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Apple Announces New MacBook Air with 15.3-Inch Display and M2 Chip
- jmkni 3y agoI recently got an M2 Air and it is the perfect laptop (for me). I would find the 15" too big, but glad it's there as an option for those who want it.
- DonaldPShimoda 3y agoI have a 16" MBP primarily because of the screen size — I use a lot of screen real estate. A 15" Air is perfect for me, so I'm looking forward to maybe picking one of those up when I'm ready to part with my current MBP.
- rsync 3y agoI don't care how thin it is - a Macbook Air does not have a 15" display. The hoped for model goes the other direction - a new 11" MBA.
- suprfsat 3y ago[flagged]
- addedlovely 3y agoMac Book Pro's haven't had a DVD drive for years, can't remember the last time I needed a DVD.
- jmkni 3y agoIt's explicitly not a 'Pro' machine though
- benatkin 3y agoThe nice thing about the "Air" brand is that it's generic enough that it can be used for stuff geared towards anyone.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Sohcahtoa82 3y agoSo they can sell those as addons.
- matthewmacleod 3y agoYes, I'm sure Apple is desperate to cash in on all of that mad DVD drive money.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y agoMaybe not the DVD drive, but certainly a USB hub for more ports and an external SD card reader.
- danaris 3y agoI'm about 95% sure Apple doesn't actually make a USB hub. (I'd check, but the store is still down for keynote-related updates.) I think positing that Apple somehow makes extra money by making people buy third-party USB hubs—the vast majority of which will be bought from Amazon, whether or not Apple sells any in their own online store—is stretching juuuust a little bit to paint them as greedy.
- Our_Benefactors 3y agoThis attitude is unshrewd business. They certainly sell USB c hubs, probably Belkin branded with almost-Apple quality finishing, at a 50% markup over a similar generic option. They make money off the products sold in their store, by creating a market that wouldn’t have existed if all the ports were in the laptop
- Our_Benefactors 3y agoThis attitude is unshrewd business. They certainly sell USB c hubs, probably Belkin branded with almost-Apple quality finishing, at a 50% markup or more over a similar generic option. They make money off the products sold in their store, by creating a market that wouldn’t have existed if all the ports were in the laptop in the first place.
- Our_Benefactors 3y agoYeah, and where’s my serial port? Tv Tuner? Heck, I can’t even get GPIO from this so-called “pro” machine. It should also have a metronome dial for musicians. And a slide-out drawing pad for graphic designers. A secondary e-ink display for writers. And I should be able to make it double as a hot plate for easy test kitchening. “Pro” machine, bah.
- euroderf 3y agoWhat, no bottle opener ?
- sbuk 3y agoYou forgot the '/s'...
- renewiltord 3y agoI enjoyed this and the rest of your comments, haha.
- calt 3y agoI agree. I really don't understand obsessing about thinness. Being a few millimeters thinner doesn't actually help it fit into a small backpack any better.
- norgie 3y agoNot really relevant to this model, since this generation of MBAs are not particularly thin.
- benatkin 3y agoIt can have a 15" display and it does have one. The weight is more important and this seems impressive. 3 pounds seems light for a laptop with a 15" display. And based on where we are in Apple's product cycle, I imagine it will hold up pretty well.
- jghn 3y ago> The weight is more important To you
- benatkin 3y agoI was thinking of less strain on the back from carrying it around every day.
- kkylin 3y agoI feel the same way. Somewhat disappointed to find it is actually 3.3 lbs: https://www.apple.com/macbook-air-13-and-15-m2/specs/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-air-13-and-15-m2/specs/
- jghn 3y agoI do prefer lighter but I prefer smaller form factor more. id prefer smaller (in all dimensions) over weighs less. Somewhere between the 12” rMB and the 13” MBA is my sweet spot size wise
- wffurr 3y agoI too wish for the 11” MacBook Air again, but having a 15” model in that line seems like a good idea too.
