Hands-On With the M2 MacBook Air: All Your Questions Answered

theluggage said:
I see "Midnight", "Space Grey", "Starlight" and "Silver" as the available finishes. Where is this "clear" of which you speak?
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If you knew anything about anodize, you would know that “silver anodize” is called ‘type 2 clear’ by those who do know something about the subject. No pigment is used, just the Al2O3 layer is built thinly on the substrate. It is, in fact, the thinnest possible anodize layer compared to pigmented anodize (which needs to be ~3-4x thicker to accommodate the pigment)
 
Haven't used one yet but definitely agree with the min buy being 512 GB of storage (and preferably 16 GB of RAM too) if you can afford to go there.

if you can't afford both i'd go for the 512 GB of storage over 256, given the use case of this machine:
  • ultraportable
  • light usage
There's nothing worse than having a sleek, lightweight ultra portable design you could use anywhere and then constantly being tethered to an external drive because you can't keep any of your work on it. Makes using it on your lap much more annoying.

MacOS applications are getting pretty big now, especially during this transition period where we're going to be seeing universal apps being more common again (essentially having native code in them for both intel and ARM).

If you do need bigger than 16 GB / 1TB i'd look at the pro line... spending much more than that on an Air unless the slightly lower weight is essential you're giving up much better speakers and display (not to mention better cooling) that you'd get from say, a 14" pro.
 
Although not many people would "actively choose" 256GB as begin in this day, I still think Apple deserves criticism for its choice of materials or design for 256GB. And I believe many mass-procurement organizations that might use this basic model.

If I remember correctly, my A1466 seems to have a speed of about 1.4GB/S after replacing it with a better M.2 SSD, which is incredible compared to the M2 256GB SSD speed.

Other than that, I don't really have an opinion, but it's a shame that you can only choose 24G as the memory limit. Setting a class as an uncrossable threshold, heh.
 
calvin2006 said:
Saw the Starlight one in the apple store today. It looks better in person than I thought it would. I’m still not a big fan of the overall design change to the MBA after seeing it in person.
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I had the same reaction. Absolutely prefer the wedge shape MBA design. It + SD Card, MagSafe, high-impedance and USB4 and I’ll take two please.
 
Palliser said:
Got my base model M2 Macbook Air yesterday afternoon and have been able to use it for a couple of hours. Upgrading from a base model Early 2020 Intel Macbook Air (i3) it is extremely fast and responsive. Love having Touch ID on the keyboard and having MagSafe back is one of the reasons I went with the 2022 M2 version over the previous M1. The screen brightness imho is noticeably brighter. The design of the non-tapered case and slightly larger screen area is really well done. Notch isn't bothering me at all either and glad to have a 1080p camera. So far very impressive. It is kinda strange there is nowhere on the machine where it says Macbook Air but I guess thats OK. Also really like the weight of the machine. I do really basic things on the machine so the "slower" ssd really isn't noticeable or an issue for me and probably for many people it won't be a thing either.

edit: As pointed out the original early 2020 MBA i3 had touch ID. The one on the new machine is just larger and more noticeable.

edit 2: Opened up the system information and the memory is LPDDR5 so that is a nice upgrade as well!
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Glad to hear. I also come from mba early 2020 i5/512, but still unsure whether to take 256 or 512 version (price concern). I also need to wait for a while until the M2 price become reasonable in my country due to no Apple store.
 
Fredapple said:
Which of these two is better for a university use (take notes, watching videos, using excel and other stuff)?:
-MBA with 512 of SSD and 8gb of RAM
- MBA with 256 gb of SSD (with the storage issue) and 16 go of RAM
Considering that I would like to keep this MacBook for at least 5-6 years
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For your usage, you won’t need 16gb. Go with 512gb, faster disk (50% faster) and double storage. Faster disk will affect the whole system as MacOS use swap intensively.
 
the more i use this Air the more it feels like a Mini Macbook Pro.
it gets quite warm underneath at the centre top section with heavy GPU loads.
the keys feel so much better than the old butterfly ones.
 
dmylrea said:
How is the 14" MBP less portable? The MBA M2 a tiny amount thinner, and a tiny amount (0.8lb) lighter, but both are just as portable.
If you struggle to carry around a 14" MBP, you have issues. Is an iPad 10.9" superior in portability to an 11" iPad Pro?

I can't imagine a scenario where someone would say they couldn't be as portable with a 14" MBP but can be with a MBA M2.

What's your definition of portability?
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I don't own the 14" but, like you, I can't see how someone comparing the dimensions of that to the M2 Air can rightfully say it isn't portable.
 
Toratek said:
If you knew anything about anodize, you would know that “silver anodize” is called ‘type 2 clear’
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Without access to a NDA-happy Apple engineer or a few spare Macbooks and a chemistry lab, it's anybody's guess as to which of the half dozen types and countless variants of anodising Apple uses on its products. It's perfectly plausible that Apple use exactly the same process for all colours and that the "silver" finish is a light grey pigmented/dyed version of the other colours. If it's not, it doesn't really change my argument anyway.

