😎😈

 

[rr23]

I wish you well with it but that is a serious amount of money to spend on Apple's worst-performing* laptop. I'm trying to think of a task you plan using it for which desperately needs 1TB internal storage and 24GB RAM but yet wouldn't have warranted spending less money on the considerably superior 14" with 1TB storage and 16GB RAM. But only you really know your priorities.

*Yes I know it still wastes most laptops ever made.

Hey. Thanks for asking. My reasoning was:

1. I wanted the lightest, most portable laptop that Apple sells. So the 14” Pro was immediately disqualified for the simple fact that it’s bigger and heavier.

2. I wanted the fastest Apple laptop in this form factor, which is why I went for the specs that I did.

I understand that for the same money, I could have purchased a MacBook 14 Pro with superior performance. Still, it wouldn’t have been superior in weight and size, which was my priority and always will be.

I travel a lot and I’m a minimalist. I don’t carry big oversize backpacks made specifically for laptops. It’s been my experience that every 0.5-1 inch in size makes a world of difference when trying to cram a laptop inside an average sized backpack.

Was it a serious amount of money? - I’m not sure how to answer that, but I work two serious days for it.

 

[rr23]

Hmmm… I didn’t notice any bending of the bottom plate.

 

[rr23]

Congrats. But looks to me it's kind of overkill for web browsing?

I can promise you that it’s not.

If you’re browsing ordinary pages, it probably makes little to no difference. But if you open countless TradingView charts and crypto/stock exchanges in other tabs, you will quickly realize how much resources are being consumed and how slow everything becomes.

It’s been my experience over the years that extra memory helps prevent the infamous This webpage is using significant energy. Closing it may improve the responsiveness of your Mac message.

Try loading Coinbase, Binance, and few other exchanges in multiple tabs and I can personally guarantee that any MacBook with 8GB ram will stutter like crazy.

 

[exoticSpice]

It's an awesome laptop. Enjoy. 24GB RAM will come in handy

 

[Apple_Robert]

Congrats, OP. That is a huge upgrade for you.

I got an M2 on launch day and decided I need a bigger drive and returned it My BTO just arrived today (2TB) and all is right in Mac land again. It is amazing how much I had missed the M2 after only using it for 11 days the first time around. I had to wait 16 days to get the new BTO but, it was worth the wait. For me, the M2 was worth the upgrade from my M1, not that I won't also use it at times.

 

[1BadManVan]

Silver/10/16/512/67W here. Been using it for a couple of weeks. Was debating between 16 and 24 but i didn’t have a clear use case for 24 and decided that I can get away with 16 (doing relatively light dev work, no video production). So far it definitely looks like I’m able to do everything I need on 16gb. If I will need to run VMs or containers down the line I will consider 24 but for now it’s great.

Also, been a life long Windows user. This is my first Mac. Absolutely blown away by the quality and how well the machine integrates with my iPhone, iPad and AirPods. Everything just works. Universal Clipboard alone is a feature worth gold.

Same boat as you, long time IPhone and iPad user but first time mac user and it’s a beast of a machine so far. I opened up dozens of browser tabs and multiple 4 streams at once, plus some random apps and light photo editing and not a single hiccup or reload.

I’m not a heavy user to begin with, but nice to know it can be pushed

 

[boxrick]

I went from an m1 air 16gb 8/8 to an m2 air 10/16gb both with 512gb drives.

Very happy with my purchase, my m1 was fast and this m2 is a monster! Such a nice design and the screen and keyboard is lovely.

 

[DENZIE]

I used it for the entire day and here's what I noticed:

• It stays cool to the touch. Not once did it get even slightly warm. Seriously, I tried overloading it with daily tasks and couldn't get it to warm up, let alone get hot.
• I had 30+ browser tabs open and as I continued to open more, websites loaded instantaneously. Tradingview and many exchanges consume a lot of resources in browser windows that my MacBook 12 couldn't handle after a few minutes. No such issues with the M2 Air. None. Websites load at lightning-fast speed.
• Wife called on FaceTime and she couldn't believe how good the webcam looked.
• The battery lasts FOREVER lol. At least that's what it feels like. I'm still on factory charge after 8 hours of semi-heavy use with 20% left.
• Magsafe charging kicks ass. It feels so solid and effortless to connect.
• Screen is gorgeous and feels huge compared to my MacBook 12.
• All in all, to me, this is hands down the best looking laptop in the world. From all angles, it's simply stunning.
• Silver color looks spectacular is person. I'm so glad that I went this route. It looks like a very light silver (almost white at times), but that could be because I was so used to space gray.
• Quality-wise, it's perfection. Zero issues or defects that I could spot. Keyboard is smooth as butter. Hinges on the screen feel incredibly sturdy. What an amazing product.
• After all day use, I can't see any fingerprints. Nil. I don't understand why so many reviewers complained about this. Their hands must be extremely oily.

For the record, I don't do video editing and I never will. So there's that. But what I can tell you is that my old 16 GB MacBook 12 was complete trash when it came to performance. It would get scorching hot very quickly (yes, scorching hot to the point where it would burn skin if you touched the bottom) with 20 browser tabs open. It would also throttle like crazy after just 5-10 minutes of heavy use (and by heavy, I mean having many browser tabs open).

For me, this upgrade is like going from a Toyota Camry to a Ferrari. I don't know of any other way to describe it. Night and day. My goal was to buy the fastest, lightest, and most portable laptop with a native Apple ecosystem. Mission accomplished.

