Last year we said the MacBook Air M1 was the best career laptop we’ve ever reviewed because of the sustainable combination of a powerful M1 processor, no overheating, a stable operating system, a solid keyboard and battery life so far only found on tablets.
The earth has done a complete revolution around the sun and the Apple MacBook Air M2 can now be purchased by consumers in Malaysia. With the MacBook Air M1 still being officially offered by Apple, is the MacBook Air M2 a necessary purchase or is it more worth it to buy last year’s model alone with higher specs?
Specifications And Design
Apple MacBook Air M2
Screen 13.6 ″ IPS LCD Retina Display 2560 × 1664 pixels.
Apple M2 processor (5nm)
Chip 3.49 GHz 8 Teras
Graphics Chip 8 Core Apple GPU
RAM 8GB LPDDR4X
256TB PCIe Internal Capacity
FaceTime HD Main Camera (1080P)
I/O 2 USB-C (Thunderbolt 3/USB 4)
Battery 52.6 Wh
30W MagSafe Charging 3
SIM/Phone None
WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/6
Bicu Audio Yes
Waterproof None
Touch ID Fingerprint Scanner Scanning System
Starting Sale Price RM5499
Many big changes were made to the design of this year's MacBook Air M2 when compared to the original model shown by Steve Jobs in 2008. We start with the now larger screen (13.6 ″ vs. 13.3) with a fairly large notch for the current webcam finally supports 1080P resolution after so long at just 720P.
The space above the large bezel that has been wasted is now a screen that can put information about apps, batteries, WiFi, bluetooth and more. Although the notch is quite large it did not interfere with our view. Maybe because,
a) We have been accustomed to the notch on the iPhone since the iPhone X five years ago.
b) Because so far the top of this screen only has a large bezel.
The screen feels bigger but doesn’t make any difference that when doing the work. There is 2 cm more workspace on each application used. The screen is still from the IPS LCD family with a retina resolution of 2560 × 1664 pixels. The viewing angle is good with no issue to use it in bright areas as long as it is not under the scorching sun. This issue will only be resolved when Apple uses OLED or micro LED screens in the future.
The lid can be opened up to a 110 degree angle with one hand. No issue finding a comfortable angle when typing on a desk or on the thigh when typing in the car. This second situation often happens to us and the ability to use it when out of the office, in an airplane, in a car and in any form of transportation is outstanding on the MBA M2.
The second, more noticeable and impactful change in usage is the design of the MBA M2 which is now in line with that used on the 14 ″ and 16 ″ MacBook Pro pads launched in late 2021.
The cover panel is now flat with a glossy Apple logo that is quite large in size. Among the first words that came out from a colleague about the design of this logo was that it made the MBA M2 look like a fake product from China. This logo is too large on a 13 ″ MacBook and only looks balanced on a 16 ″ MacBook Pro.
The flat design is only on the X plane with the design on the Y plane rounded. Imagine a slightly smaller MacBook Pro 14 ″ with a slightly thinner bottom. Overall the MBA M2 is 0.26cm thicker but 50 grams lighter. Oddly enough this laptop feels so much lighter than our MBA M1 in hand. Probably because the components are better distributed making it sometimes feel light like an iPad Pro 12 ″ with Magic Keyboard.
There are two USB-C Thunderbolt ports and a MagSafe 3 charging port on the left. With MagSafe, there is no longer an issue that only one USB-C port can be used when the computer is charging. For those who prefer USB-C charging, don't worry because charging via USB-C is still possible. On the right a 3.5mm audio jack is retained. No HDMI, SD card reader and extra USB-C like on the MacBook Pro.
At the bottom of all four rubber liners are also larger than the M1 model. This larger surface area would theoretically make the MBA M2 safer on the table
As MacBook Air M1 users, we have to say we didn’t fall in love with the new design of the MacBook Air M2 as it was too boxy and didn’t look as aerodynamic as the previous model. But this is the design that Apple is using now as a change from the era of Steve Jobs and Jony Ive who were very fond of curved surfaces. If Apple has already moved on from these two important people, maybe we should do the same.
