AVERAGE USER LONG-TERM REVIEW! 15" M2 MacBook Air
– Alright, so the 15-inch M2 MacBook Air isn’t perfect, but it’s very good. I’ve had it since the day it was released. I’ve used it a ton. And I still think that it might be the best all-around MacBook for the majority of users. So let’s talk about both sides here. Also, quick question, do you think that at this point, MacBooks should come with Face ID? Alright, so to start things off, I absolutely love the form factor of this laptop. I think that it might still be the thinnest 15-inch laptop on the market. If not, it’s
definitely up there. If you want something that’s a little bit smaller but a similar form factor, then you can go ahead and go with the 13-inch model. But what’s nice here is that if you do go with the 15 inches, you’re really only adding 0.01 inches, or 0.02 centimeters in thickness. So while you’re getting a noticeably larger display, you’re not really adding a lot of bulk. And that’s something that’s really noticeable if you take your laptop with you every day or if you travel a lot. So for example, I go to a lot of tech
events, and I want a large display on my laptop to make work as easy as possible. And there are times when I take my 16-inch MacBook Pro, but that laptop
rest assembly on this one versus the 13-inch ’cause it makes the typing experience more comfortable. Now the track pad is nice and big, it’s responsive, it’s accurate. You can click anywhere. It has pressure sensing capabilities. And in general, MacBooks have my favorite track pads on any laptop. Now I absolutely love the midnight blue color that I got, but just like in my initial review, I have to mention that it will definitely show fingerprints. Now I don’t really care if my gear looks like I actually use it. And if it gets really bad, I just wipe
it down. But if that’s something that’s going to bother you, do yourself a favor and pick one of the other colors. Like, the starlight is super clean, and then of course the silver and space gray are timeless. Now in terms of ports, we’re getting two Thunderbolt/USB4 ports for accessory. We are getting a MagSafe 3 port for fast charging. And then there’s a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack if you wanna use a wired headphone. And while I like some of the improvements that Apple made here, this MacBook still has some of the same limitations. So I love
MagSafe because I can safely charge my MacBook Air and I don’t need to worry about my dog Mac, who’s over there, inadvertently, you know, running across the room and then sending this MacBook flying across the room. And it also means that I have two ports available for accessories because I don’t need to use one of ’em for charging, like I did with the M1 MacBook Air or even the 13-inch M1 and M2 MacBook Pro. Now at the same time, just like with those other models, all three port are on the left side. So it means
that I can only charge and connect accessories from one side. And this is one of the advantages of the 14 and 16-inch higher end MacBook Pro models. Now is this a deal breaker? No, because I can always take the cable and just wrap it around. But being able to charge the MacBook from both sides is really nice. Also, if I’m working in tight spaces, like in a coffee shop or at some event, sometimes it’s really convenient to be able to have my external SSD attached on the right. As far as the number of ports or
the types of ports that are available, most MacBook Air users don’t need more than what you get with this one. And if you do, you can always pick up a hub or, again, look at the higher end MacBook Pro models. Now in terms of external display support, the 15-inch MacBook Air still only supports a maximum of one 6k/60Hz display. But speaking of external monitor support, if you’ve seen my MacBook accessories video, I showed you how to connect three 4K displays to any Mac or MacBook that has at least an M1 chip in it. In that
video, I was using the PD2725U, but BenQ actually makes three different models specifically designed for Mac users. Now these monitors don’t just look great, but they are shipped with default color settings that perfectly match MacBook colors. They also have something called M-book mode, which provides active color syncing so that the colors on the MacBook display and the colors on the BenQ display look the same. And this way, if I’m editing a photo or a video, I know that I can trust the colors that I see. They have plenty of ports and a stand that’s super
versatile, so you can tilt your display lower or raise it. You can easily switch between landscape and portrait mode. They have a built-in KVM switch, so you can use the same display keyboard and mouse with two different devices. And I love the HotKey Puck G2 because it gives me easy access to all of the monitor’s features without having to mess around with any tiny buttons on the back of the monitor. So click the link in the description to learn more about BenQ’s three displays designed specifically for Macs. And thank you to BenQ for sponsoring this
portion of the video. Now as far as the display on the MacBook Air, it’s better than what we got on the M1 model but not as good as what you get with the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros. It does support 1 billion colors. It has 500 nits max brightness. It’s also a P3 display. So it’s basically the same display you get with a 13-inch MacBook Air except that it’s larger and has a higher resolution. And for me, that’s reason enough to get this one over the 13 because when I work with spreadsheets, or if I’m
coding, or doing research and I have different websites open at the same time, I can see more content without having to scroll as much. Now, another way you could use this larger display is to make the content larger, which would make it easier to see. Now the image quality is very good. I’ve used it with Premier Pro and Final Cut Pro in editing videos. I’ve edited photos and thumbnails in Photoshop and Illustrator, and it’s worked great for me. It’s also a really good display to watch movies on. So I would say that overall, this is
an excellent option. Now if size, weight, and price are not a concern, which obviously they are for most people, the display on the 14-inch and the 16-inch MacBook Pro is better. It’s Mini-LED. It’s a little brighter for SDR content and definitely brighter for HDR content. And it’s 120 hertz versus this one that’s only 60 hertz. Now hopefully I don’t have to keep mentioning this about the notch for much longer, but yes, we’re still getting there. Yes, I wish it wasn’t there if it meant that I didn’t have to give up on the thin bezels, which
