The M-series MBAs never had fans. The older Intel MBAs did have fans because they would have otherwise overheated during normal operations.
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M2 Air Disappointing Thermal Design
- Thread starter MK500
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There are 2 other benefits to fanless design. There's much less likelihood of dust getting into the chassis, and you eliminate a mechanical part that might malfunction at some point.
whats the benefit of putting M2 instead of M1 in the new Air apart from marketing? Going by your comments it seems you will be perfectly happy even if they put an underclocked M1 in the new Air as that would be plenty fast for day to day computing.
I don't get the obsession people have with the Pro in the name of a product. They have a 13 inch MBP with the same M2 processor. They used to sell dual core MBP with integrated graphics since ages. They have an AirPods Pro. Whats so pro about it ?
I don't know why people on this forum don't discuss a product on its merit.
If someone says they should have not made MBA throttle so badly or gimped on ssd performance someone would be quick to point to them to get a pro. Why ?
Seeing the teardowns of MBA it does not even seem to have a proper heatsink let alone a fan. SSD is gimped on purpose to push users to upgrade.
And if someone complains about these flaws someone will be quick to steer them towards pro. WOW.
When was the last time a MacBook fan failed on you ? I have used MacBooks since last 15 years none of them ever had a single instance of fan failing.
If dust was such an issue for Macs Apple would be providing dust filters os Mac Studio and Mac Pro. And Mac Studio is not even meant to be opened by users.
The Macbook Air was not designed for hardcore tasks. It is unrealistic to expect the thinnest and lightest Macbook to perform as well as a high-performance laptop for intensive professional work.
Improved performance & efficiency? I don't think anyone ever complains that a computer is too fast or runs too long on battery.
By most accounts the new M2 Air is 10-20% faster in typical workflows in a smaller, lighter package. That is not marketing hype, it is typical experience.
The thermal design and SSD speed are design decisions, not flaws. They probably don't degrade the experience or productivity of 95+% of users. Most users do not frequently push the CPU/GPU very hard or frequently move files so big the SSD speed difference becomes significant.
For those relatively few who do frequently or regularly exceed the thermal envelope design of the Air, steering toward a MacBook Pro is perfectly reasonable, but only justified if it really, meaningfully degrades productivity... and it may not.
If you are one of those people who typically moves lots of big data or runs very intense CPU/GPU tasks, the limits of the Air are still not "flaws," they just show the machine was not designed for your use case.
Even if you put M1 in place of M2, 95% of average user wont notice.
95% of people won't notice any difference if you replace Wi-Fi 6 with Wi-Fi 5 in MBA.
95% of people wont notice the slower speed of SSD.
95 % of people wont notice if you put in a slow speed RAM.
What point do you want to make out here by saying 95% of people wont notice a degradation ?
I find it really amusing that someone can defend Apple for making the current generation of a product worse than the previous generation in any ways.
M2 Air is having slower SSD speed than M1 Air which came out 2 years ago. Defending this and saying that 95% of users wont notice it sounds like Apple apologist to me.
I have one of these sitting beside me (was planning on buying it regardless) and I apologize in advance for looking forward and planning to enjoy my Macbook Air M2. Again. Sorry.
Totally agree with this. No component of the machine should be worse in any capacity than it's predecessor.
What about people who own a base M1 Air and they want to upgrade to a base M2 Air? Without thinking about it, they should automatically assume no part of this is going to be a regression in any way, yet, if they went to transfer files it is slower in every review I've watched by an order of magnitude.
That isn't right at all -
That’s an extreme minority of fools who are loose with their money.
Year over year upgrade of a base model? Unless they’re flush with cash (which would make me question why they’re going base model to begin with), other than tech nerds who the hell is doing that?
The M2 from an Intel owner is a no brainer, but the percentage of M1 MBA to M2 MBA upgrades (while being staggeringly over represented by tech forum members) is so vanishingly small in the real world it’s not even a blip on a quarterly financial statement.
