Cheapest vs most expensive M2 Air 

It is difficult to have a precise evaluation of everyday usage. But in the end, this video is more interesting than just running 5 or 6 benchmarks and throwing numbers at the screen.

Transition from thumbnail to first scene was sensational - more of this, please 👍🏻

I believe that 16Gb of RAM is the minimum if you want to make software development that involves 2 IDEs, 2 simulators and a lot of Chrome tabs. 8 Gb of RAM is enough for most people and you can even do software development with that amount of RAM but you will encounter some limitation and use a lot of swap. It really depends on your workflow and usage. The question is even harder between 16Gb RAM vs 24 Gb RAM but I think if you take 24 Gb of RAM, you known that you need it.

Had the same experience switching from the 8 gb m1 to the 16 gb m1. Was like using another, really more capable computer in a lot of ways. Thanks for the insight!

Really love your videos Alex. Just the right amount of humor, tech detail and down-to-earth fellow nerd personality 🙂

Really useful. More of these please for sure

Loved this test, so much more realistic for real life. Yes please to full on usage tests adding in docker etc with 16GB vs 32Gb vs 64GB. Pile on the usage until the 16GB starts swapping, and then keep on piling it on until the 32GB does too. Really curious as to what it takes, in real life dev scenarios, to need each upgrade. Btw, 10 Chrome tabs is nothing, I currently have 56 open. Sometimes I do a clean out and kill some tabs that I haven't gotten around to looking at for weeks, and get it down to more like 10 or 20 tabs. FYI, I have a 16" 32GB/2TB M1P MBP, and tbh, took an educated guess at 32GB being what I would need for dev work, especially as I head into docker land, and possibly VMs running Windows, VS, and SQL Server. Super annoying not being able to self upgrade RAM/SSD. If this thing starts struggling with swapping, I am going to personally tear Tim Cook's cold black heart out of his chest and jam it down his throat.

Thanks a lot, I‘ve been waiting so long for a real-world comparison about reactivity (like with the simulators) for coders instead of only benchmarks and behavior of programs for video editors and graphic designers. I had expected the 24GB model to perform reasonably better anyway, but what I would really be looking for, would be the same or a similar comparison for coders between the better equipped M2 Air model here and the 14-inch M1Pro model, to see how big the difference is here. Could you do that, please? Maybe for a video, that also includes Docker or VMs as you mentioned, you could compare these 2 models instead of the Air base model (or all 3 models, if necessary)? And in this case, could you also have a look not only at the difference in performance like in this video here, but also in the difference of battery drain with that sort of usage as shown in this video? That would be fantastic.

I love the portability of the air so I got a 24gb one and I've had no regrets. I never realized how much swap memory an 8gb ram would use.

For me, as a JS developer, I usually open 2-3 vscode, one xcode, one android simulator, and serveral docker instances(database and backend). And of course, 20+ chrome tabs open.

Next comparison should be with M2 24 Gb model with M3 Mac Pro with 18 GB, since they are closest to price range. Please do this comparison, will make it easy for people on the edge to pick loaded M2 Air or base M3 Pro. Please please please

I love the question Does anybody know what the home page of stack overflow looks like lol I thought about it and started laughing I've never even thought about that or scene it before today lol

Love mine, base model with 500 and 16 gigs. Perfect for traveling.

I got the M1 Air but upgraded to 16GB of RAM and don't regret it one bit. I haven't run into performance issues when running large Java and React projects and love the portability. I have kept an eye on memory usage, and as I suspected, it gets past 8gb but very seldom uses swap, specially when running multiple things and doing some heavy debugging (running docker containers with a Java backend and the database, and a React frontend, and debugging both using Eclipse and VS Code) plus a ton of Chrome tabs open on Stackoverflow, etc.

This is the best benchmark that could have been made, thank you for bringing it to youtube! I hope it will also be tried out for the next generation of laptops, it is in my opinion much more truthful than the many trivial tests that are out there

Alex thank you for exhaustive test every time.

Great video, thanks for this! I've been trying to decide & this really really helps. Can see what's going to end up happening down the road clearly with this example. And thanks to Svein for the idea as well. Also, shields up Alex! The Apple apologists are going to be gunning for you now...they're going to roast you for "using the machine in ways that it was clearly not meant for", and to simulate use cases for audiences that this machine is "clearly not meant for". Ignore these buffoons.

