I am 30yo and have never owned a MacBook, I always have used a windows computer. I’m a huge apple fan, but have never been financially able to afford a MacBook, until now.. I ordered the Starlight M2 MacBook Air. I’ve done so much research on m1 and m2 and it was a real tough decision for me but ultimately I decided on m2 for the MagSafe, bigger screen, and design. I hope I made a good decision.. 😵💫
I feel you! I’m 26 years old from Brazil (here, Apple products cost double or more the price of US) and I only used an MacBook Pro in 2019 because I was lucky enough that the company that I worked for at the time provided me with one (2017 MacBook Pro 13” to be more exact). Since then (my internship ended at 2020), I have been dreaming and saving to my own MacBook. I finally got my hands on the 14” MacBook Pro (“premium model”) and it is amazing! I eased Windows for my whole life and since I was introduced the MacOS at 2019, I feel in love with it. I am sure you will love your new MacBook Air! If I can help you with anything concerning Windows vs Mac, let me know!
You made an amazing decision. You are going to love it. Even if you got the base model, you are still going to love it unless you do heavy video and photo editing.
As long as the software you want to run is available on the Mac, once you’ve learned how to use it - you’ll never miss Windows. Plenty of videos out there to help you on your new journey. Congrats! Hope you enjoy the switch as much as I have.
I've heard a few people complain that the Air doesn't have good enough thermal management. To those people, I say that they miss the point. The MBA is for your average user who's looking for something compact and portable, but isn't going to be regularly pushing the machine to its limits. That covers a MASSIVE amount of the market, including most of my family. And even when they do push the machine, its benchmarks are still incredibly impressive. Anything "left on the table" is just missing the point. For those who legitimately need to push a Macbook to its absolute limits, I say "get a MacBook Pro 14 or 16". Those machines are designed for your use case and you'll be much happier with the results.
This is where I feel the 13” Pro is useful. Not everyone has the $2000 for a base 14”, but they don’t want to be constrained by the thermal package of the Air. You lose some things, but at least performance can be sustained.
If this is the case, then why go for an M2 instead of M1? The M1 is great for light tasks, less heats, longer battery, and a faster SSD. This, in combined with the cheaper price, there is literally no reason for anyone (not looking for video rendering) to buy an M2.
My theory is that M2 was designed for N4 or N3 node but those are delayed, so M2 is thermally compromised compared to M1. We can clearly see what a wonderful and balanced piece of silicon the M1 is. Faster clocked M2 draws more power, so we have thermal constrains even in fan equipped Pro - and that throttling in Pro is completely unacceptable, but acceptable in fanless Air. It would be interesting to have 15” Air M2 with better thermals…
@@khangvinh4656 Mx is and will be baseline. Always. So Mx Pro/Max/Ultra will be for market demanding performance. M2 isn’t “more performant for you who ask more than M1 pro/Max”. No, it’s just new baseline. And because Air is their best selling laptop, they needed to put something more than just redesign to new version. So it makes more sense. Price bump, less so.
M1 and M2 are both with the 5nm technology and the M2 consumes more watts. Therefore, I'd expect that the M1 will throttle less because of the lower watts.
Been using the base model in midnight for about a month now. I rarely use it for my productivity workflow, as I'm waiting for M2 pro, but this is an extremely fast and reliable machine. For anybody who needs it for basic tasks, and maybe some light power tasks (maybe some video and photo editing, coding, etc.) the base model will function great, and I highly recommend it.
After seeing this, I'm glad I went with the base model 14 inch MacBook Pro. I was gonna spec up the MacBook Air, but I ended up getting a pretty good deal on the 14 inch. Nice review though, and the new MacBook Air looks like it will be a great everyday laptop for a lot of people.
