the sensor/lens dust is hurting me but still crisp... amazing quality Edit: I only pointed it out because even Marques who is the hands on highest quality youtube producer is human after all and I wanted to show emphathy.
Apple knows exactly what they are doing. The M2 13" MBP exists only to make the Air seem like a great value, they want to build and sell a ton of Airs at higher margin, at the small expense of selling a few MBP.
And then the MBP is gonna get a big refresh and swing the pendulum the other way, alongside a *gasp* two hundred dollar drop in price for the air! Apple's generosity knows no bounds! /s
Exactly what I was thinking. What the fact that Apple silicon is just way superior compared to Windows laptops is why they can afford to charge more since already the M1 lineup is way too good for value
Well it also exists for people that need something that’s better for video editing and production/content creation while still utilizing the power of the M2.
I just took a persuasion psychology course and one of the methods we learned was called decoy pricing. A simplified example would be a small drink costing $2, a medium costing $2.40, and a large costing $2.60, while the large is double the medium. Basically they make the middle option a bad deal to encourage you to spend more money. With the M2 air and pro they’re using the same tactic, except they’re encouraging you to buy the cheaper one. It sounds weird, but it’s a tactic and my professor had us practice by making an example of it. The air is a cheaper and better laptop, and you think “well I can save $100 AND get the better one, might as well do it” and skip the step where you consider whether you should buy a laptop. I bet they modeled it and found that they’d get more profits if they make the air more appealing than the pro
With all the new releases and huge chip advances, I have a theory that Apple actually wants people to buy the low end base models, so they can upgrade more frequently…. Especially when they release updates that are very large and rarely seem to be a “positive” update, more like a forced nuisance which slowly brings your computer to a hault. Helll, I’m sure my 2021 mid range $2800 14 MacBook Pro w/ 32gb of Ram won’t even last me as long as I think it will……. Gone are the days of having products that last a while. We now PAY MORE and GET LESS out of products. Welcome to the age of LEASING, where it’s a constant revolving door of purchasing a high dollar product that no longer works - phones, laptops, appliances, cars , etc.
Exactly. Apple is smart and knows exactly what they're doing. I do that for my business. I have 3 priced items and it's designed for the customer up buy in the middle (which most people are inclined to do regardless). McDonald's invented this strategy. First one is very basic and a higher price then it's worth. Highest you get all the bells and whistles, mostly stuff you don't need and will never used. The price is unreasonably high. Then the middle, which is similar to the highest, blows the lowest away, but it's considerably less money than the best one. Car washes do a great job of this too.
I think they did this M2 MacBook Pro like this just to convince people it is normal to spend this much money for an Air, making them forget about the price increase. Well done Apple 👏
@@Chief-wx1fj I think their point is that the m1 macbook pro probably has low margins especially with everything going on chip shortage and inflation wise so apple is trying to make the new macbook air with slightly higher margin look as attractive as possible.
Mr. Brownlee is one of very few RUclips presenters that I can listen to with no exasperation -- just unreserved admiration for a thoughtful, calm, rational, and very articulate setting forth of facts (and opinion clearly stated as such). A model I'd love to see emulated more.
Magsafe and screensize are HUGE quality of life improvements on the M1 version. I don't think a typical air user will get much value out of a better processor, and will likely get more value out of a higher-spec'd M1 than a baseline M2. Personally, I think price point makes this an overall worse product than the M1, but some great upgrades for those with more money than me lol
Honestly though, I hate the way the M1 Air/Pro look, with the bezels and the godawful webcam. Much prefer the way this looks, and think I'd get some use out of the slightly bigger screen too. $1599 for 16/512 though, and that's not the easiest sell for a non-Pro product. Probably worth it if I can get 6+ years out of it.
Honestly I feel like those who will get this new M2 MacBook Air will really enjoy it, looks like a fantastic product. I’m just a little bit disappointed with the price increase… Especially since the base model still comes with 8gb of ram. I think the price bump would have been way easier to swallow if the base model came with 16gb. :/
I planned to wait out this release instead of buying a M1 for a couple of months. But due to the huge price increase in Sweden (~$450) I can't motivate it. And now when this is released, I can motivate a purchase of the old one either. I guess I'll get by on my current laptop for a while longer.
Another drawback for the Midnight color is the small chips and nicks on the paint 0:53 - You can already see them around the ports on this barely used showcase device, it's normally much easier to hide with Silver or SpaceGray.
feel like space gray shows up a lot with scratches. For a 16 inch pro I feel the knicks would look bad but I think macbook airs look kind of boss when they're well worn and a little beaten up. Just fits the identity of that machine
Yeah, silver would probably hide the best because I have a 2020 MacBook Air M1 that I bought right after it was introduced, and over the course of 1 1/2 years it does show around the thunderbolt ports if you look closely. fingerprints are the same amount on mine as midnight.
They've missed a trick only having USB on one side. My Dell XPS 13 has one on each side and it's incredibly useful having the flexibility on which side to plug in, esp when charging by USB-C.
That's my biggest regret getting the M1 air ( besides the fact I missed out on a flat edge magsafe Air :/ ) Tough having to watch netflix at the very edge of the bed :(
Hi, fellow xps 13 user. I had to buy a usb hub for mine xps so it doesn't really matter which side the cord is connected to. Still not a dealbraker, gonna get this new air for my work. Windows is slowly killing me. Hopefully mac won't.
I love how everybody seems to love the midnight MacBook Air so much while I'm just sitting here considering to get the most vanilla color of the all, silver...I have a midnight iPhone 13 but in terms of MacBooks it feels like I'm the only one on earth that still goes for the classic haha. Also no worrying about paint chipping off, I feel like the midnight might struggle with that a bit, especially around the magsafe and USB ports...
I wouldn't call it "classic", MacBooks were black/white long before the aluminum design became standard. If anything, the midnight actually looks the most "classic" of the lineup to me
Like 3 months ago I got a silver 16” MBP M1 Max & don’t regret it. before that I had a 13” MBP M1 also silver. never had a space gray computer & never really wanted one. Silver is classic and classy imo. However, if I was an Air customer, I would definitely get midnight. The paint chipping seems to be a valid concern tho..
@@DrFunkenstein69 I think, as of somewhat recently, the silver aluminum unibody design probably holds the “classic” title rn and the black/white MacBooks are dangerously close to “vintage”
You can’t chip the paint off any Mac because their anodized. They will never flake or suffer from what most other laptops with non-standard colors do (I’m looking at you, Razer) That’s not to say however scratching and other superficial markings won’t be more noticeable than the other colors, though. The darker the colors the more noticeable imperfections will become.
5:15 here in germany they actually increased the price of the MBA M1 after the showcase from previously 1129€ to 1199€. I have never seen anything like that. And the new MBA M2 starts at 1499€. Wish we had the US prices over here.
Everyone always forgets about the taxes. Add the taxes to the US prices and the difference to the german (tax included) prices are not so big all of a sudden…
I was genuinely suprised that there was support for high-impedance headphones in a MacBook Air, because, let's be real, how many people in the target market for these laptops has headphones with a sky-shatteringly high number of ohms? Still, it's nice to have. I would love to see a comparo between the MacBook Air M2 and MacBook Pro M2 to see if we can justify the 13-inch Pro's existence...
I would see a lot of musician using these new M2 chip powered Airs. They are powerful enough for most work in music production and then you would also get a high quality headphone amplifier with the machine itself. I think it's a real bargain for many musician not needing a max spec laptop, but a versatile portable machine.
Could be people that mostly work in a studio or some other area where they do a lot of audio work, but want a laptop for their commute/daily life. Might also be a better value to Apple to make the part universal across Macs.
The midnight paint seems to chip around the usb c ports. I got a space gray M1 air and my ports are still perfect after almost a year - keep that in mind if you hate those details
@@airrwalker you can see it in the close up shots that Marques took when he had his hands on session at WWDC. It was no doubt a fresh unit and had nominal use. Pretty evident that the anodised finish had already chipped on both ports after minimal insertion of USB-C cables.
@@markbennett6658 yeah, this on its own is a big turn-off, I haven't noticed anything of the sort on my space gray m1 macbook pro, maybe because the color difference between the aluminium and the coating isn't too great?
Love the side by side M2 MacBook Pro/MacBook Air price comparison!!! I’m planning on getting the Midnight because I love the blue. Plus you can always slap a skin and some stickers on there :). It’s a slick looking machine really excited about the new OS systems. Great to do light stuff feel of an iPad but also a MacBook I love it! Thank youuu for this first look review!!
