MacBook M2 Air – Long-Term Review 6 Months Later
six months half a year that’s how much time to buy since the Hampton MacBook Air was released that’s that’s wow the hype has passed on first issues were somewhat fixed and now I can recommend it for purchase but but should I what if I tell you that after the hype is gone my views on this laptop have changed I’ve used it some more my friends used it and now I have much more feedback to share with you so how does this laptop fit in line is it the gray sheep or a proud bearer of the
renowned name let’s find out I have said a lot about his design already so I’ll keep it short it’s still great it’s thin and light just like you would expect from the MacBook Air Cold aluminum feels sturdy and gives that premium feeling plus it’s totally painless rounded bezels make it modern and unique especially if you compare it to the M1 error wedge shape is great and all but it does show its age sometimes previous aircraft like a sheet of paper thanks to that wedge design M2 air on the other hand feels very industrial do you
know that um Bauhaus style furniture robust metallic and machine made in every detail the M2 air this design just screams I can do things it gives a feeling of a
time the screen of the air starts to feel aged and lagged behind it’s like comparing the screens of the iPhone 14 pro and the iPhone 11. one is perfectly smooth with promotion amazing brightness contrast and thin bezels and another has thicker bezels less contrast and lower brightness I’m not saying that it’s disappointing in any way but you need to understand that it’s not perfect in 2022 it’s a great screen and it’s much better than in previous models but for twelve hundred dollars I get that it’s a baseline machine for basic users and it’s a Macbook
but I wish this screen was a little better what do I want thinner bezels or better contrast existing contrast is fine but a maxed out brightness you sometimes see that blacks are not really blacks this is a typical problem for all IPS screens but Apple won’t give us mini LED here that’s for sure this speakers are another controversial part if you ask me I love them at first but I still don’t get why they didn’t put them in the same place as on the M1 air making those four speakers front facing can solve all problems
well they do sound great not gonna lie but the grills are near the hinge which makes the sound a little too flat but it’s still deeper compared to M1 air of course it all depends on your music preferences but still now to the most interesting part the performance my machine is the absolute stock with 8 gigs of unified memory and 256 gig SSD in previous videos I said a lot of good things about the performance and some bad things and after six months an accumulating feedback from multiple people I can confidently say the performance of
this laptop directly depends on your workflow some of my friends that upgraded from the previous errors say that the speed difference is real and others kind of regret updating to make it easier for you I’ll break the performance down into tasks first task checking emails messaging watching YouTube browsing totally fine but only if your number of tabs is relatively low once you accumulate 15 to 20 tabs in one tab group things might get stuttery pages will need to reload which is not what you want to see on a 1200 machine but let’s be frank most
of the time you won’t have so many tabs opened so your browsing experience will be enjoyable next activity more demanding editing huge Excel files or huge documents laptop handles small documents great but when files get larger you really start noticing the lack of memory big files load with delays and sometimes can freeze for a second it’s very hard to catch on camera but believe me if you want to work with big chunks of data you definitely have to upgrade the memory to 16 gigs and the final task creative ones editing videos photos 3D rendering and
all that this laptop can without a doubt do all that but not for long it gets hot like really hot it’s cool just cool and when it gets hot it throttles now heatsink means no heat dissipation is it really that bad no it’s not terrible even throttled M2 works great if you want to eliminate even the chances of throttling try enabling the low power mode in battery settings it will limit the power usage thus cutting those performance Peaks but this mode won’t allow for the chip to run so hot in my M2 air I’ve turned
this mode on for the on battery usage this gives me an extra hour of battery life and preserves that chip of thermal overloads but you all know that already you want to know whether crashes freezes and does weird stuff I can confidently say that thermal throttling isn’t the problem of this machine it’s the memory I know I know I said many times that this problem is not noticeable in real life and it isn’t but only if you stick to what Apple wants you to do light browsing and messaging is exactly what this laptop is for
at least in its base configuration but as soon as you cross us that imaginary line you start seeing stutters the base model has only 8 gigs of unified memory and a slow to 56 gig SSD the Mac OS itself requires four to five gigs of memory to work properly add to its some memory allocation for graphics and you will get about three gigabytes of RAM for your tasks here is how it looks with only 5 browser tabs opened and a messaging app 8 gigs are already used and the load on the CPU is minimal all