I just came home from some friendly bar run, and sat down to eat before I went to bed and laughed like crazy after the first 30 seconds hehe.. good stuff Alex.. exactly what I expected what you demonstrated here. real world usage is what makes the bread and butter for these machines. and yes, not even running vm´s. I tested the fusion for apple silicon, and the results of vmware fusion surprised me entirely (way to go vmware).

Would really like to see how the M2 Air is performing using VMs, Docker etc. since this is what I'm currently doing with my Workstation. I recently got a M1 Air Base Model and really appreciate it. Of course it is not that powerful but I'm planning to upgrade it but I'm not sure if M2 Air or M1 Pro 14 so a test with VM and Docker would be quite helpful :-) Thx.

Looking for Tests with Docker , Parallels and Fusion (16gb vs 24gb) Then is 24gb m2 air better value proposition compared to 16 or 32 M1 Pro 14 We also have to consider the notebookcheck review of m2 this is the best eye care macbook 1. No PWM 2. No Temporal Dithering For development and learning what is important is laptop that can be used for extended period without eye strain rather than peak brightness of mini led with eye strain due to PWM and dithering.

Really good video and most practical review of what a real day would be like dev.s always have 50 things going at once need that ram boost

By the way, going strong to 100K subs! Go Alex!

I'd want to see if 24 GB is worth the price increase over 16 GB honestly since I wouldn't buy an 8 GB computer of any kind these days. Heck, my phone has more RAM than the base MacBook Air.

Now I'm curious for the same, but with 16gbx24gb of ram

Compare the higher spec M2 with M1 Pro, since they are similar in price. Wonder which is a better value proposition

A good test to me would be checking how laptops perform when there are 6-8 browser windows open, with 15-20 tabs in each window. Do that and then run a few benchmarks to compare the two machines.

Alex, it would have been great if a 16GB model had been in the mix. I'm thinking about getting that one, and my use case is not too different from this example here. Also, I wonder if there is any noticeable difference in battery life between the 16GB and 24GB models (SSD >= 512GB for either) for this kind of work.

big question : what if you just got 16gb of ram but with the 256g ssd ? I bet it would be really really close.

Holy Crap, this is a real life stress test, thanks man

Never used the Macbook Air for more than Browsing, light photo and Video edits and socials. If you're studying or writing code the 16 is your baseline and industry professionals should be using the Mac Pro anyway

Ooooh...so that's how programmers compare the ram differences...I generally to the settings and check it..

One of the best things about chat gpt to me is the instant programming help which reduces my chrome tab use!

Alex you are one of the best blogger I ever seen. So intelligent. And you make a really useful content. You are Amazing. 👏🏻 Thank you for you work. You are one of the best discover on RU-vid for me in this year.

Great video. It seems like even the powerful M2 Air can't handle Android emulator properly.. Can you please make a similar video comparing the most expensive M2 Air with 14" M1 Pro?

very good vid thanks

Alex thank you for all these videos! best channel for developer oriented laptop reviews!! Would be great to compare docker builds time between m2 macbook air 24GB 512 GB and m1 pro max 64GB. Also some other compiling benchmark! between the 2 best laptops of the 2 apple silicon Gens!.

I expected a bigger difference. 8GB internal memory is not enough. I think 16GB is at least what most power users would choose. Still the air is nice capable machine... Kudos on the video! This is a real practice test of speeds instead of only look at specs and benchmarks.

2:49 This was the first time I've seen stakoverflow's home page TBH :V

Did you face any thermal throttling while coding

Yes, standard stuff, but thanks. For pro-users, it should be taken that 16GB is a minimum. No one doing this for a living should cheap out with 8GB when they make their living from their machine. In fact, if you are keeping for 5+ years then get 24GB of RAM to cover yourself for all possible projects and hardcore multitasking.

I'll admit that i saw the stackoverflow home page for the first time in this video.

To me what really shows that 8 isn't enough is the video where you ran an extra monitor via Display Link. There the 8 GB was all jerky and the 24 GB was smooth. 8 GB couldn't even do one extra Display Link monitor without problems.