@@laalbujhakkardid u get this config? I’m looking to buy the exact same but i wanna know if it runs hot during normal productivity (ms word, powerpoint, 10-15 pdfs open, 5-10 safari tabs)
I feel like because the m1 air was sooo successful that even prosumers and some pros chose it over previous intel machines and the m1 pro and m1 max. So to bring to how it used to be apple is trying harder and harder to differentiate between its consumer laptops and their pro level ones. One way is by making the entry level laptops a bit worse Oh and not to mention the absurd profit they are making on the 512 GB config over the base model anddd the worst part is that retailers usually heavily discount the base model macs, so even getting double the storage would mean paying 300$ more instead of 400$ (ofc, apple wants you to spend a bit more and get the Pro laptops)
Yeah basically buying anything but the base model for the MacBook Air M2 seems silly. IMO since the new computer fits in the middle most people would be better off with either the m1 air or MacBook Pro 14.
@@keyboardwarriorz 13” Macbooks are a lot more handy than even 14”, so there is a point against 14” even at comparable price, regarding 16 GB|512+ models. My M1 Air is lighter than my ipad Air with keyboard and way more capable of working.
I think going fanless on laptops are stupid because it has pretty inefficient heat dissipation. Some people buy the MacBook Air because they want to do heavy work loads but can't afford the pro. Apple should've NEVER went fanless!
It’s a good base laptop if you’re in the market. If you start checking the boxes for major upgrades and in the $1700-$1800 then you’re in MacBook Pro range with a better screen, more Ram, etc.
Thanks for the outdoor test! It's a really common use case for digital nomads, for example someone working outside at a coffee shop in Bali (or Costa Rica, etc.) It'd be fun to see how the 14" M1 Pro fares in comparison!! :)
But you won't sit there in direct sunlight which can easily heat up the shell to 50 or more °C on its own because you won't see anything on the screen then.
90 celsius?? Or in Fahrenheit? If it's a Fahrenheit, then it's not at all warm. I live in country which was experiencing 115-116 Fahrenheit continuously for 2-3 months
Man the new Air M2 looks so good, this thermal thing is just an extreme case I care none about that, it's a non-issue, the only thing I wished they had done is an SD-card slot.
What a beautiful internal, what a nice review, this Macbook Air M2 with no active cooling is a beast, is faster than Macbook Pro M1 with active cooling
There are no fans so the conductive cooling design is working backwards on the roof. Heat from outside the chassis going in. Computer did the right thing to protect itself.
Luke can you start testing how the "real world" performance is affected by hooking up external monitors to macbooks? whenever I do so, my fan always ramps up. This is a common use case I think.
Thanks for the real world review. I especially liked that you actually tried the laptop outside & under the sun. For me and where I live, sometimes working outside, it's not an unrealistic scenario. But the, 90 Fahrenheit is nothing. At summer, we easily get in our own sunshine part of this earth 105+ under the sun. Granted, I am not going to spend ages outside rendering things, but I might do enough video editing, enjoying a coffee by the beach. So probably not the best laptop for me or my wallet.
Watching this on my 2012 11" MBA that I got for free from work a few years ago because it was "broken" (loose keyboard ribbon cable causing shift lock and safe mode on boot), no plans to upgrade as long as this old sweetheart still runs fine
I still think that the M1 and M2 Macbook Airs are some of the best portable computers you can get. 99.99% of people aren't rendering 4K raw ProRes footage and uploading it to their channel with a million subscribers. The target audience for this will *never* come close to maxing out the performance of the M1 or M2. I think a lot of people over-buy when it comes to personal computers as most people are just using it for regular daily tasks.
Missing the point. The M2 is a downgrade on the M1 MBA because Apple made it too good. Doesn’t matter what ‘most people do’. It’s more expensive but less good than a two year old M1 MBA. The advertising slogan is not “Quite a bit less fast than last year’s model… but you’re not a power user are you”?
@@IdiotRace but it can't play a game consistently or copy stuff from and external ssd at any speed? Don't you want to know it's less good than the M1 MBA?