I have the same config as you, save the extra 2 GPU cores that I won’t need. Have been using it for a few weeks now for work - IT pro. Has not skipped a beat, and for my tasks is that bit quicker then my outgoing MBP 14. It’s great to be able to give a full 8GB to parallels, and still have 16gb ram leftover for MacOS. Like having 2 computers in one.

Silver finish is very underrated, doesn’t show up oil, or scratches and ages better as it’s not anodised like the others.

It’s an amazing machine. Stoked.

 

[DENZIE]

I got my silver model a few days ago. My first thought continued to repeat in my head, as I used it, held it, and set it up on my desk...

This is a spectacular laptop.

Physically holding it for the first time, I found it to be a perfect balance of light and solid. This is no toy.

I agree with all of OP's points, so I won't bother gushing about it. There's an interesting thing I noticed while considering this new model overall: There are only two things I would change, in order to make it perfect for me.

The screen, and one USB port on the right. That's it. And even those are me just nit-picking for fun, and oddly makes me realise how incredible this laptop is.

The screen is very good as it is. It’s sharp, smooth, and has good contrast. The only reason I mention it is because it’s one of very few areas where I think there’s room for improvement. Truthfully, if I hadn’t had one of the 14” MBPs for two weeks, I doubt I’ve had even mentioned it.

Swap out this screen for a 4k 120hz microLED screen, and this would be beyond a joy to work on. Like I said, it’s already very good — this is merely an exercise in nit-picking fantasy.

The USB-C port on the right is absolutely the least of my wishes. I like things to be neat and tidy, and having a port on the right-hand side would simply allow for more options in how cables and doo-hickeys are arranged. Nothing else to be said, really — it would just be nice.

I am extremely happy with my purchase. I am also an extremely picky person, so to only have two areas I'd change is a testament to how magnificent this device is. Everyone who worked on this should be proud; hardware, silicon, design, and everything else that goes into making something like this masterpiece.

This is a spectacular laptop.

Agree with Thunderbolt port on the right

For me also the ability to drive 2 external displays natively. That said I use a displaylink adapter for my 2nd external display and it works great - there’s doesn’t appear any CPU penalty whatsoever. But native would be nice so not needing to rely on displaylink driver support.

 

[shinigamii]

I used it for the entire day and here's what I noticed:

• It stays cool to the touch. Not once did it get even slightly warm. Seriously, I tried overloading it with daily tasks and couldn't get it to warm up, let alone get hot.
• I had 30+ browser tabs open and as I continued to open more, websites loaded instantaneously. Tradingview and many exchanges consume a lot of resources in browser windows that my MacBook 12 couldn't handle after a few minutes. No such issues with the M2 Air. None. Websites load at lightning-fast speed.
• Wife called on FaceTime and she couldn't believe how good the webcam looked.
• The battery lasts FOREVER lol. At least that's what it feels like. I'm still on factory charge after 8 hours of semi-heavy use with 20% left.
• Magsafe charging kicks ass. It feels so solid and effortless to connect.
• Screen is gorgeous and feels huge compared to my MacBook 12.
• All in all, to me, this is hands down the best looking laptop in the world. From all angles, it's simply stunning.
• Silver color looks spectacular is person. I'm so glad that I went this route. It looks like a very light silver (almost white at times), but that could be because I was so used to space gray.
• Quality-wise, it's perfection. Zero issues or defects that I could spot. Keyboard is smooth as butter. Hinges on the screen feel incredibly sturdy. What an amazing product.
• After all day use, I can't see any fingerprints. Nil. I don't understand why so many reviewers complained about this. Their hands must be extremely oily.

For the record, I don't do video editing and I never will. So there's that. But what I can tell you is that my old 16 GB MacBook 12 was complete trash when it came to performance. It would get scorching hot very quickly (yes, scorching hot to the point where it would burn skin if you touched the bottom) with 20 browser tabs open. It would also throttle like crazy after just 5-10 minutes of heavy use (and by heavy, I mean having many browser tabs open).

For me, this upgrade is like going from a Toyota Camry to a Ferrari. I don't know of any other way to describe it. Night and day. My goal was to buy the fastest, lightest, and most portable laptop with a native Apple ecosystem. Mission accomplished.

This is a good review thanks, I'm too getting the M2 MacBook Air this month's end and I'm very excited!

 

[FloridaMac86]

This computer is delicious. I am coming from a 2015 MacBook Air with 4gb ram. I got the base config, and was very unhappy with that old MacBook Air. 2 years after owning it, I could barely open Microsoft Office because of beach balls.. It was severely underpowered... I was hesitant, but this time I doubled up on the Ram and the Storage. So I got a midnight 16 gig with 512 ram.. Typing on it now. The screen is so ridiculously smooth coming from my 2015 air.. I downloaded Microsoft Office and instantly opens! yay.. The hardware can't be understated... The new m2 MacBook Air looks and feels incredible. The Keyboard is like butter to type on, and the speed.. So compact, so sexy!

 

[Larabee119]

For me, this upgrade is like going from a Toyota Camry to a Ferrari. I don't know of any other way to describe it. Night and day. My goal was to buy the fastest, lightest, and most portable laptop with a native Apple ecosystem. Mission accomplished.

The Ferrari will be the M1 Max/Ultra. The correct analogy here is from a regular old Camry v6 to a ... hybrid Camry. You get extra horse power with much better efficiency.
Jokes aside, glad you enjoy your machine. This is great for competition when manufacturers have to innovate to create better chips.

 

[dizzbuster]

I have the same config as the OP in midnight. My only complaint is I really don't have one. Nice little machine and I hope it will last for years to come.