M2 MacBook Pro supports two external displays vs 1 for Air that is important for developers. So nothing has changed - Pro for developers and code compilation - active cooling is cenessary, Air for home users.
@@vdracula.1221 More like pro for developers and air for home, general use, most jobs, uni, and school. 90% of people don’t need the pro lol people sometimes like to lie to themselves
M2 Air is far too expensive in Europe compared to the 'older' M1. The gap between the US price and the European is way too extreem. Starts at 1199$ vs 1519€ in Europe.
@@enlightenmentforeurope9070 It's not just VAT, the pricing in the UK used to be just changing the currency sign the base M2 MacBook Air costs £1,249 in the UK vs $1,199 which is more than $100 more expensive after accounting for currency conversion than just adding 20% to the dollar price, and whilst $100 might not be a huge sum it's still an 8% on top of just adding VAT.
@@praneeleaswaran5172 True, but the average tax rate in the United States is 5.09%. If i'm well informed. That means that a basic Macbook M2 Air would cost $1199 + 5.09% tax = approximately $1260. So that's 1,198 Euros. That still represents a difference of $338 or €321.
I can see that the midnight blue already has scratches around the USB ports, which makes my worry about the paint resistance to scratch specially with long term usage. I know it could be an issue with all other colors, but definitely scratches will look less prominent on bright colors.
This is why I've moved back over to using silver MacBooks over space grey of late! I had hoped the quality of the midnight would be better, but sadly not
That’s what happens with usb-c ports. Happened to every usb-c device I’ve owned. Since usb-c is basically an inverted lightning port, the metal edges almost always make contact with the device and scratch over the long term.
@@silvermcintosh1547 me too! i'm leaning with the midnight because it looks premium, but seeing the paint chipping off of the ports is kind of like a turn off for me hahaha
@@thewbltr1370 That's exactly what I was thinking. I have the M1 in silver now. I loved the midnight, but with the fingerprints and the possible paint chipping. I am leaning towards Starlight. I would like to see it in person, but probably have to preorder first.
@@anthonywiegert8980 oh I never knew that, but they could easily make it a backlit low power LED array and then it wouldn't have the sunlight issue... That's what Razer and many other companies do now. Not a hard thing to engineer by any means, and it would be negligible in terms of battery consumption.
As a programmer, I've used MacBook Pros for a number of years now, ditching the weaker performance of the Air. But with everyone working from home now, I could see myself getting the new Air, then getting a dedicated Mac Studio. Solid upgrade from Apple.
Only thing the MacBook Pro's have over the Air is the XDR display. I'm a programmer too and now that summer is here, I love programming on my outdoor table. On my old Pro the display simply couldn't get bright enough to easily see at times, but on my new 14" that's fixed with the new display. I use an app called Lunar to unlock max XDR brightness (1600 nits) at all times, which makes it super easy to see even in direct sunlight. At these brightness levels I consistently get 5-6 hours of battery life before I need to plug in, which is fantastic for working outdoors! If they ever release a MacBook Air with miniLED or OLED display I'll buy that on day 1.
That’s what my buddy who’s a senior engineer at apple does. Studio at his plugged in desk setup then a M1 MBA for portability and coding from his couch, and he’s now upgrading it to the M2 MBA for the same purpose. He loves it.
I'm kind of leaning toward the Starlight color. Not sure why, as I usually go Space Gray. I am getting an M2 MBA though :) For me it'll make for an excellent all around highly portable laptop with excellent battery life coupled with nice performance. There's nothing to not like here.
@R.C. there's a starlight iphone, the aluminium frame in starlight looks so GOOD. It's more of a warm silver to me than a 'gold' I guess you could say 'champagne'
@@sixsix6350 for sure, especially if you video edit. Such a tiny laptop and it has h264, h265(hevc) and PRORES media engines in 8k lol. That's mad. Video encode and decode is a super difficult task and even big powerful processers struggle with it. My windows 'gaming' tower pc has a really powerful AMD ryzen chip, but it has no ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) video accelerators. So I can't video edit on it as playback is so choppy. Even tho the single core power is way more than an apple silicon chip, it just can't decode the video fast enough. Cause it's running as software instead of built into the hardware.
Good morning Marques! I’ve been watching your videos for years although I seldom comment. Thank you for continued high quality videos and information. I rely on your videos when considering upgrading any tech products, especially Apple. Once again thank you and have the most amazing weekend. I wish you all the success, health, happiness and love this world has to offer!
I guess the reason for keeping the M1 Air price the same is the chip shortage. The production volume is limited so Apple tries not to increase the demand higher than they can actually deliver.
The longer I use a desktop, the more I wish I had a laptop too. I love everything about my desktop but I miss the mobility. An iPad can only replicate the mobile experience so much. These new computers look pretty nice!
I am sticking for now with my 2020 M1 Mac. I have what I need for my work and I won't change until it's work as expected. Maybe later in a time I will update when it starts to break.
I also love how Apple's marketing department took down the 8-core CPU 8-core GPU M1 MacBook Air model from the lineup, because the entry-level core counts on the M2 are identical!
For many years now I was like "argh silver...“ .But I actually was caught off guard when I saw my friend’s Silver M1 MacBook Pro. It looked so fresh to me! I guess with the new curves and edges it becomes a whole different thing. And we might also have gotten used to space grey. It doesn't look especially dark to me anymore, but the silver now looks especially bright to me...
Same for me, last couple of years I go with silver. It has a huge advantage that it's a raw unpainted aluminum, therefore it's much more resistant to scratches (you can see the paint around thunderbolt ports chipped off already on this midnight color sample one)
Same! Ended up getting the silver Air last year after years of thinking "argh boring silver" and using space grey. Silver feels very fresh and crisp, clean.
I used to be team space gray until I got the MacBook Air M1 and everyone here is spot on: silver stays clean and looks fresh. I do really like that starlight color though compared to the old gold color
I cant see the MacBook air getting dual display support, at least not while machines with the M1 Pro chip are still available for purchase (the M1 Pro chip only supports 2 external displays)
if the m2 pro 14 and 16 inch ones don't get midnight and starlight that will be so sad lol. The number of guys who would have went m2 pro 14 inch and will take an air instead lol
@@thatonebeone probably indeed. But the Air is for me the product that you want to be a bit silly with. I would have loved the green/red/yellow, orange whatever colours on these airs.
@@martijnvangammeren1868 yeah same..air is more than enough power for my basic use .. wish they made the apple logo glow again. i like it on my macbook pro 2015
I’d live to see more starlight. I have a iPad mini in SL and only bought it because it was the only color available and the only mini in the store. I actually really like it how it changes color in lighting and background situations.
Strange pricing they went with this year. Must be a side effect of the chip shortage? I can get an M1 Air with 16GB of RAM for $160 less than the base M2 Air. Bonus is that M1 doesn't have a notch!
if you compare the MacBooks of the same generation that's how it's always been the 2019 MacBook air and pro looked the same the pros just got the redesign first in 2021 we just had one odd year where they looked different 2020
With the new Air looking like the new Pro, I’m wondering if Apple is planning to abandon the 13 inch MacBook Pro, making the line up like : 13 inch MacBook Air, 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pro
Apple is having a really interesting moment right now, which is almost a throw back to when h/w releases were more numerous and often. This is the 3rd significant update to the MBA after being dormant for ever: Fall 2018 MBA Retina + 16G RAM, Fall 2020 MBA M1 and now Spring 2022, 24G capable MBA M2. Like wow. Love it. Add the rest of the lineup, and it's really just an issue of "embarrassment of riches" or "panoply of plenty". There is so much good h/w right now. 🎉. I still think that 2 USB-C ports isn't much in modern day content work. You'll want a good QUALITY powered dock.
This comes down to so many factors, but i mostly identify it with really good competition and consumers who are relatively well educated on what features they do and don't want. Before, people bought apple just because they were apple, but also because they just made really good products where competitors were lacking (solid laptops and phones). Now, the competitors have really caught up, are offering diverse lineups, and their price points make even the biggest apple fanboy think twice. So they're pulling into full gear trying to genuinely offer competitive products.
Starlight gets my vote. Also I’m going to wait for them to update the whole pro line ro M2 then consider updating. Dont really have an issue with Midnight personally.
I'm waiting until I can see it in real life. I remember hearing from someone that the watch in starlight could look a bit weird under most lighting conditions, but from the photos it looks beautiful. Probably not going to bite in the end because I can't get 32gb of ram or more than 1 monitor though.