- jghn 3y agoAs long as it is isn't a sign of the 13" being phased out. I was already annoyed that the MBA line came with a larger form factor than the old retina MacBooks. Getting to a point where I'd like to upgrade my original M1 Air, but figure I might as well wait for whatever is after the current M2 generation. However if that means a 15" form factor, no thanks.
- Turing_Machine 3y agoSame. The 11" MBAs were perfect for me. I want my laptop to be as portable as possible. If I need a bigger screen, I'd rather use an external monitor. I feel the same way about the gigantic phones of today, by the way. I want my phone to be small. I recognize that I'm apparently in the minority here.
- tracker1 3y agoI'm less than convinced... the Pro models aren't THAT much bigger, and at the starting price, this isn't priced better either.
- dangus 3y agoConsidering the shrunken screen bezels, the 11" MBA is very close to the same size as the current 13" MacBook Air ~~~ MacBook Air 11" ~~~ Height: 0.11-0.68 inch (0.3-1.7 cm) Width: 11.8 inches (30 cm) Depth: 7.56 inches (19.2 cm) Weight: 2.38 pounds (1.08 kg) ~~~ MacBook Air 13" ~~~ Height: 0.44 inch (1.13 cm) Width: 11.97 inches (30.41 cm) Depth: 8.46 inches (21.5 cm) Weight: 2.7 pounds (1.24 kg) ~~~ Difference (New compared to old) ~~~ Height: 0.24 inches thinner (at its thickest point) Width: 0.17 inches wider Depth: 0.9 inches deeper (which helps give you a much nicer trackpad and function keys) Weight: 0.32 pounds heavier (5.12 ounces)
- Rebelgecko 3y agoIt's bizarre to me they're still bragging about performance relative to Intel macs. I guess there's been diminishing returns after the ARM transition, or else they'd be comparing to M1?
- jamroom 3y agoI suspect the majority of mac owners still have intel based macs so they want to highlight the performance improvement to those users - since they may be most likely to upgrade?
- sdtransier 3y agoI think it could be a combination of: 1. Marketing speak because it sounds better to compare it to the much slower Intel Macs than to the fast M1. Plus the gains between and M1 and M2 are marginal compared to Apple Silicon vs. Intel. 2. They are marketing more to Intel Mac owners/potential PC switchers rather than M1 owners.
- mrtksn 3y agoThe chip is the same as the last year’s, only the screen size is larger.
- re-thc 3y agoM2 vs M1 is a minor difference (relatively). It feels like M3 was / is delayed so there's nothing better to brag about. Note: maybe not M3 the name, but at least the 3nm transition.
- moritzwarhier 3y agoIt's correct that there are Intel chips that last as long as ARM macs. However, AFAIK there are none that compare to M1/M2 in terms of efficiency and relative performance. I might be wrong - I'm comparing an old budget ThinkPad (L580) to 2021 and 2023 MacBook Pros here. Noteworthy for me is that this 2019 i5 with 16GB (Lenovo L580) still trashes all AMD notebooks that I ever used in that regard. Xubuntu lasted me a work day easily on that machine. But performance was slow of course. Even in single thread tasks in interpreted languages, the speed difference between that 2019 i5 and an M1 Pro is around factor 5-10, with the Mac inaudible compared to the i5 sounding like a small airplane (cough, legacy webpack frontend build). Also here, my experiences are probably distorted by price range differences. Then there's all the stuff that really matters: virtually unlimited multitasking, reliability (wireless, graphics especially), trackpad, speakers, WebRTC, etc etc And with a current MBP, you really need to do very expensive tasks (ML, huge builds etc) to notice any performance or battery life degradation.
- clairity 3y agoi have a perfectly usable MBP right now, but this is the laptop that i've been waiting for. seems to hit the sweet spot on price while having a large screen but still "thin & light".
- bryanlarsen 3y agoIt's thin, but it's not light. There are lots of laptops, even some 15" ones, that are under 1kg.
- clairity 3y agosure, it's light enough for me though (<4lbs). i like the tradeoff of more (heavy) battery vs. shooting for the absolute lightest machine.
- goosedragons 3y agoMost of the weight is the aluminum and not the battery.
