15-Inch MacBook Air Reviews: The Sweet Spot for Performance, Size, and Value

[teh_hunterer]

apple is shifting focus to gaming, gonna be hilarious when ppl to start complaining about the overheating

Except it won't overheat, it will throttle. And even when the M2 Air is fully throttled, it outperforms the M1 Air when it's not throttling at all.

You'll get more performance from a performance focused MacBook with a fan, but there is no problem here.

 

[teh_hunterer]

Until Apple does, it is what it is.

Sure, and until Apple does, we can grumble about it if we want to.

 

[svish]

15" Air seems like an excellent laptop.

 

[Juraj22]

Here M1 Macbook Pro 14' 10CPU 16GB RAM, 1TB SDD, cost 2086€ (New)
Macbook Air 15' 16GB RAM, 1TB SDD, cost 2289€ (New)

M1 '14 is 100g heavier, have much better screen, CPU has twice the performance cores, active cooling, better sound, a bit weaker on battery.
Macbook Air 15' have only good pricing for base configurations.

Hard decisions

 

[George Dawes]

Between this and a tricked out iPad Pro I know which one I’d go for

Lovely piece of kit

 

[Steve121178]

Every review is tempered by Apple rules, these are not real reviews, they're Apple PR videos, even so I didn't see Marquis exactly drooling over it

I think most people realise the early access "reviews" are just part of the marketing machine these days due to the reach these TechTubers have.

Having said that, the 15" MacBook Air is just a larger MacBook Air, so can't fail to be anything other than exceptional. Just a shame about that horrendous pricing outside the US. Upgrade it to 16GB RAM & 1TB and you are at £!999! Ridiculous.

 

[Bcn]

Here M1 Macbook Pro 14' 10CPU 16GB RAM, 1TB SDD, cost 2086€ (New)
Macbook Air 15' 16GB RAM, 1TB SDD, cost 2289€ (New)

M1 '14 is 100g heavier, have much better screen, CPU has twice the performance cores, active cooling, better sound, a bit weaker on battery.
Macbook Air 15' have only good pricing for base configurations.

Hard decisions

You forgot Air has more colours and a bigger screen

 

[wyrdness]

I'm interested to see how it compares. I have a 16" 2019 Intel-based MBP that I'm looking to replace.

I have a 16" 2019 Intel i9 MBP, a 16" M2 Pro MBP and a 13" M1 Air. The MBP's are both work machines and the M1 Air is my personal laptop. The Intel MPB is rubbish compared to the Apple Silicon Macs. It's hot, slow and has very limited battery life. The M2 Pro MPB is a great workhorse, is super fast and has good battery life. It's also quite a big, heavy laptop and lives on my desk. My M1 Air is pretty much the perfect personal laptop - thin, light, fast and with great battery life. If I was going to replace the 13" Air, then I'd definitely be looking at the 15"

 

[TechnoMonk]

No SD slot, no buying!

No floppy, no CD drive, no usb A, no buy.

 

[ilikewhey]

Except it won't overheat, it will throttle. And even when the M2 Air is fully throttled, it outperforms the M1 Air when it's not throttling at all.

You'll get more performance from a performance focused MacBook with a fan, but there is no problem here.

this says otherwise,

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/my-cinebench-throttling-tests-m2-vs-m1-macbook-airs.2377984/#:~:text=The%20M1%20throttles%20by%20about,)%2C%20but....

m2 full throttle scored 7373
m1 not throttling at all 7537

 

[teh_hunterer]

this says otherwise,

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/my-cinebench-throttling-tests-m2-vs-m1-macbook-airs.2377984/#:~:text=The%20M1%20throttles%20by%20about,)%2C%20but....

m2 full throttle scored 7373
m1 not throttling at all 7537

This says otherwise.

But even then, where is the overheating you were claiming would be happening?

 

[ilikewhey]

This says otherwise.

But even then, where is the overheating you were claiming would be happening?

yours is only 8 runs, it hasn't hit full throttle yet as you claimed. meanwhile the source i provided all hit 16 runs and above.

 

[aliasfox]

With 14” M2Pro machines going for $1,799 or less at retail (I’ve seen as low as $1,649), I don’t really see the 15”MBA as the “sweet spot.” For effectively the same price and weight for a 16/512, the 14” is faster, has a better screen, dual external monitor support, and more ports. You really have to want that extra bit of screen real estate and the 5mm difference in thickness to go for an upgraded MBA. Not down on the product, just down on the price. If Apple offered a $1,399 EDU only deal for 16/512, I could see enough of a gap between the two models, but for most people, the 14” will be more future proof (by virtue of M2Pro) and offer a better experience for most (ports) than a comparably priced 16/512 MBA.

 

[teh_hunterer]

yours is only 8 runs, it hasn't hit full throttle yet as you claimed. meanwhile the source i provided all hit 16 runs and above.

So after 80 minutes of Cinebench I'm right, but after 2 and a half hours of Cinebench runs you're right? That's splitting hairs.

Where is the overheating you were talking about though? Is that after 32 Cinebench runs?

 

[ilikewhey]

So after 80 minutes of Cinebench I'm right, but after 2 and a half hours of Cinebench runs you're right? That's splitting hairs.