I'm wedged I'm Between the Silver or the starlight maybe even the space grey but i already have a space grey air so want something new hence either the starlight or the silver
My big concern with the really gorgeous "black" color is what I saw here at 1:29 the ports with scratches caused by the cables... a little thing to keep in mind :)
I was thinking about getting the midnight black but I weirdly feel that macbooks aren't meant to be that colour (does that even make sense?) my vote goes to starlight, new and elegant.
They did sell a black MacBook, which is sort of close to midnight, from 2006-2012 before they did the Retina redesign. I think they did it to maybe do a throwback to darker devices for older fans?
@@KironKabir i don't really think it's supposed to be a throwback. instead, i think they did this to match the apple watch series 7's *case* colors. sure they also offer a ton of other colors too but both midnight and starlight colored cases exist....
The computer has been sitting there in a showroom, an Apple showroom, and the ports already have been discolored from plugging things into them. Can't imagine how the armrests will look in a few months. That's why I always go with silver with MacBooks.
Get Midnight!!!! The fingerprints are worth it! it looks gorgeous. Although I am more afraid of minor nicks that Macs gain over time. The colour reminds me of the the slate blue iPhone 5.
03:38 Thank you! Stubborn fingerprint marks would drive me mad and I'd never have known this without you bringing it up. Pity,'coz the blueblack is so pretty.
Before, I wanted to get the $999 M1 MacBook Air because the price was at my max budget. But I waited around for the M2. At $1,200 it's too expensive for me but with no price drop, the older M1 now seems like a rip off. 😅 Should've just got the M1 right when it was new.
I say go with the Midnight anyway… it’s just such a classy look! I was a little worried about chipping (looked like around the USB-C ports I could see some lighter aluminum), but I think I trust that Apple usually doesn’t have that problem
Exactly my thoughts on the MacBook Air vs MacBook Pro. My favorite is midnight and I wouldn't throw a skin on it at all. At this point I'm quite used to having finger prints on many of devices.
Silver is above space grey imo for sure for sure, I'm deciding between m1 pro 14 inch and m2 air tho. I'd get midnight or starlight m2 air, and silver m1 pro ofc.
@@definingslawek4731 the display on the 16” is amazing. I don’t know how the M1 Pro and M2 compare, I’d assume M1 Pro is still significantly better, but I’d say the main advantage to the 14” would be the display and speakers. However, I think it’s only slightly thinner than my 16” which is already pretty chunky. This is really weird but if you get the 14”, prepare for your computer to be fat shamed. The silver, the black keyboard, and the black screen when off look really nice together. The silver also makes the computer feel smaller. My friend has the space gray version and it just feels like it takes up more space even though it doesn’t.
@@Michael-zn2jc yeah that screen is nuts. That's interesting that your friends space gray one looks larger :0 I wonder if the m2 air in midnight will look larger than starlight or silver.
I bought my M1 MacBook Air with 8/8 cores, 16 GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for 1630 Euros. I see the pricing for the M2 model with these specs and it is 2K. So after two years Apple has added a better screen, camera and speakers and marginally increased the performance of the chip. Yet this doesn’t justify a near 25% price increase.
Between now and when the m1 launched, there’s been a cumulative 12% usd inflation so we should be happy the existing products didn’t go up in price in addition to the new stuff getting more expensive
I got midnight a couple days ago and I’m OBSESSED. I did, however, already have a clear 15$ case i bought on Amazon already handy for me to put it on the air straight out of the box, so if you’re able to do that, the fingerprints are no problem. I also preordered a mouse and wrist sticker (that i also got in the midnight color so you can’t tell) and put that on to keep the mouse, wrist, and top area from getting dust and fingerprints. They are removable and say that leave no residue so i gave that a shot and so far so good. I’m able to completely touch my laptop without having to worry about scratches or prints 😊
I‘m still missing the TouchBar (probably the only person on planet earth). Love the dedicated screenshot button + easier auto fill for passwords and e-mails etc. shame all new MBs don’t have it anymore. Currently have a 2019 Pro and it’s brilliant, would love a Apple Silicon model.
I love it too! It’s much more informative than regular buttons and I use the word prediction all the time. It feels like development. Maybe the reason people don’t like the touch bar is that they have had bad components in their laptop. I have the last intel version with 2 fans and it does heat up quite a bit, so in that sense it would be nice to update, but I haven’t seen problems with performance. It’s my first Mac so the jump from Windows required learning new anyway so that might be why the Touch Bar feels natural to me.
I get you on the fingerprints but the Midnight looks awesome. Maybe carry it in a sleeve, plenty light. Also, some people like the touch bar so I think Apple would consider that an upgrade over the Air (it certainly costs them more to make it).
as well as the design, the old design was so iconic and premium, this new one makes it look like a cheap huawei laptop, although I think the rounded design works on the big pro models, but definitely not on the midnight air imo
yes i feel the same. i love the touch bar and i think i’ll probably end up upgrading to the M2 MBP since im using the intel one from 2018 and the fans are killing me lol
I got my M1 air few months before and i actually don't regret buying that. Although new model seems really nice, the price difference makes it easier to not feel bummed. I got M1 air for 899
There is just so much competition on the chip market nowadays I love it. Felt like 2015-2020 nothing happened and now we get up to 50% more performance each generation, not only from Apple but also Intel, AMD and Nvidia.
"50%". Yeah with their extremely nitpicked data, do you honestly think they make a 50% flat increase each generation. No..... Its 50% in some extremely niche task
@@Andrew-xo6hlFacts. Maybe they arent lying and the program demands and bloat increase with equal pace. Websites dont seem to load any faster than they did 10 years ago - and often they are slower - so I think its all a bit silly. Also who gives a f about performance on a macbook air? Its not for gaming nor for editing or any other compute intensive uses. Its a glorified but well made web browser. If you actually care about preformance you are getting a pc, apple desktop computer or at the very least a macbook pro.
Everyone seems to want the Midnight, which is enough reason for me to not go for it. Red would have been nice, but the Starlight looks really nice, like a subtle champagne gold.
I'm not exactly a Apple fan, in fact I think they get too much attention/love, but this video might be one of your best. The dueling viewpoints/devil's advocate/"change my mind" structure is... I LOVE IT! You can't be more balanced, complete perspective of the issue matter at hand. Keep up the good work!!
It's ridiculous that Apple carried the single external display restriction forward. It's a huge regression from the Intel-based Macs, and it's the reason why I'm sticking with my M1 MBA for now. If they'd added dual, external monitor support I would have upgraded in a heartbeat. That's the only thing I truly dislike about the M1/M2 MBA.
I feel that M2 Air is the only new machine, and Apple intended to keep both M1 Air and Pro. But they couldn't sell a M2 Air while having the worse M1 in the Pro, so they had to bump the 13 MBP to M2. I wouldn't be surprised if the MBA in its current form factor is the only non high-end macbook that Apple sells for the next few years.
Loved your review. I too initially like the midnight colour. Good to know about fingerprint issue. It’s very Apple: amazing product with a flaw and way expensive but unique as you said about Studio Display
im leaning twards a 17 inch air, because i want the best on the road movie watching experience i can manage, and with an external hard drive i could have all the storage i need (movies dont need ssd speeds) while having plenty of speed for it in the air. apple has basically always had the best screen/speaker combo of any laptop, so they would be perfect for my use even though i use a windows pc (for games)
At least in the video midnight looks awesome despite the fingerprints. Reality can be dissapointingly different, but I think you should consider purchasing the MacBook in the midnight color option, so you would be able to tell us how good or not so it is
Space grey seems to be a better option to buy and test as it is preferred by most people and your reviews matter to the buyers considering space grey colour.
We will have to see when they are released, but there's a thermal pad mod I did to my m1 air that stops all throttling. Depending on the m2 logic board layout, a similar mod may be possible, which would close the performance gap entirely so the only benefit would be better battery life.
@@simperingham Not very. You can look it up. The only modification is pulling off the factory thermal pad and putting on a thicker one that connects the processor directly to the chassis as a giant heatsink. You could save the pad and put it back if you wanted to. Only downside is that the bottom of the case directly under the cpu can get pretty hot (40C+) which could burn you if you leave it on your lap for a long time. I work on a desk/table most of the time and its raised on its rubber feet so I don't have an issue with the heat.
I think people actually love the touch bar. I mean ironically it’s the “casual” users who love it, and not the “pros” I know a lot of people including my mom who love the touch bar, that’s why I think it’s staying in the line up. Probably not what apple initially envisioned but hey it is the world’s second best selling lap top.