Niceee Thank you for your great work

Hey Alex love your videos. With 8 GB of unified nemory and 6 GB of swap used on the base model. Does this mean that an upgrade to 16GB of RAM could have handled this test justvas well as the 24 RAM model?

Thank you colleague, it was helpful as I am looking for myself, not going coding but need to have power in reserve, if I want to make video or complete some test task, so decided for myself golden mean- 16 Gb.

Does anybody know what the home page of stack overflow looks like 😂😂. . . . Interesting video ✌🏼

8Gb ram model used 6Gb swap .. so it mean a 16gb M2 Mac air will do the same job with 0 Gb swap as your 24Gb model ! Lol You don’t have to spend so much money to purchase the 24Gb model. 😅

LOL - watching you turn down the audio… I’m thinking he knows there’s a single key to mute that next to the one he’s hitting right? :-)

hello, Alex can you do the video with Virtual Machines as a lot of folks works on virtual machines it will also show the capability of the m2 chip in the fanless system.

I like to virtualize OSs so 32GB for me which disqualifies the Airs.

buy the m2 8/8/16GB/512 and compare it with those 2 using the same test

I'm glad to see all devs use the same tools, google, stackoverflow, etc, xD

Would be grate to see the cpu temperature ( and if the mascheens are getting hot ) when you build the projects.

watching all these videos, simping over the M2 air. I wish I had the money to get one. I code a lot and windows laptops are... well windows laptops

Thank you Alex, but i dont find test between 16 and 24 😢

The left one was clearly lagging behind from the start, the times when it swapped were clearly visible. So I guess I got it right..?

What were the thermals like on both?

Great video Could you do a nodejs benchmark intel vs ryzen, please?

I noticed the one to the left had like 30 degrees more than the one to the right, in some parts of the video

Hey Alex... I really enjoy your videos a kot... Keep up the good work... I have a small request. So, I was thinking to get a M1 Pro (14 inch) [ - Base Model because Budget :( ], but confused if the Base Model (16 x 512) will be enough for my workload. I am a Backend Developer (mainly - but sometimes I have to do multiple things at the startup I work on - like, front end web apps etc.). I don't have Macs, and the people I know don't own M1 Pro or Max, so can't test on my own.... If the 14 inch cant handle the load, then what model & config I should opt for ? Will you please be able to to do a test on your device with my similar workload if possible ? Here is an example of my work style and load: 2 Visual Studio IDEs open with 2 different .NET Core Web API projects (I guess we have to use VS for Mac for better workflow in Mac), 1 VS Code window opened with a Node API Project, One Terminal Window with 2 APIs Running in 2 tabs + 3 extra tabs, 1 more Terminal window with 2/3 tabs, Docker running in BG, Postman opened with some collections, Teams, Notions, Zoho Email Client, Chrome with 16-18 Tabs, MS Edge OR Firefox Developer Edition with 5/6 tabs, 2 File Explorer Windows, Multiple Notepad windows, and some music in BG. My Current device is a Custom PC with Windows 10 Pro (Ryzen 5 3600 & 16 gb DDR4 RAM with GTX 1650 Super 4 GB) - handles everything pretty well and smooth. If you get time to do these and let us know, will be a great help for me and other people with similar workflow to decide what Model and Spec to go for. Thanks in advance.

Hey Alex, I’m not seeing the links to the XcodeBenchmarks running on clean M2 machines in the description… I got 100 seconds on my M1Pro MBP which isn’t bad i don’t think…

You do notice the difference but if you've a low budget and are a student then the base model can pretty much handle everything for you, just a bit slower lol

Alex please please do some Machine Learning test, and some tips and advise if i should buy one or not, I am really looking forward to buy 16gb ram 512 gb and 10 core gpu model and therefore I would love to know if it’s good enough for ML or AI(for learning only). Hope to see your video soon.

bro can i take m2 air for machine learning

What’s the M2 difference between the 2 laptops? Are they both using the base apple silicon option?

"Swap" is just a method of the computer using ssd instead of ram. Saying it as "swapping" is not correct. It gives the impression that it's some magic that swaps between ram and ssd. It's literally just a dedicated disk space in your SSD in case RAM overflows, and is also found in windows and linux based machines. It isn't "swapping", it is "using swap".

