At its WWDC 2022 Keynote on Monday, Apple unveiled a new MacBook Air with a new chip, display, color and completely new design. The MacBook Air M2 will be available next month for 1,199.
The M2, centered on the new MacBook Air, has 8 CPU cores equally divided in performance and efficiency. According to Apple, the M2 has improvements that make it 18 percent faster than the M1. Apple will offer a customization option where a customer can upgrade to a 10-core M2 SoC, which Apple says is 25 percent faster than the M1. It has the same battery life as the original M1 model, offering up to 18 hours of use on a single charge.
MacBook Air M2 at midnight
Apples
The base configuration of the MacBook Air M2 comes with 8GB of memory, but the M1 is now 24GB, up from 16GB on the MacBook Air. Storage starts with 256GB SSD and can be upgraded to 2TB.
Apple has upgraded the display with a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display, thanks to a 0.3-inch larger skinner bezel than the previous MacBook Air display. The new display has 500 knots of brightness (as opposed to 400 on the M1 Air) and support for billions of colors.
Apple has redesigned the MacBook Air so that it follows the same style as the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, so the tapered design is gone. The laptop is 11.3 mm thin and weighs 2.7 pounds and is available in four colors: Silver, Space Gray, Starlight and Midnight. There were rumors that the MacBook Air would come in color arrays like the iMac, but they didn’t work out.
There’s even a notch at the top of the MacBook Air’s display with a 1080p FaceTime camera with four speakers between the display and keyboard, and Apple has equipped the laptop with three microphones.
The new 35W power adapter can charge two devices at once.
Apples
Like the M1 MacBook Air, the new Air has two Thunderbolt / USB-4 ports but upgrades to an audio jack that supports high-impedance headphones. Buyers of the 10-core GPU model will get a 35W power adapter (separately available for $ 59) with a pair of USB-C ports for charging two devices at once. Customers can use a 67W power adapter to quickly charge a MacBook Air battery up to 50 percent in 30 minutes.
The new MacBook Air M2 starts at $ 1,199 Apple will still offer the entry-level M1 MacBook Air for $ 999.
The new 13-inch MacBook Pro
Apple has also introduced a new 13-inch MacBook Pro with a chip upgrade to the M2 of the same design as the M1 model. That means the touch bar, which we thought was going away, will stay that way for a while longer. It has the same audio jack upgrade as the MacBook Air as well as a 67W USB-C power adapter (vs. 61W on the M1 model) although it doesn’t seem to support fast charging.
The new 13-inch MacBook Pro M2 starts at the same 1,299 and will be available next month.