@@thomas_stromberg Yes I agree, I actually think it's a pretty cool piece of tech, I hope Apple keeps it around for a while even if it might not be for me. Like I said I think it's more popular with the common folk than "pro/tech" users realize. But yeah I even know a lot of pro users who love it, the guy who runs my IT staff loves it and is actually excited for the M2 upgrade.
If you really want an M2 Air, I bet the Midnight will be the first color to sell out. I would be happy with any of the colors, but I think that Midnight is fire...
I upgraded my 2011 Air to the 2020 Air now I am having so many regrets knowing I could have just waited one year for the M1 Air or two years for the M2. The 2020 model has so many thermal issues that slows down its performance
I’m surprised by the dearth of color options. The fact that they can justify 7 colors for the iMac but only have 4 for the MacBook Air implies they think they’re going to sell almost twice as many iMacs-and that just sounds odd. I was really expecting the new Airs to match the iMacs (and was planning on buying a purple Air to replace my 2015, if so). I wonder if they’re going to start doing off-cycle additional color options, like they’ve done for the iPhone the last few years?
Part of the reason for not giving as many options for the color is pretty obvious. Stationary iMacs can be painted on aluminum without a fear of scratching and the paint coming off. Same can't be said about the MacBook. People carry it around and the paint would start chipping off pretty fast.
@@brianm5060 I disagree. color, style, and design are always important to the apple crowd average user. doesn't matter if it's a laptop, iPhone, whatever. arguably it's even more important when you carry and use it always with you and therefore show it off to everyone in public. you want to get the " wow, that looks nice? " effect with the apple type of customer. make an "ugly" product and see how well it sells in the apple market. zero. it´s not supposed to be IBM company laptop/product. the customer base is not 50 year old traveling businessman.
I was expecting more "fun" colors for the consumer oriented de facto MacBook, opposing more "dry and boring" colors for the Pro. Just like the iBook and, well would you look at that, the new iMac.
And yes the sensor dust is killing me too, but I wasn't about to try to clean the inside of the camera in the middle of a hands-on event 😅
For the Fix it in post t-shirt
lol
IT IS PAIN
We’ll take what we can get
No problem bro
the sensor/lens dust is hurting me but still crisp... amazing quality
Edit: I only pointed it out because even Marques who is the hands on highest quality youtube producer is human after all and I wanted to show emphathy.
I can’t not look at it lol
so distracting in a nearly all white frame, pretty sure that's on the sensor
I thought it was my monitor at first but I couldn't help but notice it
I was blinking to "clean up my eyes" .. haha LMAO.. so annoying little dust speck.. 😂🤣😂
It really bugging me tooo
Apple knows exactly what they are doing. The M2 13" MBP exists only to make the Air seem like a great value, they want to build and sell a ton of Airs at higher margin, at the small expense of selling a few MBP.
And then the MBP is gonna get a big refresh and swing the pendulum the other way, alongside a *gasp* two hundred dollar drop in price for the air! Apple's generosity knows no bounds! /s
Exactly what I was thinking. What the fact that Apple silicon is just way superior compared to Windows laptops is why they can afford to charge more since already the M1 lineup is way too good for value
Exactly
The m1 air is gonna be the star now
Well it also exists for people that need something that’s better for video editing and production/content creation while still utilizing the power of the M2.
Thanks!
I just took a persuasion psychology course and one of the methods we learned was called decoy pricing. A simplified example would be a small drink costing $2, a medium costing $2.40, and a large costing $2.60, while the large is double the medium. Basically they make the middle option a bad deal to encourage you to spend more money. With the M2 air and pro they’re using the same tactic, except they’re encouraging you to buy the cheaper one. It sounds weird, but it’s a tactic and my professor had us practice by making an example of it. The air is a cheaper and better laptop, and you think “well I can save $100 AND get the better one, might as well do it” and skip the step where you consider whether you should buy a laptop. I bet they modeled it and found that they’d get more profits if they make the air more appealing than the pro
I think it goes both ways. "Might as well get the M1 Pro" is the decision professionals will make when the M2 Air might have satisfied.
With all the new releases and huge chip advances, I have a theory that Apple actually wants people to buy the low end base models, so they can upgrade more frequently…. Especially when they release updates that are very large and rarely seem to be a “positive” update, more like a forced nuisance which slowly brings your computer to a hault. Helll, I’m sure my 2021 mid range $2800 14 MacBook Pro w/ 32gb of Ram won’t even last me as long as I think it will……. Gone are the days of having products that last a while. We now PAY MORE and GET LESS out of products. Welcome to the age of LEASING, where it’s a constant revolving door of purchasing a high dollar product that no longer works - phones, laptops, appliances, cars , etc.
Yep, especially considering the Air at $1200 seems expensive by itself. But compared to the barely upgraded $1300 Pro it seems a good value.
Mate the air in Europe ist €1500 and when you up it to 16gb of ram it’s 1749 or something. Might then as well pay the other 300 and get the 14” pro
Exactly. Apple is smart and knows exactly what they're doing. I do that for my business. I have 3 priced items and it's designed for the customer up buy in the middle (which most people are inclined to do regardless). McDonald's invented this strategy. First one is very basic and a higher price then it's worth. Highest you get all the bells and whistles, mostly stuff you don't need and will never used. The price is unreasonably high. Then the middle, which is similar to the highest, blows the lowest away, but it's considerably less money than the best one. Car washes do a great job of this too.
Anything but silver?! Idk man silver is such a classic colourway I love my silver MacBook Pro
cuz the silver means basic apple and he doesn't wanna appear basic (which he is) so space gray makes you feel a pro
@@DarkP1 cheer up buddy
Same even when other colors are offered I pick silver anyway goes for iPhone and iPad as well 😩
BLACK ALL DAYYYY, if you can see your laptop while watching movies, its a NO !!
the paint below the keyboard will wear out in like a year, lol rip those who will buy the dark version
I think they did this M2 MacBook Pro like this just to convince people it is normal to spend this much money for an Air, making them forget about the price increase. Well done Apple 👏
It’s working perfectly too 😅
Everyone recommending it
Everything went up. My mountain bike went from 7k lowest build spec to 9k last year.... Either way 1.2K is a nice low end Apple price.
If they add more it shouldn’t cost more? Or what is the point
@@Chief-wx1fj I think their point is that the m1 macbook pro probably has low margins especially with everything going on chip shortage and inflation wise so apple is trying to make the new macbook air with slightly higher margin look as attractive as possible.
It only cost as much as 18 tanks of gas ⛽️ for your car now.
Mr. Brownlee is one of very few RUclips presenters that I can listen to with no exasperation -- just unreserved admiration for a thoughtful, calm, rational, and very articulate setting forth of facts (and opinion clearly stated as such). A model I'd love to see emulated more.
First time i hear someone call him Mr. Brownlee 😂
Magsafe and screensize are HUGE quality of life improvements on the M1 version. I don't think a typical air user will get much value out of a better processor, and will likely get more value out of a higher-spec'd M1 than a baseline M2. Personally, I think price point makes this an overall worse product than the M1, but some great upgrades for those with more money than me lol
Insanely overrated
Honestly though, I hate the way the M1 Air/Pro look, with the bezels and the godawful webcam. Much prefer the way this looks, and think I'd get some use out of the slightly bigger screen too. $1599 for 16/512 though, and that's not the easiest sell for a non-Pro product. Probably worth it if I can get 6+ years out of it.
Bro your pfp wtf
The m1 air is ugly AF lol this one looks so much better. Apple is finally catching up the the Dell XPS laptop line in terms of design.
Bro when I saw your picture I thought it was a strand of my hair
Honestly I feel like those who will get this new M2 MacBook Air will really enjoy it, looks like a fantastic product. I’m just a little bit disappointed with the price increase… Especially since the base model still comes with 8gb of ram. I think the price bump would have been way easier to swallow if the base model came with 16gb. :/
And theres still no sub-$2000 option for people who don't want a tiny screen.
It's a $400 price hike here in Australia, ouch. Really not worth it over the M1 Air IMO.
@@nic_ccc3366 yup same here in Switzerland. :/
I planned to wait out this release instead of buying a M1 for a couple of months. But due to the huge price increase in Sweden (~$450) I can't motivate it. And now when this is released, I can motivate a purchase of the old one either. I guess I'll get by on my current laptop for a while longer.
@@nic_ccc3366 imagine the price in third world countries, i'll be keeping the m1 for a really long time
Another drawback for the Midnight color is the small chips and nicks on the paint
0:53 - You can already see them around the ports on this barely used showcase device, it's normally much easier to hide with Silver or SpaceGray.
feel like space gray shows up a lot with scratches.
