MacBook Air 15-inch Secrets | Tom's Guide

  • 7 months ago
Apple shares how it made the world's thinnest 15-inch laptop and what went into making the biggest MacBook ever. We also find out what makes it different versus the 13-inch Air, how Apple chose that Pro-like price and why we didn't get more ports.
Transcript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 Yes, the MacBook Air 15-inch is a supersized version
00:05 of the 13-inch, but Apple is adamant that making this thing
00:08 wasn't as easy as simply stretching the screen
00:10 a couple of inches.
00:11 You also get a bigger touch pad, more speakers,
00:14 and based on our testing, even longer battery life.
00:17 I had a chance to sit down with Apple
00:19 and ask two of their execs, Kate Bergeron,
00:21 Apple's Vice President of Hardware Engineering,
00:23 and Laura Metz of Apple's Mac product marketing team,
00:26 what went into making the thinnest 15-inch laptop ever.
00:30 The MacBook Air 15-inch measures just 0.45 inches thick,
00:33 which is just a hair thicker
00:35 than the 13-inch Air's 0.44 inches,
00:37 and this was by design.
00:38 Kate on Apple's engineering team says that Apple
00:41 set the 13-inch Air as the target,
00:43 and the team really had to focus on reliability
00:45 and durability to the larger screen size.
00:47 Apple used a structural adhesive to attach the panel
00:50 to the chassis to make sure the LCD is really sound.
00:53 I was also curious why Apple chose 15.3 inches
00:56 as opposed to 15.1 or 15.4,
00:59 and the answer is not that Apple
01:01 just wanted to think different.
01:02 It's that the engineering team worked with the display team
01:05 to see how many panels Apple could fit
01:07 on a large set of motherboard glass,
01:09 and since they had the opportunity
01:10 to push out to 15.3 inches and cut the glass to that size,
01:14 they decided to go a tad bigger than 15 inches
01:17 and give users a bit more real estate.
01:19 In addition to a 25% larger display,
01:22 the MacBook Air 15-inch sounds better than the 13-inch
01:24 because it adds two more woofers.
01:26 That's one of the ways Apple wanted to take advantage
01:29 of the larger footprint,
01:30 but Apple also wanted to deliver a larger trackpad
01:33 than the 13-inch because you have that extra real estate.
01:36 Apple also shared with us that it needed to grow the battery
01:39 in order to reach that super high 18-hour battery life claim.
01:43 The efficiency of Apple Silicon plays a big role
01:45 in how long the Air lasts on a charge.
01:47 We saw 14 hours and 59 minutes in our battery testing,
01:50 which is even longer than the 13-inch Air's runtime of 1406.
01:54 But Apple shares there's more to it than just the M.2 chip.
01:58 Kate on the engineering team says that Apple
02:00 can take advantage of gaps in your workload
02:02 to draw down the power to a minimal level,
02:05 and the Air is smart enough to know
02:07 when you're watching video and can optimize the Silicon
02:09 for encoding and decoding video streams.
02:12 It can be a bit confusing for someone
02:13 walking into an Apple store
02:15 and they see a 15-inch MacBook Air
02:17 and 13-inch MacBook Pro at the same $1299 price,
02:20 but Apple says there's room for both machines
02:22 and they're for different target audiences.
02:24 Apple's Laura Metz says that they stay true
02:27 to the Air's value proposition despite the premium
02:30 and that because of the leap in M.2 performance
02:32 versus premium Intel machines in a fanless design,
02:35 that shoppers will respond favorably.
02:38 And even though the Pro is more advanced,
02:40 content creators can still do casual photo
02:42 and video editing on the Air.
02:44 The 15-inch Air has the same port selection
02:46 as the MacBook Air 13-inch,
02:47 which means two USB-C ports, a headphone jack,
02:50 and a MagSafe connector.
02:51 That's nice, but it seems like there's enough room
02:54 for at least one more USB-C port.
02:57 Apple told us that it was about keeping things consistent
02:59 across the MacBook Air family,
03:02 which I get, but it's still a bummer.
03:04 At least Apple includes a dual-port adapter standard
03:07 so you can charge your iPhone and MacBook Air
03:09 at the same time.
03:11 I asked Apple what the biggest challenge was overall
03:13 with the 15-inch Air,
03:14 and Kate on the engineering team had an interesting answer.
03:17 It all comes down to quality and feel,
03:19 and she gave me the example of picking up the system
03:22 by a single corner and making sure it feels durable
03:25 without any creaking,
03:26 which I've experienced on other machines.
03:28 It's something that Apple doesn't even want you
03:30 to think about, which I can appreciate.
03:33 That's just a quick overview
03:34 of how Apple made the 15-inch MacBook Air.
03:36 Check out our full MacBook Air 15-inch review
03:38 on tomsguide.com,
03:40 and stay tuned for our video review as well.
03:42 In the meantime, if you have any questions
03:43 about this laptop you want answered,
03:45 just let us know in the comments.
03:47 And be sure to follow us @tomsguide on YouTube,
03:50 TikTok, Instagram, and more.
03:52 For Tom's Guide, this is Mark Spoonhauer.
03:54 (upbeat music)
03:57 (upbeat music)