Apple MacBook Air 15 (base) - A Long Term User Review.

SAVE YOURSELF SOMETIME SKIP TO ABOUT 9MIN MARK….. everything else prior is just him rambling

to think that this computer has basically every hardware aspect up to spec with the 2019 16" macbook pro while having performance and battery life that will run circles around it is insane. you get two usb c ports and a magsafe port instead of four thunderbolt ports without magsafe. and a high impedance headphone jack. the display is basically just as good with a much better webcam and the speakers, in my opinion, are almost as good on the 15" air than they were on that macbook pro. all of this while also including full height function keys over a touchbar makes this laptop just a much much better deal than a 2019 macbook pro. and that too at a $1300 starting price.

Hello, is anyone here who can explain the equivalent of these specifications in NVIDIA and INTEL?

Apple M2 chip = [Equivalent NVIDIA/INTEL chip name]
8-core CPU = [Equivalent NVIDIA/INTEL CPU name]
10-core GPU = [Equivalent NVIDIA/INTEL GPU name]
16-core Neural Engine = [Equivalent NVIDIA/INTEL Neural Engine name]

256gb slower 50% vrs 512gb faster on m2 mb air 15...is this true? twice

He buys a new M2 Air to do his emails on. Because he doesn't need the power of a M1 Pro to do it. Where is the logic behind that?

Great review.. but it really depends what you do with your machine... I use my M1 Air (base model) to run my business and it does so without breaking a sweat. I don't work with graphics / video,... and for me after 2.5 years of intensive use, I am at only 50 per cent of my storage. 256 is absolutely fine for me. I use cloud storage a lot and most of my data are documents etc. And I think - looking around me - that is the case for most people. I am quite interested in the Air 15 as a bigger screen would make a considerable difference for my work, and I like the design a lot. When it comes to performance, I am sure that for me (and others using their laptops to write / do office work and research - the base model seems more than adequate (my M1 does not break a sweat) and maintains very solid battery life, etc. There M Macs are incredibly solid machines.... great times for used focused technology!

Would you say the M2 15 inch Air is worth upgrading from a 2019 Intel base Air? Sonoma is laggy in places and the battery isn't great on my Air right now...

Are you the scientist from the dictator movie ?

Base 15in model seems good enough for me as a beginner photographer.👍

My Intel Mac Mini only equipped with 256GB internal storage and I mainly boot from an external SSD for daily use. Also we can use a Mac to boot another one through target drive mode. If money is a concern, put those on the RAM should be the priority. However, as XR headsets or glasses and handhelds becoming popular, the use cases of using laptop might shift a lot in the near future.

Really great review. Thank you!!

I never thought i’d be that person who pointed out a wrinkled tshirt

If you do consider 256 GB as insufficient option why did you buy it? Therer are lots of higher end optiobs to choose from

why did you compare 16gb ram, 1tb ssd of 13" air to 8gb ram, 256 gb ssd of 15" air?

All those content creators ignoring the 99,999% base users out there.

Do you think a MacBook air m2 8/512 would be good enough for realty photo and video editing... also drone footage... Thanks for any insight.

Sure, they’ll bump up the base spec….while charging a 2 grand base price.

I don’t know why people make a big deal between a 15” screen and 13” screen for traveling… I literally travel internationally for long periods of time with a 40L pack…. It makes virtually ZERO difference…. What matters is the total weight of the laptop and its power supply… For instance, A Surface Book 1, 2 or 3, sucks… Do to its thickness from the funky hinge design… Then throw in the heavy power brick, and you have a non travel friendly laptop. Even the 13.5” model.

Great presentation! I'm really glad you tested the base 8/256 version. As you and everyone mentioned it's a shame the base MBA doesn't come with minimum 16/512. I have a 13 MBA M1 8/256 and does well for day to day business stuff like you were using it for. This is my second MBA and I got the base speck as I also had a desktop. But the MBA base model also used to come with a SD card slot. I've always just used it as a field computer, could pop in a SD card out of a camera and into MBA make a quick back up.and view video or pics and transfer raw footage to external HD. Really not for storage. Even the M1 8/256 is fine. But I just ordered the MBP 14 M3 Pro. I convinced myself maybe I'll dabble with some video projects again but will likely be overkill for what I'm doing these days, but extra $500 isnt' a big deal to me now either, as I'm on a lap top all the time, and may love the screen, sound, and extra ports. Who knows I may feel like doing some content creation for social media but even then I won't be half as cool as you! Keep up great work!

excellent review

need stress test like m1 pro

how do you get the cpu, ram etc. on top right menu bar?

Yeah, 256 GB is not enough for today’s computing unless everything you have is on a cloud service. My mom forgot how much space she had on her old MBP and found out it wasn’t enough. She had to exchange it for the 512 GB option. She loves her M2 Air after having to put up the MBP that had the terrible service

Not with those spec's

I learned nothing from this video. I still don't know what to buy. 256 storage seems plenty to me since cloud storage is available almost everywhere now and is very inexpensive. What are you putting on your laptop that you need so much local storage?