- clairity 3y agobut the ability to affect weight is mostly in the components, and the battery is the largest and heaviest of these. aluminum is pretty light but you need a certain amount of it to have the structural characteristics they're aiming for.
- goosedragons 3y agoThe 13" Ryzen 7 5700U LG Gram weighs 980 grams with a 51 kWh battery. The 13" M2 MBA weighs 1200g with a 52.6 kWh battery. The main weight difference is not from the 1.6 kWh of battery but the choice of aluminum over magnesium alloy. I'm sure things will be similar for the 15" MBA vs. 15" LG Gram.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
- MichaelZuo 3y agoHopefully they fixed the display flicker issue.
- graystevens 3y ago[flagged]
- A_Duck 3y ago$1,299 is a great price point. I guess their share price implies growth that's not available just targeting the high-end. Any idea of UK pricing yet?
- A_Duck 3y agoAnswering my own question - just published at £1,399 Disappointing to see higher £ numbers than $. Even accounting for 20% VAT, the price should only be £1,250
- HDThoreaun 3y agoFor what it’s worth US prices don’t include tax. I’ve got a 10% sales tax which puts the $1299 at $1430
- rootusrootus 3y agoThat reminds me I don't want to move anywhere in the US that has sales tax. I realize that limits my options.
- tracker1 3y agoAFAIK, just about every state has Sales tax... it's really not much different in practice than a VAT though, just accounted for differently. Not to mention, that many counties and cities add their own. You COULD live in a state without an Amazon presence, then you won't get charged sales tax. However, you're supposed to file use taxes to your local state, and there are efforts to change the mail order regulations altogether. Most states will eliminate or reduce taxes on food.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoAll states have sales taxes on something, whether it be alcohol, tobacco products, cannabis, hotel room nights, car rentals, or general retail purchases. And every state requires residents to pay use tax if they procure an item without paying at least an equivalent sales tax had it been purchased within the state, and bring that item home with you for use. 5 states do not have sales tax on most retail purchases: https://www.thebalancemoney.com/states-without-a-sales-tax-3193305 https://www.thebalancemoney.com/states-without-a-sales-tax-3... >You COULD live in a state without an Amazon presence, then you won't get charged sales tax. This has not been true since Jun 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dakota_v._Wayfair%2C_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dakota_v._Wayfair%2C_Inc.
- hawk_ 3y agoIs there a reason to prefer macrumors over the original https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/06/apple-introduces-the-15-inch-macbook-air/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/06/apple-introduces-the-... ?
- clessg 3y agoThanks for that, that was a lot more informative on the specs (minus the usual marketing fluff, but hey!). Here are some key details that were missing from the original article: > a powerful 8-core CPU with four performance cores and four efficiency cores > a 10-core GPU > a 16-core Neural Engine > M2 delivers 100GB/s of memory bandwidth and supports up to 24GB of fast unified memory (pretty sure the base is 8GB, but it doesn't explicitly say) > up to a 6K external display (via the Thunderbolt ports, no mention of 2+ externals afaict) > a 3.5mm headphone jack > up to 500 nits of brightness and support for 1 billion colors
- msmith 3y agoDoes it support more than one external display? The lack of that feature was the primary thing that drove me to choose a 13" MacBook Pro instead.
- ceefan 3y agoMacBook Air uses Thunderbolt 3, which only requires 1 additional display. Thunderbolt 4, which the MacBook Pro 14/16 has, requires support for connecting at least two additional displays. [0] [0]: https://www.thunderbolttechnology.net/tech/faq https://www.thunderbolttechnology.net/tech/faq
- rowanG077 3y agoThe 13 inch MacBook Pro also only supports one external screen. To have more then one you need the 14 inch or 16 inch models.
- ceefan 3y agoYou are correct, MBP 13 is Thunderbolt 3. I updated for clarity.
- 3y ago
- clessg 3y agoI'm still running a 2020 M1 MBP and this looks pretty similar, so I'm considering making the jump. Am I missing anything important? I mostly like my current MBP but I would really appreciate a larger screen and actual function keys, ideally without shelling out $3k+. Any ideas what I would gain or lose by making the switch? Are there better options?
