So here's my (very irreverent) thoughts on my base model M2 Air, from the perspective of someone transitioning from a 2017 MacBook Air 7,2 and a long-time lover of the dearly departed 11" MacBook Air (I daily drove both the original 2010 11" and a 2013):
The keyboard: I'm still rather mixed on the new post-Butterfly keyboard; it just feels so weird typing on a keyboard with so little key travel. I still prefer the keyboard on my 2017, which IMHO had just the right amount of key travel. YMMV I guess.
The display: I really like it. I guess the years of trying to crank down the brightness to eke out as much battery life as possible on the A1181 and A1151 MacBook/Pros in my Early Intel Mac collection have ruined my eyes, but...wow, this display is nice. Even with the brightness turned down, to my old and battered eyes details are crisp and text is still very sharp. Considering that I'm mainly using my MacBook Air for writing work, this is a really nice detail to have.
I'm also kind of amazed at how Apple was able to cram a larger display in here vs. the 2017 Air, even though the M2 Air's footprint is physically smaller. The aggressively cut down bezels also add psychologically to the impression that the display is bigger than it really is.
Performance: With everyone and their mother on YouTube and tech sites complaining about how lousy the M2 chip was, I had my expectations lowered, but...man, this machine is fast. Like, really fast. Not that my 2017 Air was unusably slow, but for tasks like opening large 200+ page Word files with track changes enabled, it did chug a little (and it sadly brought my plucky upgraded 2009 A1181 MacBook to its knees). Not so here. With Chrome running with 20+ tabs, a Zoom call, and a ton of MS Word documents and large PDFs/image files open, my 2017 Air also started to grind its gears. On my M2 Air, a similar workload doesn't skip a beat. It reminds me of the jump I took from my 14" 700 Mhz G3 iBook to my 2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo MacBook.
It also brings me back to how different a machine's specs can be from how it actually feels in the real world. My original 11" 2010 MacBook Air with its 1.4 Ghz ULV Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM and 64 GB SSD seemed awful on paper, but it felt fast, way faster than any of my higher-clocked Macs upgraded with SSDs and more RAM.
Compatibility: Rosetta 2 really is a marvel, but GOG Galaxy barely works at all. Oh, it'll launch, but it'll often turn into a blank window, or leave me with an orphaned helper app running after I quit it. Oh, and apparently Avadon 3 is broken on the M2. Sigh. Hopefully Jeff Vogel will put out a patch soon after the release of the Geneforge 2 remake. Pity, since that was the next game on my list that I wanted to finally finish.
This is also the first Mac I have bought as a daily driver that will not natively run Escape Velocity Nova. My inner 19-year old is still crying. I guess I could try running the Windows version in CrossOver or Wineskin?
The iPhone-ification of the Mac: At first I was irked by autoboot and the notch was jarring. But honestly, the notch personally doesn't affect me as much as I thought it would. Autoboot isn't a deal breaker, but it is still annyoing when I want to open up my MacBook just to inspect or clean the screen. On the upshot, it still feels kinda trippy that I can both charge and run my computer off of the same 30W charger I bought for my partner's Galaxy S23 FE.
I also forgot to add how much I really dislike Sonoma's revamped iOS-style System Preferences app. Not only does it disrupt years' worth of muscle memory for finding things, but it just makes finding the pref pane you need unnecessarily more difficult for certain tasks, like if you want to run an app that isn't notarized by Apple.
What I don't like: Apparently the M2 MacBook Air is really fragile; if I apply a screen protector on it, it'll supposedly ruin the display. Using a hardshell case can (apparently?) potentially scratch up the surface of the computer. If I even open it up wrong (lifting it up from the corner as opposed to lifting it up from the centre?!) I'm apparently liable to crack the LCD glass by stressing the display assembly. WTF? I'm used to the MacBook Air being built like a tank - am I going to have to really baby this thing, or expect to not be able to just toss it in a backpack full of heavy books? This actually really bothers me. I purchased this to be a device I can use for writing on the go, not something I'm worrying about breaking if I even look at it funny. It's a good thing I have a well-padded sleeve for it.
And to be super irreverant, what also bugs me is that there's no really good alternative wallpapers that I can find for the Apple defaults. I've trolled places like Deviant Art, and while there's some good stuff riffing on the Big Sur, Monterey and Ventura wallpapers, I can't find anything I like for Sonoma.
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