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First, you were griping about the lack of a fan, then it was about the point of putting in a M2 instead of M1, and now we get to a single 256GB NAND chip instead of two 128GB chips, which by the way is off topic to this thread. But anyway, the point of the 256GB SSD was presumably Apple lowering cost, and I for one don't defend it. Since I'm happy with my M1 MBA, despite it having less memory bandwidth among other things, it's academic to me, but if I were plunking down $$ for M2 MBA, I'd certainly get more than 256GB, and voila, problem solved.
If it was just a spec bump from M1 to M2 then yes you are right.
But M2 Air is a complete redesign. I myself was considering getting one and but after seeing the thermals and slow SSD decided against getting one.
See my comment about tech forum members.
Your average person buys a new laptop every 3+ years, often when their old one finally dies.
Good to know that you are happy with your M1 and have no plans of getting a M2.
But those who wanted or were waiting for M2, were expecting it to be better than M1 in every possible way.
The thermals and SSD situation is clearly worse than M1. So those potential customers have every right to criticise it.
Explaining to those potential customers that why Apple decided to make SSD and thermals worse than M1 is beyond comprehensible to me.
btw diff between cost of single 256 GB vs a pair of 128 GB NAND would be a rounding error on MBA price. That was not done to lower cost that was done to push them to next tier which is $200 more.
The SSD is worse *in the base configuration*.
The thermal situation is clickbait, the machines finish the tasks it’s designed for faster. If your running into thermal constraints it’s because your purposely buying the wrong device for your workload.
The thermals are not worse. YouTubers are just making it a big deal out of it because it gets them more clicks. See the EXACT same thermal video on m1 air as I shared in my earlier post #171
Not defending apple in anyway, but there are also plenty of videos out there indicating that the ssd speed is a non issue.
So putting all emotions aside, if you are actually here looking for help on making a rational decision, then the m2 redesigned air is a good machine well worth the price difference.
If you are just here to troll, please continue.
Just to add, again, not trying to defend apple here so not gonna try to speculate "why" they decided to get themselves into this whole SSD situation, but just looking at the facts —
They didn't intentionally put a lower speed SSD in there. They minimized the total amount of parts in the computer by putting a single module instead of a double module SSD in their computer.
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I'm coming from a 2019 iMac with a fusion drive, which when compared to my work computers Macbook Pro 2019 with an SSD is already incomparable.
It's not good they did it, but chances of me noticing they did it (were I getting 256GB and not 2TB) are not going to happen. Again. As this will come up, it's not right but I only care about what I experience. Sorry. That's selfish but I have other things in this world to worry about which matter.
If it upsets someone else, if they have an issue is irreverent to me. They can complain and or return it. Problem solved and Apple gets returns, etc, etc.
Nonsense. The vast majority who were waiting for or expecting a new M2 version of the Air are not disappointed by a 10-20% improvement in typical, real-world performance with better screen, better camera, etc. in a smaller and lighter package. The spec's that the detractors in this forum are ranting about may be no more significant to the typical buyer than the color of the primer paint on their cars. Most of us don't care what color the primer is because we will never see any impact on our use of the product - just like the throttling and SSD speed.
Expecting a product to be better in "every possible way" than its predecessor is generally unrealistic. Observers will disagree on what "better" even means. Every design decision involves compromise. I think nearly all of the complaints about the new Air can be categorized as unrealistic expectations.
Ok, so I'm tapping out here. Lots of people have explained at length why you're wrong about all this stuff, and you've basically ignored all of it. Look after yourself, and I hope you can find computers to use that don't make you upset.
Thank You for being condescending.
I am also stopping here and I hope you are doing good in your life and I wish you all the very best.
Dude. No. You don’t get to play the victim here. Every point he made was valid. You’re obsession with this is puzzling and your points have been explained to you over and over again.
Playing victim on an anonymous forum. lol Dude.
"your points have been explained to you over and over again."
Dude stop acting as if you have some kind of authority over this topic.
The 14" MBP's thermals aren't all that stellar either. Frankly, the 13" MacBook Pro (M1 version more than M2 version) and 16" MacBook Pro (M1 Pro/Max) are better thermal performers.
I guess posting that makes you feel so much better with your 2015 13" Intel MBP.
🤯