@@pauljazzman408 Has anybody tested gaming stuff on the M2 Air? I mean most games won't hit the cpu anywhere near as hard as something like cinebench will. I mean Luke could do with expanding his benchmarks from the usual apple stuff really. Also I thought copying files isn't really cpu intensive, or are you talking about the downgraded NAND being used? I mean I'm on the fence with the M2 air, I've been tempted to trade my M1 MBP in for one but this thing runs so cool I dunno if I want to switch to a passively cooled device.
absolutely. people spend crazy amount of money on features they don't actually need. M1/M2 are super fast processors. it will suit 90% of workloads; "pro" or not. stop buying into marketing bullshit; if it works for you it works for you it doesn't matter how apple's marketing team wants to upsale you the "pro" version or whatever. reading people say "well it's good for internet and excel" is driving me nuts; the fastest intel machine from 2 years ago had comparable performance and it was indeed marketed as "the pro machines for the real pro who do pro stuff on their pro computer"
I think the problem with the Air is that it has gotten so good that users want to do more things with it and are actually attempting to buy down the Fruit company price segments thinking they don't have to pay the King's ransom that the company charges for its "performance" hardware. Well, surprise! The low rent level hardware is good, but it won't replace jack. It will make doing simple things faster, but it is taxed beyond its capabilities to do heavy lifting. Of course it is thermal throttling - it has no cooling solution of competence because of its thin profile. And if it wasn't thin, it would be an Air. Right? So you get what the design restrictions are placing and you'll pay the Fruit premium to get an actual cooling solution.
At the end of the day the air is meant for light work not heavy work. If u want to edit 8k videos and much more go ahead and do yourself a favor and get the 14 mbp
well I'll continue doing pro audio work with my MBA M1 and it will continue to be a flawless experience and there is nothing you or apple can do about it
I just bought a 2022 MBA with 256 GB storage and 16 GB memory in the Midnight color. I am coming from a 2014 Macbook Air with 120 GB storage and 4GB memory. Honestly, I probably could have kept my old MBA another 2 years, but I don't think I'll be able to update the software that much longer. I'm excited to see how snappy the new computer is and to finally have a computer that doesn't get bogged down easily. The 2014 version has been an amazing little machine and I hope I can say the same about the 2022!
the outdoor example may not be as realistic, but its summer in the Western Hemisphere and some of us still gotta do work even if our rooms don't have AC :(
With price bump, they pretty much killed it. For the money one could get more SSD. And I think at least 512 GB is good baseline these days. Yes, 256 GB is not enough even for regular student/light office work. Once you spec this machine with 512 GB SSD and 16 GB of RAM, you are getting into price of basic 14” MBP. Which has much, much more to offer.
@@TimonSchuetz I’m from Europe, too. Slovakia :). Given the average income here it’s even more noticable. We can buy Apple stuff no problems, iPhone is one of the most bought phones here (and not because of some luxury status) but it’s noticable. 200 euros difference is worth of groceries for one month. Or heck, money you would spend on those 512 GB SSD
@@ZhuJo99 Apple isn't a luxury brand in the USA idk why people call it luxury. Windows laptops cost the same if not more the better the specs. And we pay the lowest prices in the world for apple products lol
@@christopherfortney2544 well I'm saying that even here in Slovakia it's not taken as a luxury brand. Premium, relatively high priced? Yeah, sure, in comparison to el cheapo Acer crap. On the other hand when I see people pushing full shopping carts every week stepping into their quite new cars I wonder why :) I take it simply - if it's a work tool, it doesn't bother me as why - it will pay itself in barely one job. And then it just makes money. Moreover, you will still sell it at quite premium few years later, while cheap brands will have battery died already, trackpad that never worked on par with Apple's one, plastic body that is making sounds and bending like crazy. And on top of that, nice heat generator and sound effects of the airplane.
I like the warm test…we live in SE Asia about 6 months a year, and our computers are NEVER in an air conditioned environment. Good to understand. Thanks.
Thanks Luke. I’ve definitely been Thermal throttling in the heat in Uk heatwave. Ha ha. Love that. We’ll that is exactly what some of us feared after the M2 MBP exposé. But to see how far it throttled. Wow that is a shocker. I’m a Mac fan but this is sad for the Mac as a brand. The whole Apple silicon switch over has been great so far. This is a significant bump or pothole in that road.
Omg Luke. You said the funniest comment ever, I couldn’t handle it, I was even thermal throttling. I don’t know why but that caused me to pause the video for 10 minutes just cracking up.
