Category
🦄
Art et designTranscription
00:00All right, so this is Apple's hot new laptop for 2022 and the first with the new second
00:08generation with Apple Silicon inside.
00:10We have a new MacBook Air and it's redesigned, it's pretty sweet.
00:13We got this announcement at WWDC on stage a couple of days ago and I did get to spend
00:17some actual hands-on time with the new laptop, which is what this video is.
00:21And after the half hour or so I actually got to spend with it, I was left with one main
00:26thought and one new question.
00:28The thought about the color and the question about the lineup.
00:32So first of all, I love the design refresh.
00:35Apple's new laptop design language, as we've seen from the previous MacBook Pros, is very
00:40squared off.
00:41So this MacBook Air is no longer a wedge shape.
00:43It's very much rectangular with the sharper edges, but it's still an Air.
00:47It's still razor thin, 11.3 millimeters total Z height, less than half an inch and 2.7 pounds.
00:53It kind of to me looks like two iPads sandwiched together basically.
00:56Still all metal, still really well balanced and easy to hold.
00:59Definitely earns the Air name, right?
01:01So on the right side, there's a headphone jack with the new high impedance headphone
01:03support and on the left, there's two Thunderbolt ports and they added MagSafe.
01:08And it'll actually come with a color matched MagSafe cable, which is new and it's a really
01:13nice touch.
01:14So there's four new colors of this laptop, silver, space gray, then starlight and midnight.
01:20So each MagSafe cable matches the color of the laptop.
01:22I'll plug it into the side.
01:23It looks pretty seamless.
01:24I just love them bringing back MagSafe here.
01:27And then with MagSafe, they also added fast charging up to 67 watts with an optional
01:31power brick.
01:32That's good for adding 50% charge in half an hour, which is pretty good.
01:37Apple also showed us on stage, there was this slide of a dual USB type C charger, which
01:41looks pretty sweet.
01:42Just a heads up though, that one is not 67 watts.
01:45That's not the super fast charging.
01:47That is 35 watts.
01:48I got to actually hold it and read that on the back of the brick.
01:50So you can get either the fast charger or dual USB C charger.
01:55Anyway, this laptop also gets a new quad speaker setup.
01:58It's sort of those tucked in the hinge underneath the display, which is kind of cool.
02:02And a new triple mic array with beamforming audio.
02:05I can't test that stuff in the limited hands-on time I have with it in a huge EchoE Steve
02:09Jobs theater.
02:10So definitely get subscribed to see the review of that and all the other stuff I get to test
02:14when I actually get my hands on one.
02:16But I think really the biggest change that I'm going to notice with this new laptop is
02:19at the front.
02:20Which is the display.
02:21So in basically the same footprint as the last MacBook Air, they thinned out the bezels
02:25all the way around, making room for a slightly bigger 13.6 inch display, which is now also
02:31brighter at 500 nits.
02:33Basically matching the 13 inch MacBook Pro.
02:35And of course it now has the notch with the new 1080p webcam up there also.
02:39This is again, part of the new Apple Pro aesthetic that honestly, we are already getting used
02:44to as dorky as it looks when you just stare at it.
02:47But anyway, you also have a full height function row up at the top of the magic keyboard with
02:50touch ID in the corner, backlit keys, the whole deal.
02:54I mentioned in the last video, midnight, this new dark color might not be the way to go.
03:01And I say that reluctantly because we love a good matte black, but as you may know from
03:05the name of the color, it's actually the same as the Apple Watch Series 7.
03:09So it's not quite black, it's slightly blue as hopefully you can tell from my clips.
03:14But also in my very, very limited time playing with it, it picks up a lot of fingerprints,
03:20a lot.
03:21And it was kind of hard to clean off.
03:22So in my time handling it, getting fingerprints all over the thing and getting kind of annoyed
03:26with trying to clean them off, it made me lean way more towards like just safe space
03:31gray or maybe silver, which would never show those fingerprints.
03:33I don't know, maybe you just get a dbrand icon skin, slap it on the back and never worry
03:37about it.
03:38Maybe you just don't care about the fingerprints and you just deal with it.
03:41I'm just saying, just putting it out there.
03:43Can't say I didn't warn you.
