it's a really good machine but it's not quite
what i expected now my review unit is
this midnight color it's like a dark
blue finish i like the look of it and
when i unbox it it also came with this
braided magsafe cable that is color
matched it's also a midnight colored
magsafe cable and also it came with
color matched apple stickers as well as
the 35 watt dual charger now this is an
optional accessory that comes with the
upgraded versions of m2 macbook air but
it has two ports for charging multiple
devices so this is a very nice looking
machine it's got the design aesthetics
of the bigger 14 and 16 inch devices but
it's thinner and lighter and it comes in
this wicked blue color
uh this is if i'm not mistaken the first
macbook that apple has made that has had
a dark metal finish like we've seen dark
plastic macbooks but never something as
dark as this i like the look of it but
the fingerprints are everywhere like you
just touch it for a little bit and just
smudges and fingerprints just start
appearing it's not uncommon with dark
colored metal laptops like the razer
blades get covered like this as well but
if you're sensitive to this stuff you go
for a lighter color or get a skin to go
over it on the top there are two usb-c
ports on the left these support
thunderbolt 4 but it still only supports
one display out there's also the magsafe
connection on that side and then on the
right you have the high impedance
headphone jack now on the bottom of the
new macbook air
the feet look a little bit different
these are kind of in the style of the
new 14 and 16 inch uh macbook pros
it's just like a minor difference but i
gotta say i like this new one more it's
also an even bottom like the previous
generation had a taper to it but this is
like a flat bottomed
m2 macbook air okay let's talk about
performance so the chip that's in here
in the air is the same chip
technically as the one that's in the m2
macbook pro underneath there
but the performance is a little bit
different if you only look at short
benchmarks the m2 macbook air is still
about a 10 or 15 bump over m1 and same
with the gpu it's like 35 maybe 40
better than m1 but because the m2
macbook pro has a fan it can remove heat
that builds up over time this device
doesn't the only way it can get rid of
the heat is just to radiate it outwards
and let your environment get rid of it
and the result is that the m2 macbook
air is not good at maintaining a high
level of performance for an extended
period of time i noticed that if you
push the cpu and only the cpu it'll get
to like five or six minutes before it
starts to throttle if you're pushing
everything you're going like maximum
effort cpu and gpu going full tilt it's
like three to four minutes and you'll
start to notice some heavy throttling so
the m2 macbook air has a fast processor
but if you compare to the m2 macbook pro
with its fan depending on the workflow
and how long you're pushing the system
at maximum effort for
this can start to slow down
significantly now
the thing to keep in mind is that people
who are buying this system like people
who are looking at an m2 macbook air
product as their regular computer
they're not people adding like 8k
films and like compiling huge projects
like that's just not the regular
workflow that goes into a system like
this there are way more powerful tools
from apple if that's your workflow but i
was just surprised at how big of a
difference there was between the fanless
system and the fan equipped system on
the m2 product like when the m2 macbook
pro first came out and people were just
looking at the reviews there's a
conversation of like oh who's gonna buy
that thing who's it for well
i don't know man a little bit of airflow
goes a long way when it comes to this
chip it's also very noticeable in games
even the moderately demanding titles
don't do as well on the m2 macbook air
compared to the m2 macbook pro the new
macbook air just needs a little bit more
air uh okay a quick note on the storage
and the controversy that's surrounding
it so
the base models of the m2 products like
both the the pro and the air coming in
256 gigs of storage but this year
they're only using a single nand for
that drive so it results in
significantly slower drive speeds when
you're running a drive speed benchmark
now there's concern over this because
apple silicon performance can sometimes
lean quite heavily on fast drives like
if you have a big project and you don't
have a lot of ram and it's doing some
disk swapping it can hurt performance in
a noticeable manner the thing is i think
the vast majority of people on an m2
macbook air are not working on crazy big
projects with like 10 chrome tabs open
it's just not a thing and even if you
are working with huge video files you're
probably using one of the bigger drives
that don't have these reduced speeds i
think regular workflows and even
moderately demanding creative workflows
are going to be fine on the system that
being said i think that their 512 gig
storage option costing an extra 200
is criminal i think that's just nuts but
also i think if they're gonna have
slower drive speeds on those entry level
models they need to disclose that it
should be on the website like maybe not
plastered on the options but like in the
fine print even it should be available
for people to look at because that's
just information people need to know
okay the display this is running a 13.6
inch display it's a really nice panel
there is a notch and for the people that
are just new to the whole idea of the
notch you get used to it you can hide it
if you want and it's just extra screen
real estate at the top for the menu bar
it's still a 60 hertz panel so no pro
motion but it's bright the colors are
good and the bezels are nice and thin
now now this is a review unit that i
can't open up like i can't pop it open
to show you the internals but it's a
fanless system so there's probably not
much to look at anyways i used a thermal
camera on the m2 macbook air and this
thing gets warm warmer than i thought it
would so the back area gets around 40
degrees celsius like just right in the
middle and it radiates like outwards
like you would expect but on the flip
side like the keyboard deck area this
gets just as warm but it's never
uncomfortable to use now the keyboard is
arguably the best keyboard that's ever
been in a macbook air this is a nice
keyboard spacious nice to type on nice
travel uh it's just
i think this is the way that every
laptop keyboard should be it's just a
fantastic keyboard it also has the
fingerprint sensor on the top right
which works well like you'd expect from
apple the webcam on the top is a 1080p
webcam this has good image quality and
it is noticeably better than the one on
the m2 macbook pro uh speaker system so
there's four speakers
and they're great the shocking thing to
me is how good they're able to get like
the mid frequencies and lower
frequencies like the bassy stuff on a
system so thin like there are gaming
laptops that are probably five times
thicker than this that don't sound as
good it's bizarre but apple does their
speakers really well battery life was
good for my testing it's a little bit
less than the m2 macbook pro but still
super solid and again it's amazing how
much better apple's battery life on
their laptops is compared to any of the
windows competitors out there like they
do a fantastic job with energy
efficiency my review unit came with this
35 watt adapter and it takes about an
hour to charge this thing fully with
this adapter but they do have a optional
67 watt adapter that juices it up in i
think like 30 minutes but i did connect
just a usbc cable to the usbc port uh
and you can get up to 70 watts from my
testing through that port so my overall
take on the m2 macbook air this is a
fantastic device for people looking for
something that can handle light to
moderately demanding work but if you're
someone that wants like a very powerful
system and you're hoping that something
super thin and super light can handle it
unfortunately i would say that it can't
it's it's weird that just the presence
of a fan makes such a big difference in
terms of sustained workflow i was
surprised by it but
that's just the nature of the m2 chip
it's just a more demanding chip than the
previous generation okay there you have
it the m2 macbook air
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