those performance scores are just idling while the memory is almost at its limits I find that very disturbing so the laptop uses swap memory and with small tasks the slowdowns are minor a browser tab reloads or video reloads minor stuff but when you start loading this machine with tabs opened apps and background processes you almost can see how it struggles to deliver shipping MacBooks with 8 gigs of ram in 2022 is not a very good decision I’ll repeat myself once again if you are planning on using in this laptop were truly basic everyday tasks without
keeping the memory full all the time it will work just fine but in this case you will have to sell this laptop in a year when the new Mac OS comes out and memory becomes even a bigger issue that’s why I would ask you to buy this machine with at least 16 gigs of unified memory you know how I hate being wrong but I don’t want to misguide you so if your use cases are limited to browsing and Casual document typing the Baseline is fine but if you want to do something more RAM intensive upgrade
the RAM to 16 gigs that’s my verdict on the performance and I have a few smaller issues that must be addressed first the keyboard on one hand that’s great full size keys good amount of travel and they’re backlit but that back light isn’t as good as I wanted it to be if you look at the keyboard from the side you will see how uneven the backlight is the light spills from under the keys given a feel of a cheap laptop why didn’t Apple do it like on the butterfly keyboard is one LED for each button
equals no light spillage it’s as simple as that but instead you’re paying twelve hundred dollars for the keyboard that in the dark looks like it’s six hundred dollars laptop I think this part needs tweaking what else needs some work are the keys themselves I don’t know what sort of plastic Apple uses but they basically disintegrate in your hands here is how keys look after only three months you see how buttons get all glossy that’s natural wear here is how it will look after a year I find that unsatisfactory if you want to avoid those problems
you can connect an external keyboard a display and use the laptop in a clamshell mode but you need to connect the laptop somehow to the screen right and connectivity is a problem here there are only two USB C ports some monitors have a built-in Hub with ports but not all of those monitors ship with appropriate cables you may need an alternative like this unlim elements at 4.0 USB 4 cable from uni accessories the sponsor of this video it is fully USB if certified which shows that this cable has passed all the tests and adheres to
the highest standards of the industry this USBC to USBC cable delivers proven Thunderbolt free performance supports 100 watts of power delivery 40 gigabits per second data transfer and 8K video output if you are not a Macbook user you will definitely appreciate the support of two external monitors and MST support you can easily connect it to data storage units and transfer files fast or you can hook your MacBook to a TV and enjoy a crisp detailed image aluminum and silau for Effective heat dissipation and fits snugly Assurance stable connection the cable itself is braided which gives
it a nice premium yet robust feel if you have a cat this chip is perfect now cat can shoot through it and get electrocute it so if you are a cat owner that’s the option for you plus it works not only with MacBooks you can connect it to any USBC device basically it’s a one-time purchase that will last years and years to learn more about this cable click the link in the description another flaw you need to know about is the support of Only One external display Apple allows connecting Only One external screen which might
be a bummer for developers and programmers but there is a workaround you can connect one screen through the Thunderbolt port and another one through the type C dog or you can use display link adapters and connect up to four monitors but such adapters cost a lot it’s not a very comfortable or intuitive solution to the problem that likely won’t occur you I’m pretty sure you won’t need to connect more than one external display but as they say forward is forearmed so what are my final thoughts the M2 MacBook Air is like like those Act actors
they become insanely popular with one movie and then with every new film you start seeing not only their abilities on set but also some dirty secrets they wanted to hide these six months were hell of a right can I recommend this laptop to an extent light users who want to do nothing more than type texts or watch movies feel free to get it but in this case one the M1 air be better it’s cheaper and performs largely identically more heavy users who need power upgrade the memory to 16 gigs or buy the 14 inch pro
this MacBook is okay for basic stuff and stepping into the worlds of video editing photo editing 3D Graphics or coding but for any serious workflow 14-inch MacBook Pro is the machine to go recommending this M2 air is difficult because it’s priced high in between some of Apple’s best laptops cheap and great M1 air and more expensive and super powerful 14 inch this M2 air is not for everyone it’s for those who want a stylish and modern machine and don’t care about specs it’s for those who need a fashion accessory of sorts that’s the essence of
this thing for me should people buy it yes should everyone buy it no
