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Hands-On With the M2 MacBook Air: All Your Questions Answered
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Probably because most people in the market for an air would never notice or care. It's amusing to me that people constantly complain that a consumer level device can't power 2 6k displays and render a Pixar movie in a few minutes because of it's wildly slow SSD drive an....zzz, most people don't care.
Not everyone has a need for the MBP regardless of price. There is nothing wrong with the MBA. It just isn't your MBP and that doesn't make it inferior makes it different for a different user base.
You forgot to mention they want it all for $500 as well ha
There was a Linus Tech Tips video with people from the office. They tested them and asked which was NVME, SSD and HDD and for the most part they couldn’t get it right. Now, all computers were started and running when they tested them. The point is this is smoke and mirrors crap that MaxTech likes to point out but will almost never impact an actual MBA user’s experience. In day to day use, they’ll never notice the difference. It takes a synthetic benchmark for people to discover this. So, at worst, Apple should put a note or disclaimer but I am sure they do.
The MBA is meant to be a small and lightweight MacBook for less power demanding users. So people can upgrade or do whatever they want if they need the space it doesn’t mean they should just buy the thicker MacBook Pro 14” if they want the MacBook Air 13”. People get to vote with their own money. I think the new MacBook Air looks amazing. I bought one in Starlight for my wife. And she doesn’t use any space and thinks it’s magical with 8GB RAM and I upgraded the $20 for the 35w dual charger. She’s happy as she can leave her iPad and iPhone charging at the same time and just swap over when she needs it for the MacBook Air.
Some people just want a nice looking laptop and even though it’s not the fastest and doesn’t have 120Hz displays doesn’t mean it’s crap to them.
The midnight fingerprints don’t bother me for three reasons. 1) they wipe off 2) the color is incredible 3) the iPad Pro I sold with Magic Keyboard had PERMANENT finger print marks on that keyboard case, they simply do not come out after some time, yet you don’t see complaints about that $350 blemish case. So it’s an improvement lol.
You should buy the best version you can afford. I always do 16GB/2TB
I think a positive of the M2 that hardly anyone has mentioned is there are no more speaker grills on the sides of the MBA. It looks much much better without them and most of all, it will be easier to keep clean.
150% will take fingerprints over speaker grills that collect particles. Drives me batty on my 16” MBP
Same for me with my M1. A very soft bristle toothbrush works well tackling the grills but, it is so nice not to have to worry about it anymore on the M2. I run a heppa filter in the room and I still have to visit the M1.
You should buy the best version you can afford. I always do 16GB/2TB
although maybe not for everyone, i can agree with this mentality => even though 2TB is ridiculously disproportionately expensive from Apple (damn them! 😆), it does at least provide additional speed & longevity advantages over the lower capacity tiers (also i tend to use my equipment for a long time, which helps to amortize the total cost over several years).
i'll probably end up biting the bullet and go with 24GB/2TB, but with the M2 MBP13 instead of this M2 Air - both seem to be terrific machines (with some caveats of course), and most casual/non-pro users should be satisfied with either one... 👍
I don't even want to know what it would take to make the fans on my 14" MBP turn on. Certainly nothing you'd be doing on an Air. I've never had them turn on even once, even working outside in 95 degree heat.
Why not try some heavy usage that your other machines are used for, then decide for yourself during return period?
You mean fans like all the previous models of Airs had? Oh wait...
I would suggest, stick with it. When the times came, when you need to use for heavy apps, you may want to upgrade the macbook since the new one will also have other interesting features on top of 16gb. Save money, inflation is coming.
You’re kidding, right? The MBA has a better screen, better microphones, better speakers. I’m not sure why they even released the new MBP.
In person, it looks nothing like a windows laptop. I went to the Apple store today to check them out. The midnight color is very appealing. i also liked the Starlight color. It’s a warmer silver that is a little more lively than the ordinary silver color. Not sure why they need the regular sliver. They could have replaced it with some other, more distinctive color.
Would that be a problem?
Why would having more color options be a bad thing? Does it make the iPhone a toy? Does it make a car a toy? We are past the age of Model-T’s where you could have any color you want as long as it was ”black”.
Because it doesn’t need one. Those who want to stress the processor can get the 13” Pro for the same price or the 14” Pro. The other 95% of us get a computer that is completely silent.
Exactly. The M1 base model is more than enough for my needs. I don't make videos, it runs Libreoffice just fine, and it even runs Crossover for a couple of non-game windows programs. It's light and the battery lasts a long time.
The only complaint I have is the dongle collection I need to use normal USB gadgets and SD cards. But I don't need those too often. For real work I have the Linux box with multiple internal drives both SSD and spinning, a DVD drive, more RAM, and 11 USB ports. The built-in graphics on the Ryzen 3200G are good enough that I haven't needed to buy another video card. That alone should tell you I'm neither CPU nor GPU bound.
It's a little saddening that my M2 MacBook Air is outperforming my $4500 2019 MacBook Pro in pretty much everything except for rendering (which is understandable). That being said the rendering isn't terribly far behind.