Apple releases new MacBook Air: M2 chip, 13.6-inch screen

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Apple held their WWDC22 developer conference recently, in addition to iOS 16, iPadOS 16, watchOS 9, and macOS Ventura, which mainly introduced minor changes in functions, Apple also released a brand new MacBook Air, which has been greatly changed since 2018. This is a new generation of Apple MacBook Air that has been missing for a long time since 2018. It uses a new design and a new generation of M2 chips. The price starts from $1,099.

In appearance, the new MacBook Air abandons the standard design and uses the 14/16-inch MacBook Pro design style released last year. The corners are still rounded, but the thickest part of the new body is actually thinner (1.13cm vs 0.41-1.61cm), and even the body weight is lighter (1.24kg vs 1.29kg). Of course, these figures are actually very common in today’s thin and light market.

The screen now also likes to mention the “notch” design of the new MacBook Pro, which Apple calls the Liquid Retina Display, which brings a larger 13.6 inches to the new MacBook Air. It seems that there is a higher screen ratio, the resolution is slightly increased to 2560*1664, and the maximum brightness is also increased to 500nit, but there is no Face ID module in this notch, just an ordinary 1080p camera.

The biggest upgrade of the new machine is of course the internal upgrade to a new generation of M2 chips, which replaces the M1 chip and is positioned lower than the M1 Pro. Apple claims that its CPU performance has increased by 18%, GPU performance has increased by 35%, and AI computing performance has increased by 40%. However, the M2 chip maintains an 8-core design consisting of 4 performance cores + 4 efficiency cores and is upgraded to the second-generation 5nm process.

In the memory part, M2 has increased the bandwidth of memory control to 100GB/s, and now the maximum capacity can be selected to 24GB. Previously, the maximum capacity was only 16GB, while the SSD still started at 256GB, and the maximum optional capacity was 2TB. In addition, the battery capacity has now been increased to 52.6Whr, but the nominal battery life is still a maximum of 18 hours of video playback, although Apple said that the power consumption of the M2 is better than that of the M1.

This time the new machine also added a MagSafe magnetic charging interface, but the power adapter will not come with it.

The standard power adapter of the starting model is still 30W USB-C, and then a new 35W dual USB-C interface power adapter will be standard. As for other hardware, there is no major upgrade, such as Touch ID, Wi-Fi 6, dual USB 4 ports, etc. are roughly the same.

At present, MacBook Air with M2 starts at $1,199 (US) and $1,099 (US) for education, but Apple has not announced the release date, and it will be listed next month. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2 starts at $1,299 (US) and $1,199 (US) for education.

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