Very good approach to real usage. What would be the difference in such a test between your M2 Macbook Air (512 SSD, 24 GB) vs. a 14" M1 Pro base model (512 SSD, 16 GB) ?? Asking because the difference is just $100.

Hi Alex, thanks for all the details. I watched nearly all your MacBook-related videos. I still can't decide which to buy as my next Mac. I am currently using a MacBook Pro 15, produced in Mid-2015. It has I7 4770HQ + 16G RAM + 256G SSD. My Mac constantly freezes and is too hot to use. I am using Figma and vscode doing frontend web development. I like the Macbook Air M1 shape, look. I don't want the notch on the screen, but I am still afraid of regretting. The MacBook Pro keyboard is ugly too. 🙄 I love the magsafe too. I guess I have to just go get the cheapest Mac Studio or a 16 + 512 Mac Mini. 😅😂

mien. i would have wanted to see a M1 16gb along side these two. Anybody knows if the M1 air 16gb ram would have kept up with the M2 24gb?

Is it getting hot?

16 vs 24 plz

with base model of mba m2 8gb, for backend developer is it worht it ? daily using java + springboot, queue, docker, and sometimes nodejs....but i also learn flutter and devsec ops in my leisure time ? or should i use m2 pro with cooling system

For anyone have multiple hobby on computer, and want to run them all, 16GB is also minimum

at this point when up grading the M2 air its best to go with the m3 pro? just starting in programing i dont do video

i live in the suffer of owning mac has 8 GB memory i have all of that and if i use dongle for external monitor I lose connection and some times my mac shuts down. at least i can show any one tells me that i have a mac i will show him this video because they look at the mac as the super computer

I lean to 16gb as min since a a “practical” vm needs 8gb for itself.

Side question, Alex: how do you deal with the midnight smudges? Do you use something in particular to wipe them down, or just don't care? Is it a hassle in your experience, or is the color still worth it?

16 gb has been too small for 5 years at least, add that ram, coders will not regret it!

i was thinking to buy the "base model" for development, well i think i won't

after everything is opened will be mostly about memory

can you tell me that possible if I buy M2 mac for development on (mac app, window app, ios app, android app, linux app), my MacBook 15" 2019 can development for (mac App, ios app, android app, and web). but I need window machine to development for (window app and linux app)

O bought m1 air 8gb for these tabs are too much for me too ı bought it for my education in university 8gb ram is enough for students at least 5 years

​ @Alex Ziskind, since you have x86 and M1/M2 Macs laying around and seem to be interested in comparing them, have you tested Network Latency, Bandwidth, and Error Rate between them? I have an insanely old 2015 x86 Work MacBook Pro and a wildly newer M1 MacBook Air at home and I notice that pings to my router seem to be a few ms slower on my M1 MacBook Air with occasional lost packets ...

heyya alex, can you try it with m1 base vs m2 base. probably I think M1 would do much better

How many gigs of SSD in each one of the MBAM2 ?

Best youtuber

Is that really possible to open that many tabs and apps with 8gb ram ??PS: I am looking to switch from windows to MAC OS and I am not that familiar with memory consumption on that OS. Did you guys think 8gb is enough for programmer who use and some docker stuff ? I don't think if I use about 15-20gb of ram on average with Windows OS then it shouldn't be any different on mac OS or I am wrong ?

Which one is more logical purchase? M1 Air 16gb, 256 M2 Air 8gb, 256 For coding and development stuff....

Amazing!

One shot every time he says folks

wow more RAM, more performance!?????? revolutionary!!!

that Challenge is for real work of software Engineer

So sweet spot is 512 gb ssd and 16gb ram

Hope you have shown flutter to your friend Aivars ;)

What is swap?

Darn 8 GB of RAM + 6 GB of SWAP = 14 GB, even with all those fancy new development for mobile. 16 GB of RAM is enough for development.

I don't open more than 7 tabs on chrome/firefox, it bothers my sight (and my concentration too), xD

Hillarious. Thumb just for your funnies

i yolo and got the 64 gb one last year just to find out that i never crossed the 32 gb mark lol well i guess its future proof

I could see your leg hairs 😂😂