Keyboard
The Magic Keyboard has been given very little change with the top row now having the same large key size as the other keys. This design is borrowed from the Magic Keyboard iMac M1 and MacBook Pro 14/16. The design standardization doesn’t stop at the MacBook’s body alone but also at the keys.
These larger keys simplify the process of pausing music, changing screen captions, and changing audio volume. This larger key design is done to place the larger Face ID fingerprint scanner on the power button.
Typing using Magic Keyboard is among the best on the market right now. There is a reason why many writers own a MacBook Air and it is because this keyboard is so comfortable to use. The space between the locks is excellent with satisfactory vertical movement. If in need of a comfortable typewriter, the MacBook Air M2 is an option that doesn’t disappoint.
All 78 keys come with white light support. There are 16 levels of lighting illumination that can be changed by the user according to the comfort of the eyes and the situation. The light sensor will turn on the light automatically when the surrounding conditions become dark. The only downside is that there are no physical buttons to change the light illumination.
Touch Pad
Apple enlarged the screen size, doubled the number of speakers and increased the size of the first -row keys but the touchpad is still the same size. It is however still larger than the touchpad on a Windows laptop.
The accuracy of tracking finger movements and gestures is so good that we don’t need a mouse to do photo editing in Adobe Photoshop. In stark contrast to the experience of using the RedmiBook 15 reviewed last month. If you’re using a MacBook Air M2, you don’t have to worry about carrying a mouse to do the work.
Consumption
The macOS Monteray operating system is matched with an Apple M2 chip (8 CPU cores and 8 GPU cores), 8GB of RAM memory and only 256GB of storage on the base model reviewed. Since Apple Silicon was announced two years ago, the issue of apps not being compatible with the M1 and M2 chips has been on the decline.
Adobe and Microsoft have offered their apps that support Apple Silicon natively. Some of the incompatible app issues you mentioned in the MacBook Air M1 review are no longer recurring. Now is the best time if all this time will be looking forward to buying a MacBook with an Apple Silicon chip.
As a machine for light and semi -heavy work tasks in the office, the MacBook Air M2 works brilliantly. Can include the S-level often used by the Japanese for best-in-class products.
During the five days of using the MacBook Air M2, it worked with zero issues, zero noise, zero timeout, zero app failures and almost no heating issues. In 95% of direct situations no heat can be felt. This MacBook is more like a tablet than a laptop. This is not surprising as this is also our experience throughout using the MacBook Air M1 last year.
Like the MacBook Air M1 we still can’t recommend its use as a video processing machine. Granted the Apple M2 can process ProRes and ProRes Raw video but without a cooling fan, this laptop heats up significantly so it makes us a little worried.
Significant warm -up also occurs when playing the first one even from the simple graphics type uploaded from Apple Arcade. The same game when played on iPhone and iPad does not cause the same heating problems. When it started to heat up we noticed that the performance of other applications such as typing articles in Firefox was also blocked. The MacBook Air M2 is still a laptop for work and not for fun in 2022!
Another issue that needs to be highlighted is RAM. The 8GB RAM model we reviewed has a limit on how many applications can be opened. The MacBook Air M1 that we have been using so far comes with 16GB of RAM. So it has become a habit to open 12 tabs in Chrome, 4 tabs in Firefox, open Photoshop, and stream music using Apple Music without any issues.
On the Macbook Air M2 we reviewed, several times the words typed had problems for a while before being displayed on the WordPress screen when writing an article. Only after reducing the number of tabs in Chrome this issue can be resolved. This is an issue that we also experienced on the Mac Mini Intel i3 8GB RAM and Macbook Air Intel i5 8GB RAM that we have. If you plan to open many applications simultaneously as above, we do not recommend a model with only 8GB of RAM.
Bench mark
In Geekbench 5, 1891 scores were recorded for the single -core test and 8736 scores for the multi -core test. In the BlackMagic storage test, the SSD recorded a speed of 1618 MB/s for reading and 1464 MB/s for writing.