Where is the overheating you were talking about though? Is that after 32 Cinebench runs?

thats not splitting hair, your statement that m2 throttle beating m1 non throttle while the difference is only a few hundred cinebench points, meaning real world translation of maybe 3-4fps difference, now thats splitting hair.

congratulation! you discovered the scientific method lol.

the overheating/throttling is whatever it starts to throttle my guy.

Edit: for the record it’s 30 mins not 2 hours something as you stated

 

[lcseds]

The Air is a lightweight, portable device. It was designed for that. Unlike the Pro, which could substitute as a desktop, the Air was not developed for that type of "Pro" use. Multiple monitor support would not be high on the priority list. While any folks here may put up a stink about lack of multiple monitor support, I would imagine *most* Air users will never use an external monitor, let alone two or three. If that is the usage case, the MBP is the smart choice.

 

[Asthmatic Kitty]

Can someone explain Mini LED like I’m 5 years old? Or 10/15 at least? And is it different than Pro Motion? Sorry for dumb Q if it is, but w/o more info when these terms are tossed around it seems like “Retina”, Pro, Max… etc.

So regular LCDs just have one big backlight that covers the whole of the screen (so blacks appear a washed-out grey, because they're also being backlit), but Mini-LED backlighting has lots of different zones (think it's something huge like 10,000 zones on the MBPs?) where each has a separate backlight. so these can be switched on or off independently, giving you pure blacks in some areas even when other zones are turned on. One downside of this is something called “blooming”, where sometimes black areas have a kind of light halo bleeding into them, because the zone needs to be illuminated to show (for instance) a white portion of the image, so the black area surrounding it gets illuminated as well. This is different to OLED and MicroLED, where the LEDs themselves provide the luminance of the screen (so no blooming) — in Mini-LED the various backlights provides the luminance, whereas the LEDs in front of the backlight tell it what colour to be.

ProMotion is just to do with how often the screen refreshes — on the MBPs I think it's between 10–120 Hz (times per second), so if what's on screen is static then it'll refresh less often, and if you're scrolling it'll ramp up to 120 Hz to make it look smoother. And it'll play video in its native frame rate, e.g. 24 Hz, which both saves battery life (because the screen needs to refresh less often) and gets rid of any judder that might've occurred from trying to play a 24 Hz video at 60 Hz (which most displays refresh at).

I'm not an expert in this stuff so might've got one or two things above slightly wrong, but the gist should be right.

 

[bigjnyc]

The Air is a lightweight, portable device. It was designed for that. Unlike the Pro, which could substitute as a desktop, the Air was not developed for that type of "Pro" use. Multiple monitor support would not be high on the priority list. While any folks here may put up a stink about lack of multiple monitor support, I would imagine *most* Air users will never use an external monitor, let alone two or three. If that is the usage case, the MBP is the smart choice.

I can't believe people are still trying to compare the 2 lol... It's right there in the name AIR vs. PRO.... Pretty obvious that these 2 machines have different use cases and are marketed towards different people with different needs.

 

[compwiz1202]

If Apple did ship 16GB as the base model but raised the price by $200, your next complaint would be that it’s too expensive…

Exactly and people who still wanted 8 for less would have no choice. It's not worth it to change base unless they lower the price

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

I'd need a USB-A, HDMI & CompactFlash card slot.

Sadly cannot find a USB-C dongle with at least those 3 ports.

You're joking right? Anker hubs got all that. The only downside is the hub goes over the Magsafe port so if you like magsafe, tough. You're gonna have to use USB-C for power

Anker 547 USB-C Hub (7-in-2, for MacBook)

The Anker Advantage: Join the 50 million+ powered by our leading technology. Massive Expansion: Expand your MacBook’s 2 USB-C ports into 1 Thunderbolt USB-C por

www.anker.com

 

[Longplays]

You're joking right? Anker hubs got all that. The only downside is the hub goes over the Magsafe port so if you like magsafe, tough. You're gonna have to use USB-C for power

Anker 547 USB-C Hub (7-in-2, for MacBook)

The Anker Advantage: Join the 50 million+ powered by our leading technology. Massive Expansion: Expand your MacBook’s 2 USB-C ports into 1 Thunderbolt USB-C por

www.anker.com

No CompacFlash card slot

 

[redheeler]

No CompacFlash card slot

Compact Flash is an ancient standard. No Mac has ever had a Compact Flash port.

 

[Ctrlos]

No thanks. It seems to take me much longer to do basic tasks on the iPad/MBK combo. It's just not a laptop replacement for me until Apple fixes the software.

Watching videos is faster on a Mac?

Forgive the illusion of sarcasm, its just you listed browsing the watching as your only 2 uses and an iPad is built for this in mind.

 

[Longplays]

Compact Flash is an ancient standard. No Mac has ever had a Compact Flash port.

That's why I am looking for a USB-C dongle with CF card, HDMI 2.1, USB-A 10Gbps and TB4.

 

[redheeler]

That's why I am looking for a USB-C dongle with CF card, HDMI 2.1, USB-A 10Gbps and TB4.

You might have to settle for two separate dongles. Same goes for me wanting Thunderbolt 2 or other old niche standards.