So…I was thinking of an M3 MBA when it comes out. Fully loaded (24 GB of RAM and 2T Storage) will be around $2,400. Am I stupid to do this? I don’t do heavy video editing but I may do some photo editing. Maybe some basic movie making. What do you think?

This is by far the most helpful video I’ve seen for the MacBook. Thank you 🥹

I 100% agree that the base model is not up to standard. I will say though that the 16 gig 512 GB version is more than adequate for everything this guy is doing. The one thing that I hate about many of the reviews is that, the latest and greatest is always going to be the choice of those that are doing reviews. I would venture to say that the MacBook Air is a quality device and will accommodate most anything that you throw at it. As an engineer, it handles software that is more robust than those that just dabble in video editing and photography. I know this is their profession, in a real setting the MacBook Air is an exceptional machine. But he is right the 8/256 model is definitely one to avoid.

It’s not a pro, the notch is a pain as a developer, the sound is poor compared to the pro and as a developer, I stopped using it after 5 months and went back to my 2019 MacBook Pro 16” with the Intel chip for developing. My Microsoft Laptop 5th gen is also a better laptop for weight and general use that this device.

I would say a big No for this device and go the pro vs air or get a Microsoft Laptop if you are coming from a windows eco system.

Is it good for coding

uh isn't it far far more portable?

Interesting choice. There are many videos saying you need 16gb RAM, or upping storage to 512Gb.
It obviously depends on what you want to do with it, but I feel you should have gone 512Gb and then perhaps 16Gb RAM.
For me, I've got a Mac mini M1 with 8Gb RAM so can see how an M2 MacBook would cope with my usual tasks.

I don't think I need extra RAM, but definitely need the 512Gb storage - it is much quicker than 256Gb anyway.

@Hardware Canucks, I want to replace my aging intel based MBA 2017 and have shortlisted MBA M2 13 or 15 inch. My use will be official work basic task like web browsing, emails, facebook/zoom meeting, you tube watching, MS office (word, excel, powerpoint), pdf file creation and normal file transfer thru emails etc. I wont need it for coding or photo editing etc but just for normal basic use mentioned above. My question is whether the base model 8/256 GB is enough for me or do I need to upgrade RAM or SSD for MBA M2 due to slow SSD issue. Will appreciate your feedback.

Love you realistic review of your 15 inch MacBook Air. I have that too, and it is a powerful workhorse! I use it for college, and if I need to do light photo and video editing on it then this MBA really hits the sweet spot. Battery life is impressive on this too.

Many people consider the MacBook Air due to cost, battery life isn’t much better than MacBook Pro.

With m2 16 gb ram n 512 SSD is needed fot having the right performance

There is another point to why you should consider the air, which is the screen.

My screen on my m1 pro broke after a year, and after going through the Apple forum and other forums, there are thousands of other people who also had a broken screen after a year or a year and a half. - The issue was that It was showing light, but was incredibly blurry to the point where you can't see anything (Google this and see for yourself). And Apple does not fix this for you, even if it's a production error. I also want to mention that the logic board died after only 6 months, which I luckily got replaced for free as they recognized this as a production error.

The M1 pro was an incredible machine, but I won't purchase another pro until they change the screen.

In South Africa the M2 15” 512gb MBA is the same price as the M1 14” 1tb MBP & 16” 512gb MBP. Getting the Air makes no financial sense.

whats that small display under the main monitor?

Testing a webcam in broad daylight?? bro go inside a room or at least to your living room.

Exceptional content, thank you!

MacBook Air not for creators, it's for students, home users, and light duty work. Yes, it can sort of do more if you try but Apple did not put a fan in the Air for a reason. Apple wants you to buy a MacBook Pro if you want all that performance a lot of the time.

I love this laptop but feel frustrated that they gimped parts of it to make the pro look better.

Funny. I just checked my M2 15" M2 and I am using 40gb of storage. LOL! It's called iCloud.

Is this the M2?

New to the channel and glad I found it! Your information is balanced and solid. Your camera work and editing is gorgeous! It totally looks like an Apple production :-). I’ve got a MacBook Air 15 open box special from Best Buy in my cart and I was reviewing this one more time before I hit purchase:-)

Very interesting thank you!

The air is mostly focused towards the students and light workers. The 8gb ram people are complaining about is enough for about 90% of users. The storage is a bit tight yes but why are we acting like we dont know apple they been doing this for decades now they give you just what you need nothing more than that lol. I was a bit skeptical at first until i picked up one and its been brilliant for my work place and school.

Man, 256 is plenty. All my windows laptops for the past 10rs had 256hd and because of the cloud it's enough so when I migrated to mac I had no doubts it wold be fine. I love this machine

the unboxing was professional