Single -core processing performance increased 9.3% and multi -core increased 14% compared to the Apple M1 chip (1730 /7656 marks). Not an impressive increase from year to year. What is disappointing is that we confirmed a previous report that the performance of the 256GB SSD is half the performance of the M1 SSD.
Last year on the MacBook Air M1 with 1TB of storage that we reviewed, the read speed was 3204 MB/s and the write speed was 2776 MB/s. SSD performance on the most basic models is about half that of models with higher storage. What good is a processor giving a 14% increase if SSD performance is cut in half?
These flaws won’t go unnoticed if you only use the MacBook Air M2 to type work assignments, do photo editing in Photoshop, stream videos and surf the web. Lack of SSD speed or increased CPU performance is only noticed if you do heavier tasks such as editing video in ProRes format for example
You can do video editing with the MacBook Air M2 but we noticed the computer starts to get hotter the longer the video needs to be processed. This heating problem will reduce the performance of the Apple M2 but does not make the computer uncomfortable to use. It just feels a little warm when the computer is placed on the thigh. All of these issues occur because the MacBook Air is not equipped with a fan cooling system.
Our recommendation if you are looking for an Apple M2 computer for video editing and more intensive tasks, the Apple MacBook Pro 13 M2 is a more suitable model faucet comes with a fan cooling system.
Audio
No more audio lattice on the left and right of the MacBook Air M2 keyboard. Instead the dual-speaker audio system was replaced with a quad-speaker system that was moved between the screen hinges and the computer body. For the first time as well, a spatial audio system is supported on the MacBook Air. Dolby Atmos support is also maintained.
Because the speakers are now hidden between the screen and the body, audio is reflected to the screen and then to the user’s ear. It gives the illusion of a speaker located in a computer screen. The audio feels brighter and clearer especially the conversational dialogue in the video. The audio quality is also better when compared to the previous MacBook Air because it feels a wider range of sound.
There is still a 3.5mm audio jack for those who are still more comfortable using wired audio accessories.
Battery
The 52.6 Whr battery of the MacBook Air M2 is larger than the 49.9 Whr on the MacBook Air M1. But Apple says the service life of both machines could reach 16 hours on a single charge. In the our Lab test, we were able to enjoy a usage life of up to 14 hours on a single charge through regular use of browsing the web with Chrome, editing photos with Photoshop, editing videos with DaVinci Resolve and streaming high -resolution video from Apple TV.
Throughout the review the screen description is set at 50% and the audio is around 80%. The life of this battery is good enough for up to almost two working days. The battery performance of the Apple M1 which is the best in its class is continued by the Apple M2 this year.
The battery recharge period is around 2.5 hours using the 30W USB-C charger included with each purchase and the MagSafe 3 cable. As we have said a few paragraphs above, recharging using USB-C is still possible if you do not have a MagSafe 3 cable.
Conclusion
A bigger screen, a more powerful processor, more robust audio, a more modern charging system and a better webcam are Apple’s backups to make you buy the MacBook Air M2. The design has also been updated to look more boxy in line with the designs of the new MacBook Pro 14/16, iMac M1 and Mac Mini. It’s still interesting but personally - and this is subjective - the old design of the MacBook Air is more beautiful and iconic.
While this year’s modern is all about more modern, it’s all useless if you buy the base model with 256GB. SSD performance is half that of last year’s 256GB model. As MacBook Air M1 owners, we feel if you want better value the MBA M1 with 16GB of RAM and 512GB is priced at RM5999 - only RM500 more expensive than the MBA M2 8/256GB is a more worthwhile option.
The MacBook Air is still a computer for work not for fun. We say so because it gets hot when running video games and doing video editing. The fanless system is indeed quiet but raises a heating issue that gives us memory using a MacBook with an Intel chip.
The power to choose is in your hands. If a 14% increase in CPU processing power, larger screen, spatial audio, MagSafe 3 charging, FHD camera and new keyboard are important then we can recommend the purchase of the Macbook Air M2 to you. If the above doesn’t matter, the MacBook Air M1 is still sold by Apple and it still is