For a 16 inch pro I feel the knicks would look bad but I think macbook airs look kind of boss when they're well worn and a little beaten up. Just fits the identity of that machine
Maybe fingerprints on the Midnight color shouldn’t be the only one thing to worry about. Thinking about iPhone 7 matt black
Yeah, silver would probably hide the best because I have a 2020 MacBook Air M1 that I bought right after it was introduced, and over the course of 1 1/2 years it does show around the thunderbolt ports if you look closely. fingerprints are the same amount on mine as midnight.
A joke
I have Macbook Pro 14 in Space Grey, Going for Silver for M2.
Wonderful! Planning for this one!
They've missed a trick only having USB on one side. My Dell XPS 13 has one on each side and it's incredibly useful having the flexibility on which side to plug in, esp when charging by USB-C.
That's my biggest regret getting the M1 air ( besides the fact I missed out on a flat edge magsafe Air :/ )
Tough having to watch netflix at the very edge of the bed :(
@@mgw2024 get a longer cord lol
nah that's bs
Hi, fellow xps 13 user. I had to buy a usb hub for mine xps so it doesn't really matter which side the cord is connected to.
Still not a dealbraker, gonna get this new air for my work. Windows is slowly killing me. Hopefully mac won't.
Yes, thank you! It drives me crazy that they've now got three charging possibilities instead of two on the old air on one side and none on the other.
I love how everybody seems to love the midnight MacBook Air so much while I'm just sitting here considering to get the most vanilla color of the all, silver...I have a midnight iPhone 13 but in terms of MacBooks it feels like I'm the only one on earth that still goes for the classic haha. Also no worrying about paint chipping off, I feel like the midnight might struggle with that a bit, especially around the magsafe and USB ports...
I wouldn't call it "classic", MacBooks were black/white long before the aluminum design became standard. If anything, the midnight actually looks the most "classic" of the lineup to me
Try starlight colour
Like 3 months ago I got a silver 16” MBP M1 Max & don’t regret it. before that I had a 13” MBP M1 also silver. never had a space gray computer & never really wanted one. Silver is classic and classy imo. However, if I was an Air customer, I would definitely get midnight. The paint chipping seems to be a valid concern tho..
@@DrFunkenstein69 I think, as of somewhat recently, the silver aluminum unibody design probably holds the “classic” title rn and the black/white MacBooks are dangerously close to “vintage”
You can’t chip the paint off any Mac because their anodized. They will never flake or suffer from what most other laptops with non-standard colors do (I’m looking at you, Razer)
That’s not to say however scratching and other superficial markings won’t be more noticeable than the other colors, though.
The darker the colors the more noticeable imperfections will become.
5:15 here in germany they actually increased the price of the MBA M1 after the showcase from previously 1129€ to 1199€. I have never seen anything like that. And the new MBA M2 starts at 1499€. Wish we had the US prices over here.
Everyone always forgets about the taxes. Add the taxes to the US prices and the difference to the german (tax included) prices are not so big all of a sudden…
Germany is a socialist state, just look at your taxes lmfao. The government is literally robbing you guys
the Euro is super weak right now
Inflation baby welcome to the recession
@@Jakebwin So how much is the 2400 macbook pro with taxes? because it doesnt show any other price on the apple site when you check out.
Thank you for mentioning the fingerprints part on the midnight black version. My mind was literally made up until you said that. Respects.
I was genuinely suprised that there was support for high-impedance headphones in a MacBook Air, because, let's be real, how many people in the target market for these laptops has headphones with a sky-shatteringly high number of ohms? Still, it's nice to have. I would love to see a comparo between the MacBook Air M2 and MacBook Pro M2 to see if we can justify the 13-inch Pro's existence...
They never said 'sky-shattering' high impedance support; just high-impedance, so my guess is up to 250 ohm.
I would see a lot of musician using these new M2 chip powered Airs. They are powerful enough for most work in music production and then you would also get a high quality headphone amplifier with the machine itself. I think it's a real bargain for many musician not needing a max spec laptop, but a versatile portable machine.
Could be people that mostly work in a studio or some other area where they do a lot of audio work, but want a laptop for their commute/daily life. Might also be a better value to Apple to make the part universal across Macs.
Lots of musicians will buy air because it doesn’t have fans, so you can record without any fear of a microphone catching the noise
Lots of people if not all using wired headphones wth are you talking about
I fell in love with 'Midnight'. Great specs and design.
The midnight paint seems to chip around the usb c ports. I got a space gray M1 air and my ports are still perfect after almost a year - keep that in mind if you hate those details
It isn't paint, it's anodised, chipping is more due to sharp edges which should be avoided when anodising.
How do you come up with this opinion?
@@airrwalker you can see it in the close up shots that Marques took when he had his hands on session at WWDC. It was no doubt a fresh unit and had nominal use. Pretty evident that the anodised finish had already chipped on both ports after minimal insertion of USB-C cables.
@@markbennett6658 yeah, this on its own is a big turn-off, I haven't noticed anything of the sort on my space gray m1 macbook pro, maybe because the color difference between the aluminium and the coating isn't too great?
4:40
Love the side by side M2 MacBook Pro/MacBook Air price comparison!!! I’m planning on getting the Midnight because I love the blue. Plus you can always slap a skin and some stickers on there :). It’s a slick looking machine really excited about the new OS systems. Great to do light stuff feel of an iPad but also a MacBook I love it! Thank youuu for this first look review!!
M2 MacBook Pro supports two external displays vs 1 for Air that is important for developers. So nothing has changed - Pro for developers and code compilation - active cooling is cenessary, Air for home users.
@@vdracula.1221 no, it doesn't. The one display output is an M2 limitation.
pls dont put stickers
@@gorkapascual5897 🤣🤣🤣👍🏻
@@vdracula.1221 More like pro for developers and air for home, general use, most jobs, uni, and school. 90% of people don’t need the pro lol people sometimes like to lie to themselves
Would love to see you test some anti-fingerprint spray on the midnight color to see if that could resolve that issue
yes !!!
Yess!
This!!!!
Or even ceramic coating the whole body to see if they wipe off easier
@@mrslickdetailer9652 that should work
Gosh I can't wait to get one
Same! Hi Luke, I’ve watched soo many of your videos
Nooooob!!😁
BatChest
M2 Air is far too expensive in Europe compared to the 'older' M1. The gap between the US price and the European is way too extreem. Starts at 1199$ vs 1519€ in Europe.
This! Apple prices in Europe are just INSANE! Even on the m1 macbook air, here in Portugal it costs 1229€ (1292$) instead of 999$
It’s thanks to the ridiculously high VAT
But don't European prices include tax while American prices don't?
@@enlightenmentforeurope9070 It's not just VAT, the pricing in the UK used to be just changing the currency sign the base M2 MacBook Air costs £1,249 in the UK vs $1,199 which is more than $100 more expensive after accounting for currency conversion than just adding 20% to the dollar price, and whilst $100 might not be a huge sum it's still an 8% on top of just adding VAT.
@@praneeleaswaran5172
True, but the average tax rate in the United States is 5.09%. If i'm well informed. That means that a basic Macbook M2 Air would cost $1199 + 5.09% tax = approximately $1260. So that's 1,198 Euros. That still represents a difference of $338 or €321.
I can see that the midnight blue already has scratches around the USB ports, which makes my worry about the paint resistance to scratch specially with long term usage. I know it could be an issue with all other colors, but definitely scratches will look less prominent on bright colors.
Which is why, if I buy one, I will probably go for silver
This is why I've moved back over to using silver MacBooks over space grey of late! I had hoped the quality of the midnight would be better, but sadly not
Why is the MacBook chargers called Magsafe if it's not wireless?
it's just scratches man, so what lol. with use your stuff acquires character, don't sweat
That’s what happens with usb-c ports. Happened to every usb-c device I’ve owned. Since usb-c is basically an inverted lightning port, the metal edges almost always make contact with the device and scratch over the long term.
I love everything about this other than the base specs. 8gb of ram and 256gb SSD for 2022? And $200 for each upgrade.
Don't you mean GB?
Finally a computer that has the amount of ram that my computer has
Exactly, so if you want to upgrade its better to just get the $2K 14 inch macbook pro. This is how they get you to spend more..
It’s absolutely crazy, when I spec it to 16gb ram and 1tb ssd, what is reasonable today, it costs 2300 € in europe, thats about 2500 $
@@brunob8827 In the US, 16/1TB is $1799 I think, with 8 GPU cores. EU prices are ridiculous, no idea why it's so much more.
Midnight would be good to check how durable the paint is, on video I noticed some paint scratches around the USB ports
Yeah, that’s why I probably go with starlight or space grey now.