03:44But the new M2 chip inside is of course super important.
03:46And this is what's gonna make this ultra thin and light laptop actually perform and be very,
03:52very impressive.
03:53Again, gonna do some testing and using it.
03:55But Apple's promising some broad things like roughly 20% better CPU performance than M1
04:02and 30 to 35% better GPU performance, which is a pretty big jump over the M1, which is
04:07already very capable.
04:08All within the same 18 hours of video playback, really good battery life.
04:13So it's impressive.
04:14There's more memory bandwidth up to a hundred gigabytes per second, more maximum system
04:18memory at 24 gigs.
04:20But it's worth remembering, this is still very much the baseline chip, right?
04:23The M1 Pro and the M1 Ultra chips are definitely still higher end chips and we can expect new
04:29generations of, I guess, an M2 Pro and an M2 Ultra at some point.
04:34But yeah, this M2 is targeted for baseline, everyday computing, and then occasional maybe
04:39some more demanding stuff.
04:40It can handle stuff like video editing, light gaming, stuff you want to throw at it once
04:45in a while.
04:46But here's where it gets interesting.
04:47It is more expensive.
04:49So I had no problem recommending the M1 MacBook Air at $999, right?
04:53This is now like two years or so later, this M2 MacBook Air starts at $1,199.
04:58So $1,200 laptop, it's a little more pricey, but they're keeping the two-year-old M1 MacBook
05:04Air with the old design in the lineup still at $999.
05:08So now, you know, at this price, it's not like a instant recommendation for me and having
05:13a two-year-old laptop not dropping price is also a little interesting.
05:17But to me, the weirdest part of this whole announcement of this lineup is the one other
05:22machine that they put this new M2 chip in is the M2 MacBook Pro.
05:27And this one got absolutely no redesign at all.
05:31It is the exact same body and display and outside as the M1 13-inch MacBook Pro.
05:36They just bumped a new M2 chip inside.
05:38And so that machine will start at $1,299.
05:42And I just want to just talk about that for a quick second.
05:44Like, I actually feel like you can make an argument that the M2 Air, which is cheaper,
05:49is actually a better computer for most people.
05:52For 90-something percent of people, you should probably just get the Air.
05:56Look at this chart.
05:57This is the new M2 MacBook Air and M2 MacBook Pro to cost the same amount with the same
06:01specs.
06:02$1,499, right?
06:03At this price, though, the Air is thinner and lighter, has the new better design, has
06:09a larger display, has Touch ID with a real function row, which is, I think, better than
06:14a touch bar.
06:15It has MagSafe with the color-matching cable.
06:18It has fast charging that the Pro doesn't have.
06:21It has a much better webcam.
06:23It has new speakers and microphones.
06:25And it literally has more ports than the Pro.
06:28So the only advantage to the Pro would be pairing the M2 chip with a fan, so the active
06:33cooling system can get you some extra performance out of sustained workloads, like long renders
06:38and gaming, I guess.
06:40And then the slightly longer battery life from the bigger laptop having a physically
06:44larger battery.
06:45But if you're already a person that's thinking about performance for sustained workloads
06:49and things like ports, you're already going to be looking towards the M1 Pro MacBook Pro,
06:54the 14-inch.
06:55So it's just kind of a weird sliver of people that I don't think are going to actually get
06:59very many M2 MacBook Pros.
07:01Just my thoughts on that real quick.
07:03Anyway, that's pretty much it.
07:04The Air is a really good machine.
07:06The one weird quirk about it that I noticed is it still only supports one external display,
07:10even though it has two ports now, still only one up to 6K external display.
07:14But this is a good machine.
07:16It's fun to hold and use and carry around, and it makes a perfectly reasonable computer
07:20in a vacuum, the M2 MacBook Pro, look like a pretty bad deal.
07:25Either way, I'm for sure going to get my hands on and test this thing.
07:28Let me know in the comments which color you think I should get.
07:30I'm considering midnight, right?
07:33But we've seen the fingerprints, so I'm leaning maybe starlight instead or space gray, anything
07:39but silver.
07:40I don't know.
07:41Let me know in the comments.
07:42Okay.
07:43That's been it.
07:44Thanks for watching.
07:45Catch you guys in the next one.
07:46Peace.