We’ll soon have another MacBook on the market with Apple’s latest M2 chip. Apple says the M2 MacBook Air will finally be available to order on July 8 at 5 a.m. PT on its store page. The notebook will ship out to customers and be in stores a week later on July 15.
The M2 MacBook Air isn’t the first Apple product to come out with an M2 chip, since the refreshed MacBook Pro went on sale in June. But if you were looking for a lighter option, or a laptop without a trackpad, the M2 MacBook Air is right up your alley. The refreshed M2 MacBook Pro may not look drastically different, but Apple is going with an all-new design for the M2 MacBook Air that has a more square look.
Better, faster, stronger —
With the M2 chip, the MacBook Air gets better performance all around, especially with resource-demanding apps like Photoshop or Final Cut Pro. According to Apple, the M2 MacBook Air is nearly 40 percent faster when editing complex timelines in Final Cut Pro compared to the previous generation with M1, and 15 times faster than the MacBook Airs without Apple silicon. Similarly, the M2 makes the new MacBook Air 20 percent faster when using filters and effects in Photoshop compared to the previous M1 model.
Most of us have already seen the specs for the new MacBook Air when it was announced at WWDC 2022. As a refresher, it will have a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display, a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, a four-speaker sound system, and up to 18 hours of battery life. Apple also is reintroducing MagSafe charging to the M2 MacBook Air, which now supports fast charging up to 50 percent in 30 minutes.
Staying true to its name, the MacBook Air is only 11.3 millimeters thin and weighs 2.7 pounds, making for a 20 percent reduction in volume compared to the previous model.
More M2, please —
We get a couple more color options with the M2 MacBook Air since it comes in midnight and starlight, along with the classic silver and space gray colorways. Unfortunately, Apple is bumping up the price of the M2 MacBook Air to $1,199; up from the M1 version’s starting $999 price tag.
With the M2 in all of the MacBook models now, we’re eagerly awaiting which Mac product Apple will upgrade next. Apple is reportedly testing its latest M2 silicon in several Mac products, and others were recently upgraded with more powerful variants of the M1 chip. The only odd one out is the old Mac Pro that’s still running Intel hardware.