@@silvermcintosh1547 me too! i'm leaning with the midnight because it looks premium, but seeing the paint chipping off of the ports is kind of like a turn off for me hahaha
@@thewbltr1370 That's exactly what I was thinking. I have the M1 in silver now. I loved the midnight, but with the fingerprints and the possible paint chipping. I am leaning towards Starlight. I would like to see it in person, but probably have to preorder first.
I really wish they'd bring back the illuminated Apple logo on the lid 😭
It was using the lcd to light up, they removed it because sun could illuminate the screen. I agree though. Maybe an outline atleast
@@anthonywiegert8980 oh I never knew that, but they could easily make it a backlit low power LED array and then it wouldn't have the sunlight issue... That's what Razer and many other companies do now. Not a hard thing to engineer by any means, and it would be negligible in terms of battery consumption.
As a programmer, I've used MacBook Pros for a number of years now, ditching the weaker performance of the Air. But with everyone working from home now, I could see myself getting the new Air, then getting a dedicated Mac Studio. Solid upgrade from Apple.
I was thinking the same thing
Only thing the MacBook Pro's have over the Air is the XDR display. I'm a programmer too and now that summer is here, I love programming on my outdoor table. On my old Pro the display simply couldn't get bright enough to easily see at times, but on my new 14" that's fixed with the new display. I use an app called Lunar to unlock max XDR brightness (1600 nits) at all times, which makes it super easy to see even in direct sunlight. At these brightness levels I consistently get 5-6 hours of battery life before I need to plug in, which is fantastic for working outdoors!
If they ever release a MacBook Air with miniLED or OLED display I'll buy that on day 1.
That’s what my buddy who’s a senior engineer at apple does. Studio at his plugged in desk setup then a M1 MBA for portability and coding from his couch, and he’s now upgrading it to the M2 MBA for the same purpose. He loves it.
Just get the space gray bro
as a programmer, i code on the cluster.
I'm kind of leaning toward the Starlight color. Not sure why, as I usually go Space Gray. I am getting an M2 MBA though :) For me it'll make for an excellent all around highly portable laptop with excellent battery life coupled with nice performance. There's nothing to not like here.
Sounds like a perfect choice. Though i might consider the midnight color and buy a handful of microfiber wipes…
this MBA is one of the most value laptops i feel apple has made inspite of the price increase
One thing to not like is the price increase D:
@R.C. there's a starlight iphone, the aluminium frame in starlight looks so GOOD. It's more of a warm silver to me than a 'gold' I guess you could say 'champagne'
@@sixsix6350 for sure, especially if you video edit. Such a tiny laptop and it has h264, h265(hevc) and PRORES media engines in 8k lol. That's mad. Video encode and decode is a super difficult task and even big powerful processers struggle with it. My windows 'gaming' tower pc has a really powerful AMD ryzen chip, but it has no ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) video accelerators. So I can't video edit on it as playback is so choppy. Even tho the single core power is way more than an apple silicon chip, it just can't decode the video fast enough. Cause it's running as software instead of built into the hardware.
MacBook Pro needs midnight color
what happened to jet black
@@qpol That would be sick. One of the reasons I got my Surface Laptop
@@qpolapple discontinued it because it caught too many fingerprints and it could scratch very easily
@@djstuc So you stole the other one?
@@qpol scratches too easy, remember jet black iphone 7, the color came with a disclaimer directly from apple.
Good morning Marques! I’ve been watching your videos for years although I seldom comment. Thank you for continued high quality videos and information. I rely on your videos when considering upgrading any tech products, especially Apple.
Once again thank you and have the most amazing weekend. I wish you all the success, health, happiness and love this world has to offer!
I guess the reason for keeping the M1 Air price the same is the chip shortage. The production volume is limited so Apple tries not to increase the demand higher than they can actually deliver.
The longer I use a desktop, the more I wish I had a laptop too. I love everything about my desktop but I miss the mobility. An iPad can only replicate the mobile experience so much. These new computers look pretty nice!
Laptop stand, external keyboard, and mouse has made the transition easy on me. I’m just a college student though.
buy an Intel with SSD and it will do the same or more work.
@@shubhamsehgal2336 Nice joke
@@shubhamsehgal2336 its 2022 wake up wake up
me too and I dont need one or have the money. But they look so nice
Honestly, the starlight colour is really grabbing my attention the most. It my personal favourite colour in the lineup.
Me too
same
The black and this are the best colors easily
I have the mini iPad in starlight. It's beautiful, quite subtle, not too bright & 'in your face.'
Midnight that's mighty
I am sticking for now with my 2020 M1 Mac. I have what I need for my work and I won't change until it's work as expected. Maybe later in a time I will update when it starts to break.
I also love how Apple's marketing department took down the 8-core CPU 8-core GPU M1 MacBook Air model from the lineup, because the entry-level core counts on the M2 are identical!
For many years now I was like "argh silver...“ .But I actually was caught off guard when I saw my friend’s Silver M1 MacBook Pro. It looked so fresh to me! I guess with the new curves and edges it becomes a whole different thing.
And we might also have gotten used to space grey. It doesn't look especially dark to me anymore, but the silver now looks especially bright to me...
Same for me, last couple of years I go with silver. It has a huge advantage that it's a raw unpainted aluminum, therefore it's much more resistant to scratches (you can see the paint around thunderbolt ports chipped off already on this midnight color sample one)
Same! Ended up getting the silver Air last year after years of thinking "argh boring silver" and using space grey. Silver feels very fresh and crisp, clean.
I used to be team space gray until I got the MacBook Air M1 and everyone here is spot on: silver stays clean and looks fresh. I do really like that starlight color though compared to the old gold color
Any silver macbook looks like it’s from 2011
@@GogiTavadze I’ve had a couple space grey’s over the years with no paint issues
I’m glad I didn’t wait for the M2 Air, I was holding out for dual display support but ultimately went for an M1 Air at a good price
I wanted to hold out for an m2 ipad pro but went with m1 so I feeeel uuu
I cant see the MacBook air getting dual display support, at least not while machines with the M1 Pro chip are still available for purchase (the M1 Pro chip only supports 2 external displays)
Good call. Despite the hype, I'd say the new Air is actually disappointing. Original M1 remains the nicer machine.
You can get unofficial dual support display using DisplayLink. Been working on my M1 Air since it came out
Same got mine brand new from Best Buy for $800 like a year ago and it's a beast. I use a docking station to run a dual monitor set up.
I love the midnight color but I’d probably get the starlight color. Too bad the pros don’t ever get all the extra colors.
if the m2 pro 14 and 16 inch ones don't get midnight and starlight that will be so sad lol. The number of guys who would have went m2 pro 14 inch and will take an air instead lol
I'm sad that the new airs don't have the colours of the redisinged iMacs
its marketing.. they will have colors later on the pros lol
@@thatonebeone probably indeed. But the Air is for me the product that you want to be a bit silly with. I would have loved the green/red/yellow, orange whatever colours on these airs.
@@martijnvangammeren1868 yeah same..air is more than enough power for my basic use .. wish they made the apple logo glow again. i like it on my macbook pro 2015
Midnight was my color to go but knowing about the fingerprints magnet I believe space gray is the option to go
^ same here
I’d live to see more starlight. I have a iPad mini in SL and only bought it because it was the only color available and the only mini in the store. I actually really like it how it changes color in lighting and background situations.
👍 ok
Oh that’s nice
I would go for space grey. The midnight looks like the edges of the thunderbolt ports might chip and just show the aluminium colour :)
Yeah, I have noticed that too.
This is what happens with my black iphone 12…
Looks like it was *already* showing signs of that in the test model which is not good! LOVE the color though
I mean its not like its gonna be significantly noticeable lol.
@@bigsur370 If you're paying a premium for the aesthetic, the small details do matter. It also affects resale value.
Strange pricing they went with this year. Must be a side effect of the chip shortage? I can get an M1 Air with 16GB of RAM for $160 less than the base M2 Air. Bonus is that M1 doesn't have a notch!
Yeah and what bothers me is that they totally could fit the camera in the bezel. They just do it to be different.
And the base model is usless since it only has 128gb storage, you can easily ad 200 or even 400 on top of the advertised price
@@michelbruns 128gb?