just can’t be done right now with the current camera model. No, it doesn’t bother me. And no, it doesn’t interfere with how I actually use this or any other MacBook that I have that has a notch. And even after all this time of using this MacBook, I still wish that it came with Face ID. It would be so cool to just be able to open the MacBook and have it authenticated. And maybe that’s something that we’ll get with the next model. For now, we’re still using Touch ID for biometric authentication. It works great for things
like logging in and for making purchases, but Face ID would just make things even more seamless. And since I have plenty of Windows laptops that use Windows Hello, it’s just something that I’ve gotten used to. Now, something else that works great is using Virtual Display with my Apple Vision Pro, at which point I have an absolutely giant display. I can use the MacBook keyboard and track pad and still have all my Apple Vision Pro apps running at the same time. Now, as far as the MacBook Air speakers, we’re not getting the audio quality of the
14 or 16-inch MacBook Pro models, but for such a thin laptop and considering the six speakers are hidden in the hinge, they’re pretty good. And to be fair, I pretty much exclusively use headphones with the MacBook because I don’t need to bother other people with what I’m listening to. The camera is Apple’s newer 1080p camera. It’s the same one that we have even on the M3 MacBook Pro models. It works just fine for video calls. You can use continuity camera if you have an iPhone. But here’s a quick sample from the MacBook Air. So here’s
a quick sample of the camera and microphone on the 15-inch M2 MacBook Air. I’m sitting in the exact same situation as I was in the video, so it’s the same lighting. And, you know, this is gonna do a pretty good job for video calls, obviously, depending on your lighting conditions, which is true for any camera. So always, if you’re sitting and there’s a window, sit in front of the window. Don’t have the window behind you if that’s possible. Now, one reason that users might be looking at a MacBook Pro is processing power. But for what
the vast majority of users need, this M2 chip is an absolute beast. Not only do I have plenty of single and multi-core performance, but I’m also getting a MacBook that is fanless and completely silent, so I don’t have to worry about it bothering anyone or sounding like an airplane taking off. And yeah, I’m looking right at you, Intel MacBook. Now, if you’re using your MacBook primarily for video editing, you work with very challenging footage, or use a lot of motion graphics, or maybe you’re doing work with 3D applications, then you might wanna look at the
MacBook Pro options. But for the majority of users, upgrading the unified memory on the MacBook Air, going to 16 gigabytes is all that you’re gonna need for a very long time. Now, in terms of SSD speeds, I mentioned this in my first impression video, we’re seeing the same disparity that we saw with the 13-inch model, where the 256 gigabyte version is slower than the 512 gigabyte and up models. And I wanna reiterate that this isn’t going to make a difference to the overwhelming majority of users, so certainly not ones that only need 256 gigabytes. And
at the same time, I still think that it would be nice for Apple to acknowledge this during the checkout process just for full transparency. Now, battery life is always something that I’m interested in. And going all the way back to the M1 MacBook Air model, it kind of has me spoiled because it had such great performance. Well, the good news is that the 15-inch MacBook Air is no exception. And if I’m not spending hours editing video, I only charge this MacBook every two to four days. Now, this has been absolutely amazing when I travel. And
I also noticed that if I don’t use it for a couple of weeks because I’m testing a new laptop, this laptop tends to keep its charge really well. And speaking of charging, you have a couple of options at checkout. You can either go with a 35 watt dual USB-C port power adapter or a 70 watt single port USB-C power adapter. It really comes down to whether you want faster charging or you want the versatility of charging two devices at once. Now, when it comes to configuration and pricing, there are some super important considerations. So right
off the bat, the 15-inch model starts out at 1299. So we’re looking at $200 more than the 13-inch model and then $300 less than the 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro. And I’ll link to that comparison in the description. Now, keep in mind that the 15-inch MacBook Air comes with eight gigabytes of unified memory and 256 gigabytes of storage. And remember that you cannot upgrade this MacBook after you buy it. So starting out with storage, if you’re just surfing the web and working with web-based applications or just basic documents, 256 gigabytes of storage can work. Now when
you get your MacBook Air, everything that’s already on it uses less than 35 gigabytes of storage. That leaves you with over 200 gigs of free space. Now, having said that, you definitely wanna make sure that you don’t run out of space. So if you keep your photos or videos on your MacBook or if you use large applications that take up a ton of space, absolutely consider upgrading the internal storage so you have as much storage as you need. And while it’s true that you can’t upgrade the internal storage after you buy your MacBook, you can
supplement it with less expensive external SSDs which you can share with other devices. Also, when comparing the base models of the 15-inch MacBook Air with a 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro, take into account the fact that the MacBook Pro starts out with 512 gigabytes of internal storage, which is a $200 upgrade on the MacBook Air. And that brings the price difference to only a hundred dollars. And again, check out the full comparison. Moving on to unified memory, if you’re a very basic user and you plan on only keeping your MacBook for a few years, I still
stand by the fact that you can get by with eight gigabytes. But if you keep your devices for as long as possible, consider getting 16 gigabytes of unified memory. You’ll never regret having more than you need. And there’s no way to externally supplement RAM like you can with storage. So after eight months of use, I think that if you’re looking for a thin and light 15-inch laptop that would be an absolute productivity beast for most users, the 15-inch MacBook Air has a powerful M2 chip, a nice display, it’s completely silent, it has excellent battery life,
MagSafe for charging, and an outstanding keyboard and track pad combo. So unless you need even better performance, a nicer display, or additional ports, this is a really hard MacBook to pass on. Now you should check out this MacBook accessories video. Click on my face to subscribe. You know what I always say, buy it nice or buy it twice. Good luck and see you soon.