What about just pointing a fan at it and see what happens? I used to have a fan next to my MBP on the desk and it did keep it cooler, but I never benchmarked it.
It would be nice to see how well the m2 MBP performs in the direct sun on a hot day. It must use the chassis to some extent as a heat sink and if the passive temp is over 30 Celsius it must take some edge off the performance surely - obviously not as much as the non fan model, but some effect must be measurable, right?
Yup that was my thought - especially as direct sunlight will heat up the chassis more than the ambient temp. It may have been more illustrative to run the test in the shade
If there's one thing I feel that needs to be pointed out about the M2 MacBook Air it would be the fact that it has lost its iconic tapered wedge design F
@@chaschuky999 I personally enjoyed the wedge design since it put the keyboard and trackpad at a slight angle which allow me to type more comfortably on a table surface for extended periods (unlike both gen retina and unibody MBPs which would hurt my wrist after a while). It's interesting seeing different preferences from ppl.
Looking forward to your video tomorrow. One question I am interested in is whether we have a parallel of the 14”MBP where less graphic cores actually ends up performing better (or not meaningfully worse) in real life/stressed out situations.
Curious to know, if you put the MacBook air on ice pack or with external fan, would it remove the thermal throttle? I like that it's silent with no fan, but if we need to do some heavy rendering, would that be a solution by using the external cooling method?
I would say that sensible people will not run benchmarks when the sun is at 80 degrees plus! Common sense is your first weapon against thermal throttling!
Was really hoping the M2 Air would be another hit, like the M1 Air was. So disappointing. When you spec up the RAM, SSD, and core count it’s 1,699 USD. At that point, you’d be better off with the 14 inch Pro. The thermal throttling is the nail in the coffin. I mean, sure, it’s fan less. But the M1 Air performs well under load. Kinda just feels like Apple is gimping their lower end products to force you to buy their more expensive stuff. Still love the Midnight color option tho!
Yes, I ignored the nonsense spouted by the YT cabal, and went with M2 MB Pro 13 as a fan is always better than no fan and I am not really worried about the aesthetics or 1080p camera or MagSafe (rarely plugged in).
The performance cores being completely disabled is very reminiscent of Low Power Mode behavior on iOS devices. When playing graphically intensive games on my iPhone 12 Pro Max, the A14 Bionic notoriously loves to head up causing some serious display dimming. Once I learned that enabling Low Power Mode disables the performance cores, I have seen screen dimming occur less and my device has been running a whole lot cooler.
Be interesting to see how much different the with the 16GB RAM model does with generating heat. With more RAM the Apple chip will have to swap less and swapping is a CPU intensive task. Swapping both works the CPU harder it also slows down the execution of the running application since the CPU is stopping to swap then restarts the app. Being I used to do tech support and a SysAdmin seeing computer I've computers swap themselves to death because someone was cheap didn't get enough RAM. They'd say... why buy more the computer will just swap and swap and swap and swap till it freezes up. So Apple why in 2022 would you even come out with a computer with only 8GB of RAM.
Swapping technically isn’t CPU intensive at all, it just bottlenecks the CPU and forces it to do nothing while it waits several hundred thousand clock cycles for the page to arrive from the SSD. It will still show high CPU usage in activity monitor during swap heavy operations because the CPU is technically still “occupied” (it can’t do anything else while it’s waiting), but it’s usually just running NO-OPS (a very lightweight “do nothing” instruction) in a loop. Swapping does have a fairly heavy power consumption penalty, but it’s more because of SSD power usage than it is because of the CPU itself.
The general rule is higher NAND storage, the faster the machine and the greater RAM, the same. If speed is important then get higher configs. If it is your business then max out for full potential.
Did Luke get sunburned spending a datetime with the MBP air outside in the sun ? Can't really recommend the base model M2 air, the ssd speed, thermal throttling. to get 512gb + 16gb mem it lands at almost same price as the MBP max base model.
I'm pretty sold on the 8core gpu/cpu with 16-512 configuration. Happy it has a pretty substantial increase from the previous generation. Regarding the outdoor test, i see same-day event editors like wedding SDEs being in that situation. If that were the case, 14 and 16 would be the go-to's.