@@michelbruns I’m pretty sure the base model has 256gb storage
@@LIFEOFSTUFFEDANIMALS yeah, it's beyond stupid to have a notch on laptop
I love how the MacBook airs are basically now MacBook Pros unlike before they were a completely different look
@Don't Read My Profile Photo okay dude, really original
@@alexmorrow3750 ikr lol
They even cost about the same when you spec the air with similar options
if you compare the MacBooks of the same generation that's how it's always been the 2019 MacBook air and pro looked the same the pros just got the redesign first in 2021 we just had one odd year where they looked different 2020
With the new Air looking like the new Pro, I’m wondering if Apple is planning to abandon the 13 inch MacBook Pro, making the line up like : 13 inch MacBook Air, 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pro
Apple is having a really interesting moment right now, which is almost a throw back to when h/w releases were more numerous and often. This is the 3rd significant update to the MBA after being dormant for ever: Fall 2018 MBA Retina + 16G RAM, Fall 2020 MBA M1 and now Spring 2022, 24G capable MBA M2. Like wow. Love it. Add the rest of the lineup, and it's really just an issue of "embarrassment of riches" or "panoply of plenty". There is so much good h/w right now. 🎉. I still think that 2 USB-C ports isn't much in modern day content work. You'll want a good QUALITY powered dock.
This comes down to so many factors, but i mostly identify it with really good competition and consumers who are relatively well educated on what features they do and don't want.
Before, people bought apple just because they were apple, but also because they just made really good products where competitors were lacking (solid laptops and phones). Now, the competitors have really caught up, are offering diverse lineups, and their price points make even the biggest apple fanboy think twice. So they're pulling into full gear trying to genuinely offer competitive products.
I love the comparison of MB Air M2 and MB Pro M2 you did ❤️
Starlight gets my vote. Also I’m going to wait for them to update the whole pro line ro M2 then consider updating. Dont really have an issue with Midnight personally.
I'm waiting until I can see it in real life. I remember hearing from someone that the watch in starlight could look a bit weird under most lighting conditions, but from the photos it looks beautiful.
Probably not going to bite in the end because I can't get 32gb of ram or more than 1 monitor though.
I'm wedged I'm Between the Silver or the starlight maybe even the space grey but i already have a space grey air so want something new hence either the starlight or the silver
My big concern with the really gorgeous "black" color is what I saw here at 1:29 the ports with scratches caused by the cables... a little thing to keep in mind :)
so happy to see you're making videos!!
I was thinking about getting the midnight black but I weirdly feel that macbooks aren't meant to be that colour (does that even make sense?) my vote goes to starlight, new and elegant.
They did sell a black MacBook, which is sort of close to midnight, from 2006-2012 before they did the Retina redesign. I think they did it to maybe do a throwback to darker devices for older fans?
@@KironKabir i don't really think it's supposed to be a throwback. instead, i think they did this to match the apple watch series 7's *case* colors. sure they also offer a ton of other colors too but both midnight and starlight colored cases exist....
The computer has been sitting there in a showroom, an Apple showroom, and the ports already have been discolored from plugging things into them. Can't imagine how the armrests will look in a few months. That's why I always go with silver with MacBooks.
Get Midnight!!!! The fingerprints are worth it! it looks gorgeous. Although I am more afraid of minor nicks that Macs gain over time. The colour reminds me of the the slate blue iPhone 5.
03:38 Thank you! Stubborn fingerprint marks would drive me mad and I'd never have known this without you bringing it up. Pity,'coz the blueblack is so pretty.
Thank you for your sharing. Love how you share it :)
The Midnight MacBook is beautiful
Before, I wanted to get the $999 M1 MacBook Air because the price was at my max budget.
But I waited around for the M2. At $1,200 it's too expensive for me but with no price drop, the older M1 now seems like a rip off. 😅
Should've just got the M1 right when it was new.
Midnight colour would be great!!
I say go with the Midnight anyway… it’s just such a classy look! I was a little worried about chipping (looked like around the USB-C ports I could see some lighter aluminum), but I think I trust that Apple usually doesn’t have that problem
Exactly my thoughts on the MacBook Air vs MacBook Pro.
My favorite is midnight and I wouldn't throw a skin on it at all. At this point I'm quite used to having finger prints on many of devices.
As always, great and fun content from MKBHD
Another solid video. Thanks for the nugget about the midnight color
Thanks so much for keeping it real about the fingerprints. That is something to note.
Yeah! I’m really regretted to hear that lol. I was so in love with that color. But the fingerprint kinda give me a little sneak at others colors.
Silver is great though. I have the 16” in silver and I don’t regret it. It’s amazing and goes great with the new design.
@Ꭲᗴ᙭Ꭲ ᗰᗴ ᗰᗩᖇQUES_BROWN Idiotic spam
Silver is above space grey imo for sure for sure, I'm deciding between m1 pro 14 inch and m2 air tho. I'd get midnight or starlight m2 air, and silver m1 pro ofc.
@@definingslawek4731 the display on the 16” is amazing. I don’t know how the M1 Pro and M2 compare, I’d assume M1 Pro is still significantly better, but I’d say the main advantage to the 14” would be the display and speakers. However, I think it’s only slightly thinner than my 16” which is already pretty chunky. This is really weird but if you get the 14”, prepare for your computer to be fat shamed.
The silver, the black keyboard, and the black screen when off look really nice together. The silver also makes the computer feel smaller. My friend has the space gray version and it just feels like it takes up more space even though it doesn’t.
@@Michael-zn2jc yeah that screen is nuts. That's interesting that your friends space gray one looks larger :0
I wonder if the m2 air in midnight will look larger than starlight or silver.
@@definingslawek4731 you should see them at an apple store when they get them on display.
I'd get starlight as I can see midnight showing scratches too well, and the constant cleaning of fingerprints would drive me crazy.
It scratches too easily. “Well” implies something good.
Thanks for sharing great information.
Can’t wait to see more reviews!
Always nice to see there's a new generation of apple's macbook series, cause older gens gets cheaper, now i can buy the 2012 one
Don't buy a 2012 laptop just because you want a mac Lmao
@@gabbo004 do you know what is called a joke?
@@dev.matiGOD yeah it's called Matias
@@gabbo004 nice
I bought my M1 MacBook Air with 8/8 cores, 16 GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for 1630 Euros. I see the pricing for the M2 model with these specs and it is 2K. So after two years Apple has added a better screen, camera and speakers and marginally increased the performance of the chip. Yet this doesn’t justify a near 25% price increase.
Why did you not get the MacBook Pro M1?
Between now and when the m1 launched, there’s been a cumulative 12% usd inflation so we should be happy the existing products didn’t go up in price in addition to the new stuff getting more expensive
@@ZombieRofl Because I really prefer the physical buttons to the touch bar. Why pay more money for a feature that I find it worse?
I got midnight a couple days ago and I’m OBSESSED. I did, however, already have a clear 15$ case i bought on Amazon already handy for me to put it on the air straight out of the box, so if you’re able to do that, the fingerprints are no problem. I also preordered a mouse and wrist sticker (that i also got in the midnight color so you can’t tell) and put that on to keep the mouse, wrist, and top area from getting dust and fingerprints. They are removable and say that leave no residue so i gave that a shot and so far so good. I’m able to completely touch my laptop without having to worry about scratches or prints 😊
I‘m still missing the TouchBar (probably the only person on planet earth). Love the dedicated screenshot button + easier auto fill for passwords and e-mails etc. shame all new MBs don’t have it anymore. Currently have a 2019 Pro and it’s brilliant, would love a Apple Silicon model.
I love it too! It’s much more informative than regular buttons and I use the word prediction all the time. It feels like development. Maybe the reason people don’t like the touch bar is that they have had bad components in their laptop. I have the last intel version with 2 fans and it does heat up quite a bit, so in that sense it would be nice to update, but I haven’t seen problems with performance. It’s my first Mac so the jump from Windows required learning new anyway so that might be why the Touch Bar feels natural to me.
Auto-fill for passwords and emails on the touchbar? Chrome handles that for me with a single mouse click, without having to look away from the screen.
I get you on the fingerprints but the Midnight looks awesome. Maybe carry it in a sleeve, plenty light. Also, some people like the touch bar so I think Apple would consider that an upgrade over the Air (it certainly costs them more to make it).
I also felt the same
as well as the design, the old design was so iconic and premium, this new one makes it look like a cheap huawei laptop, although I think the rounded design works on the big pro models, but definitely not on the midnight air imo
@@BltchErica Huawei laptop with similar spec ain't cheap buddy. 😅
yes i feel the same. i love the touch bar and i think i’ll probably end up upgrading to the M2 MBP since im using the intel one from 2018 and the fans are killing me lol
@@user-tu5tm6kn6k I said just cheap Huawei. And even the more expensive Huawei have cheap build quality in comparison.