Anyway, here's someone who apparently knows something about anodising:

How Heat Sink Anodization Improves Thermal Performance (part 1 of 2) | Advanced Thermal Solutions

www.qats.com

Highlights:
Colored dyes are often used on heat sinks for cosmetic and marketing purposes. The color of anodization has no impact on radiation heat transfer. A clear anodized surface has the same emissive characteristics as a black anodized surface.
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...and from the comments to part 2:

Chris, I sent one of our engineers your question and the response was:

“Whether or not absorptivity needs to be taken into account depends on if there is a significant heat source nearby. It could be a hot component, or it could be solar radiation. In most of the thermal management applications we encounter, the device we are cooling is the primary heat source, so we do not have to analyze the effects of co-heating from radiation.
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... i.e. pretty much consistent with the last paragraph of my original post.
 
Isamilis said:
For your usage, you won’t need 16gb. Go with 512gb, faster disk (50% faster) and double storage. Faster disk will affect the whole system as MacOS use swap intensively.
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For their uses, that disk speed won't really be a factor though. And if they go with 16GB RAM, they'll be swapping a lot less too.
 
dmylrea said:
How is the 14" MBP less portable? The MBA M2 a tiny amount thinner, and a tiny amount (0.8lb) lighter, but both are just as portable.
If you struggle to carry around a 14" MBP, you have issues. Is an iPad 10.9" superior in portability to an 11" iPad Pro?

I can't imagine a scenario where someone would say they couldn't be as portable with a 14" MBP but can be with a MBA M2.

What's your definition of portability?
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Why should I carry around almost a pound of computer I have no use for? To satisfy you?
 
ddhhddhh2 said:
Other than that, I don't really have an opinion, but it's a shame that you can only choose 24G as the memory limit. Setting a class as an uncrossable threshold, heh.
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If you need more than 16 GB in this machine your workload is likely going to be running into CPU and/or GPU limits as well and you should probably be looking at a 14".
 
I am curious about key imprinting on the screen over time with the M2. That is one of the reasons I hang onto and keep using the white sheet that comes with the Mac in-between the keys and screen. Anyone with a 14 or 16" M notice any imprinting on the screen when not using a go-between?
 
Apple_Robert said:
I am curious about key imprinting on the screen over time with the M2. That is one of the reasons I hang onto and keep using the white sheet that comes with the Mac in-between the keys and screen. Anyone with a 14 or 16" M notice any imprinting on the screen when not using a go-between?
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I've had my 14" MacBook Pro since launch and I don't use a go-between. There are no key imprints on the screen
 
Apple_Robert said:
I am curious about key imprinting on the screen over time with the M2. That is one of the reasons I hang onto and keep using the white sheet that comes with the Mac in-between the keys and screen. Anyone with a 14 or 16" M notice any imprinting on the screen when not using a go-between?
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I get some light marks from fingerprints on the keys (that wipe off). I've had the same with every macbbook i've owned since 2011, both pro and air.

By light, i mean that i need to clean them off maybe.... twice since november.
 
Also worth noting that i use the inbuilt keyboard 100% of the time, and this is my daily machine. It gets used 6-8hr/day at work and additional time for personal use in the evenings and weekends. It sees a huge amount of use.
 
Repeating myself…. I really wish that the upgraded “stock” configuration would have been 16GB/512GB for $1499 (without the 10 Core GPU). The 10 GPU (and the extra $100 that goes with it) with just 8GB of RAM is silly. There are very few use cases where you would benefit more from having 2 extra GPU cores vs 8GB extra RAM. This is even more apparent with the different tests that show how early the MBA M2 throttles now anyway. Even if it would have been $1599 at least it would have been a stock configuration that retailers like Amazon/BestBuy/Costco would have stocked (and discounted at times). Ridiculous that to get 16GB of RAM is BTO only.
/rant
 
dmylrea said:
How is the 14" MBP less portable? The MBA M2 a tiny amount thinner, and a tiny amount (0.8lb) lighter, but both are just as portable.
If you struggle to carry around a 14" MBP, you have issues. Is an iPad 10.9" superior in portability to an 11" iPad Pro?

I can't imagine a scenario where someone would say they couldn't be as portable with a 14" MBP but can be with a MBA M2.

What's your definition of portability?
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There is a noticeable difference on weight in person. The weight could add up for someone who is carrying their laptop the whole day or travelling with it.
 
azentropy said:
Ridiculous that to get 16GB of RAM is BTO only.
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That remains a key frustration of mine..

The base choices Apple make have far reaching implications due to all the places that only stock standard configs...which also happen to be the only places that ever have sales and/or "somewhat good prices"

Apple has..."bend over and touch your toes" pricing..
 
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