- dabeeeenster 3y agoScreen is a bit worse, only 2 usb ports, no HDMI
- H1Supreme 3y agoI think this is a great move. I wanted to get my girlfriend a Macbook Air, but the smaller screen was the only deal breaker. She doesn't want to use an external monitor, and outside of the occasional USB stick, doesn't use any peripherals.
- ravenstine 3y agoHas Apple fixed their dying keyboards? This is the only major flaw I've encountered with Macbooks. I've had it happen twice with my Intel Macbook Pro from 2015 and now for the first time with my M1 Macbook Air from 2020. It's that issue where keys start to die, and it seems to usually start with the R key and progressively gets worse with more keys dying. It's an issue Louis Rossmann has mentioned in the past, so I know it's not just me. The reason I'm asking is that, given the upcoming M2 Macbook Air, I'm debating whether to have someone swap out the keyboard for my M1 or just go ahead and upgrade to M2. But if the keyboard on my M2 is going to start dying in a couple years no matter how well I take care of it then I'll pass and go with the repair instead.
- manv1 3y agoThey fixed the keyboard issue with the 16" Macbook Pro Intel series, which came out 4-5 years ago.
- JPws_Prntr_Fngr 3y ago> I've had it happen twice with my Intel Macbook Pro from 2015 and now for the first time with my M1 Macbook Air from 2020 > They fixed the keyboard issue with the 16" Macbook Pro Intel series, which came out 4-5 years ago. Fixed what keyboard issue? Clearly, GP is experiencing an issue across these generations. You can add my anecdata to that as well: intermittently cruchy/blocked keystrokes on my 2020 M1 MBA, exactly like my old ~2016-2018 MBPs.
- byhemechi 3y agomy 2020 13" macbook keyboard works just fine (sample size of one though so probably doesn't count for much)
- Keyframe 3y agoWhen are they going to get rid of the notch?
- throwaway106382 3y ago[flagged]
- mariopt 3y agoI was hoping to get 10 cores and 32gb of RAM but I have to spend a lot more for that on the MB16.
- highfrequency 3y agoLooks great, but base RAM is still only 8GB which (incredibly) is barely enough to browse the internet these days. Why does it cost $400 to add another 16GB of RAM when the chips themselves cost $50 on Best Buy? Is it that much more expensive to make the RAM small enough to fit in the Air?
- danaris 3y agoHave you actually tried using one of the Apple Silicon Macs with 8GB RAM? When they first came out, there was a great deal of hay made over the fact that this was still the base RAM—and then people started using them, and reporting that it was fine. As long as you're not trying to put them under heavy loads, 8GB RAM is plenty for the M1 and M2. And if you want to put it under heavy load...then you're not really the target customer for the base model, are you?
- highfrequency 3y agoYes, I have tried using the M1 with 8GB RAM. I frequently bumped into RAM issues while using Chrome whenever I accumulated more than ~15 open tabs. At this moment I am on a 16GB M2 Air and using 14.6GB of RAM. The only substantial app I have open is Chrome.
- danaris 3y agoChrome is well-known to be a vicious memory hog. Maybe you should try using Safari? It's not only much better with memory, it doesn't actively punish you for avoiding giving Google direct access to all your browsing...
- lotsofpulp 3y agoSame with all Google software, complete disregard for efficiency.
- floydnoel 3y ago
- rocketbop 3y agoThe 13 inch Macbook Air M2 price has gone down EUR200 in Europe, making it much more attractive.
- mikae1 3y agoHoly crap, it'll cost $1750 in Sweden. I remember the days when you could add a zero at the end of the USD proce to get the SEK price.
- gentleman11 3y agoWith 16gb of ram and 512gb ssd, you may as well get a refurbished 14 inch pro. Much better screen, better speakers, and better performance / future proofing, same weight, similar screen size, for approx. the same price.
- dangus 3y agoThis is easily the best product Apple has launched today. Apple has needed a system for people who want a large screen but don't have the performance requirements nor want the weight and price of the 16" MacBook Pro.