I totally agree with you on all the subjects however the Touch Bar is under rated with most of you, it is the smartest feature on my Pro :)
The starlight might be super cool 😁
I got my M1 air few months before and i actually don't regret buying that. Although new model seems really nice, the price difference makes it easier to not feel bummed. I got M1 air for 899
Where did you get it at 899?
For daily use the m1 air base does it for most. I'd consider a 15" air though.
@@jonyaleon I got it refurbished. Had full warranty and all.
There is just so much competition on the chip market nowadays I love it. Felt like 2015-2020 nothing happened and now we get up to 50% more performance each generation, not only from Apple but also Intel, AMD and Nvidia.
WTF do you mean. In 2017 AMD dropped Ryzen.
"50%". Yeah with their extremely nitpicked data, do you honestly think they make a 50% flat increase each generation. No..... Its 50% in some extremely niche task
@@Andrew-xo6hlFacts. Maybe they arent lying and the program demands and bloat increase with equal pace. Websites dont seem to load any faster than they did 10 years ago - and often they are slower - so I think its all a bit silly. Also who gives a f about performance on a macbook air? Its not for gaming nor for editing or any other compute intensive uses. Its a glorified but well made web browser. If you actually care about preformance you are getting a pc, apple desktop computer or at the very least a macbook pro.
0:53 Are these ports already scratched?
Best color for any MacBook I found is only Silver, it is practical, clean, does not look "dirty" as opposed to any other color.
Everyone seems to want the Midnight, which is enough reason for me to not go for it. Red would have been nice, but the Starlight looks really nice, like a subtle champagne gold.
I'm not exactly a Apple fan, in fact I think they get too much attention/love, but this video might be one of your best. The dueling viewpoints/devil's advocate/"change my mind" structure is... I LOVE IT! You can't be more balanced, complete perspective of the issue matter at hand. Keep up the good work!!
It's ridiculous that Apple carried the single external display restriction forward. It's a huge regression from the Intel-based Macs, and it's the reason why I'm sticking with my M1 MBA for now. If they'd added dual, external monitor support I would have upgraded in a heartbeat. That's the only thing I truly dislike about the M1/M2 MBA.
So you can’t plug it into a monitor?
@@multimulti6042 only one external monitor at a time. Every other comparable laptop supports 2+ simultaneous external displays.
DisplayLink my friend, plug in as many screens as you want... And yes, it works with M1 MBA 2020.
@@0newheeldrives yes, but it's compressed, isn't native, and requires a driver to work.
It literally makes no sense at all. I love Apple but goddamn can they be frustrating sometimes!
love the midnight cooler
I vote for Starlight, would love to hear your thoughts on that finish after more hands on time.
Have mini iPad in starlight. It's beautiful!
I feel that M2 Air is the only new machine, and Apple intended to keep both M1 Air and Pro. But they couldn't sell a M2 Air while having the worse M1 in the Pro, so they had to bump the 13 MBP to M2. I wouldn't be surprised if the MBA in its current form factor is the only non high-end macbook that Apple sells for the next few years.
Loved your review. I too initially like the midnight colour. Good to know about fingerprint issue. It’s very Apple: amazing product with a flaw and way expensive but unique as you said about Studio Display
Space gray. Thanks for this review. Really helped!
I'm actually seriously digging that midnight hue on the Macbook air. I'm going to get that. Impeccable review as always from MKBHD team.
I think the M2 MacBook pro is only here because they had leftover chassis after not having enough chips for it in the chip shortage
undeerated comment
My thoughts too. Also some touchbar leftovers.
you can see the finish starting to wear at the ports already, which is pretty tough
Starlight is looking mad
i´d love to see a 15" mb air... not needing the 16" Pros performance but loving the screen real estate on the go...
Yes!! I am YOU!!! My M1 MBP 16" is bulky + heavy. I had hoped to downgrade to M2 BIG screen MBA! 😢
Same here. I want a bigger screen but m1 with 16 gb ram is all the power I need.
im leaning twards a 17 inch air, because i want the best on the road movie watching experience i can manage, and with an external hard drive i could have all the storage i need (movies dont need ssd speeds) while having plenty of speed for it in the air.
apple has basically always had the best screen/speaker combo of any laptop, so they would be perfect for my use even though i use a windows pc (for games)
Been wanting this as a 17" even for years
yeah as much as we would hope, apple wont compromise their pro lineups. but i am full thumbs up to MBA 15" tho
At least in the video midnight looks awesome despite the fingerprints. Reality can be dissapointingly different, but I think you should consider purchasing the MacBook in the midnight color option, so you would be able to tell us how good or not so it is
Space grey seems to be a better option to buy and test as it is preferred by most people and your reviews matter to the buyers considering space grey colour.
Starlight is gorgeous, I have it on the iPad Mini 6 and plan to upgrade my old Air to the new M2 Air in that color later this year.
We will have to see when they are released, but there's a thermal pad mod I did to my m1 air that stops all throttling. Depending on the m2 logic board layout, a similar mod may be possible, which would close the performance gap entirely so the only benefit would be better battery life.
How invasive/destructive is a “thermal pad mod”? I’m very interested in a laptop that sacrifices nothing (high power + light weight)
@@simperingham Not very. You can look it up. The only modification is pulling off the factory thermal pad and putting on a thicker one that connects the processor directly to the chassis as a giant heatsink. You could save the pad and put it back if you wanted to. Only downside is that the bottom of the case directly under the cpu can get pretty hot (40C+) which could burn you if you leave it on your lap for a long time. I work on a desk/table most of the time and its raised on its rubber feet so I don't have an issue with the heat.
I think people actually love the touch bar. I mean ironically it’s the “casual” users who love it, and not the “pros”
I know a lot of people including my mom who love the touch bar, that’s why I think it’s staying in the line up. Probably not what apple initially envisioned but hey it is the world’s second best selling lap top.
Yeah the casual users like it because of the cool factor of the touch bar.
I have a 2019 MacBook Pro I love the Touch Bar. It’s just faster and “cooler” looking
I love the Touch Bar, it's one the few quick access/shortcut -thingies that I bother to customise.
@@thomas_stromberg Yes I agree, I actually think it's a pretty cool piece of tech, I hope Apple keeps it around for a while even if it might not be for me.
Like I said I think it's more popular with the common folk than "pro/tech" users realize.
But yeah I even know a lot of pro users who love it, the guy who runs my IT staff loves it and is actually excited for the M2 upgrade.
Which laptop is the first? I would think the MacBook pro if not the air, but I'm not sure
If you really want an M2 Air, I bet the Midnight will be the first color to sell out. I would be happy with any of the colors, but I think that Midnight is fire...
I just love the midnight color
I upgraded my 2011 Air to the 2020 Air now I am having so many regrets knowing I could have just waited one year for the M1 Air or two years for the M2. The 2020 model has so many thermal issues that slows down its performance
Don't feel bad. the M1 MBA is still an awesome devise. For the price, it's still amazing up until today.
If you're really disappointed, I would try selling it on Marketplace and getting either a used M1 or a refurbished one!
@@adamjohari He said he didn‘t buy the M1 MBA, I think he is talking about the last Intel MBA
I’m surprised by the dearth of color options. The fact that they can justify 7 colors for the iMac but only have 4 for the MacBook Air implies they think they’re going to sell almost twice as many iMacs-and that just sounds odd. I was really expecting the new Airs to match the iMacs (and was planning on buying a purple Air to replace my 2015, if so).
I wonder if they’re going to start doing off-cycle additional color options, like they’ve done for the iPhone the last few years?
Part of the reason for not giving as many options for the color is pretty obvious. Stationary iMacs can be painted on aluminum without a fear of scratching and the paint coming off. Same can't be said about the MacBook. People carry it around and the paint would start chipping off pretty fast.
The iMac is more of a home accessory, therefore colour and style are more important than they would be in a portable machine.
@@jusatin If that was the case for the lack of color they wouldn’t have made the midnight blue as well
@@brianm5060 I disagree. color, style, and design are always important to the apple crowd average user. doesn't matter if it's a laptop, iPhone, whatever.
arguably it's even more important when you carry and use it always with you and therefore show it off to everyone in public. you want to get the " wow, that looks nice? " effect with the apple type of customer. make an "ugly" product and see how well it sells in the apple market. zero. it´s not supposed to be IBM company laptop/product. the customer base is not 50 year old traveling businessman.
I was expecting more "fun" colors for the consumer oriented de facto MacBook, opposing more "dry and boring" colors for the Pro. Just like the iBook and, well would you look at that, the new iMac.