I don’t think any computer should be expected to run in that environment. Even finding a little bit of shade would have made it run a lot better. After all, if you leave your iPhone outside in the sun, it usually shuts off.
In some countries you would only be a few hundred dollars/pounds short of getting a 14” Mac Pro MBP or at the same price on Amazon. If you value aesthetics more then go for it. Smudgy and chippy as the new midnight blue is.
@@mbvglider yes but the point is the M2 MBA runs hotter than a M1 MacBook Air. Are you never going to take you M2 MBA to a coffee shop or in your back garden or park?
Great reminder that anticipated ambient temperatures might be a decision point on the MBA for some users. I have been fairly impressed with how quickly the M1 MBA can dissipate heat after becoming heat soaked in a 75 degree climate controlled environment. I'm hoping Apple did their homework and my new M2 MBA will be able to do the same.
Finally, a video that compares the m2 air to the m1 mbp, everyone is comparing it to the m1 air and m2 pro but i think a lot of people with the m1 mbp are going to upgrade to the m2 air for the magsafe and screen.
Really nice, balanced look, Luke. Those were great tests to run to see how the fanless system would work while making it clear that it's just not the norm. This seems to be a beautiful and perfect laptop for most people's needs
Yes, it would be very interesting to see how other MacBooks like the M1 air, 14 inch M1 pro, and maybe the 16" inch M1 pro and/or 13" MacBook Pro M1/M2. These extreme conditions are not always completely unlikely. I know I was trying to work on my computer during my kid's sports event and it was really hot. I was in the shade not direct sun but it did seem like I was having some issues with thermo throttling. I mean it is a laptop and you are likely going to use it outside on the go at some point even if you are in the shade instead of direct sun.
I personally think the Air is designed and positioned really well. It's more than enough for most people, and a really really good laptop if you look past it's quite high price, and for those who will use it heavily and the thermal throttling is a porblem for, they will instead just be pushed towards the more expensive Pro models which is even better for Apple.
Thank you for mentioning room temperature. In our area, we cannot cool our home to 74 degrees when it’s nearly 100 degrees outside. That would make a difference if you lived in a hot area vs in a cooler area such as Alaska.
My take: thermal throttling works as it should. There's probably enough headroom to get high performance for my typical use cases. Thanks for this video-great job.
I don’t understand why MacBook Air reviews always revolve so heavily around stress testing it well beyond the point that almost every MacBook Air owner will ever push it.
That is because M1 MacBook Air did so well during all those heavy tasks that even Pro users started use the Air for their work. Apple did it dirty for M2 base model laptops.
@@theyeshhh But the m2 Air is more powerful so will of course create more heat and have more thermal challenges as it has no fan. Clearly the M2 Air is far better than the M1 Air in some workflows, and 10-20% better in the rest, but that is because it uses more power. So your comparison is false as you are comparing a slower product with a faster product.
Luke! You love crazy tests. I have a crazy M2 Air test for you: In a controlled environment, loop cinebench for one hour once machine hot and throttled. Then do the same with a loop of loud bass heavy music playing full volume from the speakers, from an app that doesn't use much energy (like a local quicktime player music file, eg not youtube streaming. I have a suspicion that the speaker drivers moving air in and out of the enclosure will help it ventilate better - speakers are where the exhaust vents used to be. So it might be faster, and/or cooler, when playing bass heavy music with those speaker drivers moving. :) Of course, this is ridiculous, and a ridiculous test, but I'm keen to see. :)
Hmm, it sounds like the throttling is also based on some proximity sensors, maybe to make sure the external temps aren’t scalding? Given that this is supposed to be the model intended for general computing, I don’t see the throttling being an issue, and push comes to shove the thermal pad mod is always there
I think realistically if anyone is trying to get any kind of intensive work done - they should be looking at the 14 inch Pro. It’s amazing how thin the Air is, from a design perspective it’s honestly kind of stunning. But I don’t think anyone desperately needs a device to be more portable than the 14 inch already is. I got a 512GB Air - but to be quite honest it’s mostly just as a fun media consumption machine with some occasional World of WarCraft on the couch
