Apple’s M2 MacBook Air Is The Toughest Sell Ever!
And the 13” Pro M2 just adds to the pain…
My best friend Andrew Gribben and I were recording a podcast as WWDC 2022 was going on, and as two Apple nerds, we each had our hopes and dreams for this year’s event. We ended up both getting what we wished for, so midsummer Christmas sorted, you could say, but as we prepared to wrap up the podcast and checked out the details on the M2 MacBook Air — the thing I wished for — on the now live web store, things became a little bit less festive and a tad more real. While during the event I was shouting “take my money” before even seeing a single frame of the video showing the actual MacBook Air, an hour later I found myself to be a little bit more tamed and my enthusiasm somewhat dialled down by my pragmatism, which is probably a good thing.
Apple did finally announce the M2 architecture, and as expected and rumoured, it’s faster and somewhat better than the M1, but that story isn’t quite as straight-forward as Apple would like it to look. While on paper the M2 chip is every bit as good as most of us hoped, let’s be honest here, what really matters is the machine’s real-life performance it sits in. We’re not buying raw SOCs after all, we buy computers, so all the stats about the M2 mean ultimately very little to the large majority of us. I won’t enumerate the M2’s specs in this article, you’re welcome to get them all from the ultimate source of truth — Apple’s website. I will, however, highlight just a few important aspects, all in comparison to the M1:
- 50% faster memory bandwidth of up to 24 GB
- 18% more CPU performance vs. power
- 35% more GPU performance vs. power
Admittedly, it does look intriguing, especially the first item on that list, the capability of having 24 GB of RAM in such a small and power efficient form-factor.
The M2 MacBook Air is indeed true to its marketing, it is the thinnest Air ever made by Apple. At 1.13 cm height, it is about 0.5 cm thinner than the previous generation Air. That also enables the laptop to be 50 grams lighter. That’s nothing to write home about, but numbers are numbers, you can’t argue with them, it’s a lighter machine. It would have probably been even lighter if it hadn’t increased in depth by 2.6 mm. In a practical sense, the machine is a bit lighter and thinner, that’s all that matters. You also get a tiny bit more Liquid Retina screen real-estate of an extra 0.3 inches (ca. 8 mm), so 13.6” vs the older 13.3”.
Apart from the above, you get MagSafe, fast charging, full-height Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, better webcam, better sound, better audio input, and a bunch more other stuff.
The M2 MacBook Air is essentially a slimmed down half-sibling of the MacBook Pro 14” M1 Pro.
In many ways, it’s identical to the previous generation M1 Air, in other ways it borrows a lot, including the chassis design, from the 14” M1 Pro. I think, and I am being very objective here, the M2 Air borrows from both ends all the good things it can. It’s a nice-looking, powerful, fanless, power-efficient — still 18h battery-life — machine, that still supports just one external monitor, but that’s fine.
But, there’s always a but…
Apple decided to repeat 2020 and throw the M2 into the old 13” Pro design as well. With Touch Bar! Make of that what you will. I, for one, feel like it both makes a lot of sense, and no sense at all. I should really get used to Apple triggering conflicting feelings about their decisions, shouldn’t I?
The reason it does make sense is that in the current climate of chip shortage, keeping an old design with a new chip could help Apple keep catering to the demands people have. I can certainly see some people deciding to go for the 13” Pro M2 when seeing the wait times on the 14” M1 Pro models. Also, whether we like it or not, there is still a considerable gap between the M2 Air and the 14” M1 Pro. It also keeps Touch Bar fans happy, as they get yet another generation of a machine that has one.
The reasons why it doesn’t make sense, however, is more around the design of the chassis. The 13” model is now a clear outlier. Have a look at this comparison. With no Mag Safe, an old 720p webcam, a regular IPS LCD of only 13.3”, this kind of feels like a bad deal, or at least a compromise for whoever decides to get this machine.
So, then, why is the M2 MacBook Air the toughest sell ever?
I admit, at first look you’d think, this is a no-brainer, get the M2 Air, live happily ever after. Well, not so fast. What Apple essentially pulled is another 2020 scenario where we all tried figuring out which M1 machine to get: the Air or the 13” Pro? I don’t have to tell anyone how many thousands of YouTube videos popped up overnight trying to answer that question. I watched many of them myself! The trouble was, all of them made sense, even if they gave conflicting advice.
This time it’s worse. As perverted it may sound to some, the 13” Pro M2, with all of its drawbacks, is still a more powerful machine than the Air M2. Undeniably more powerful and if you’re crazy about battery-life, an extra 2h can go a long way. Unfortunately, the price of the M2 Air also doesn’t help, as it’s nearly 100 bucks more expensive (at least in Ireland) than its predecessor. Look, I get it, inflation, and all that, I am not saying I don’t agree with the slight price hike, but it is nevertheless a reason some people will find this a harder decision than it has to be. Everyone wants more bang for their buck, and when it comes to bang, the 13” Pro M2 is still a bigger bang. The Air looks on par with everyone’s dreams, but it is indubitably a less powerful machine, even if somewhat marginally so.
The M2 MacBook Air feels a bit like a deja-vu, one that I hoped not to experience after the agonising decision-making rollercoaster of 2020.
I, for one, know that I’ll be going for the M2 Air, for reasons I’ll be detailing in another article soon, so stay in touch if you want to find out. There’s no rush, the new machines don’t come out until next month, so I don’t feel any pressure to overload the inter-web with M2 Air articles. 😉
Anyway, how about you? Will Apple be getting your hard-earned cash this summer, or holding out for something much bigger and better? 😁
Attila Vago — Software Engineer improving the world one line of code at a time. Cool nerd since forever, writer of codes and blogs. Web accessibility advocate, Lego fan, vinyl record collector. Loves craft beer!
