The M2 MacBook Air Is Compromised 

The a1534 was a meme. I don't know what made it worse, the fact that it used almost a dozen chips for USBC muxing and charging, any of which failing would stop it from charging, or the frequency with which the CPU or SSD controller would die for no good reason. The 2015 12-in MacBook deserves a spot on the Hall of Shame along with the beeping a1237 and a13 '04 air with it's horrible hinges, beeping MCP79U, battery that would turn the computer into a pear upon expansion and flex cable in the hinge that would fry the audio

Quinn: “Now, you’re sitting on the toilet, watching this video” me: ***looks nervously around the bathroom***

That 12-inch MacBook is one of my favorites and is much better than most give it credit. My wife has been using it since new without complaint and only recently thought it to be a a bit slow and upgraded to the M1 MacBook Air. As for the M2; I love the design and most will never notice any throttling or issues, but sadly it cost more and I agree on the cost cutting which is a bit frustrating. After thinking a lot about what people have been saying about it and the absence of Jony Ive, I think I miss the days when we had Jony at the helm, but with Steve Jobs to balance him out.

I don’t generally comment on videos, but this is a masterpiece. Piles of research, well timed and easy to understand points, seamless B roll, and just one single overarching theme throughout the whole video. Simplicity is everything and you’ve just nailed it.

Lets be real, even a processor with half as many cores as the M2 would be more than enough to do what the 12" was designed for. A super portable, high quality office machine

Great video, totally agree! Even iFixit showed that Apple essentially removed the proper heatsink for this weird metal shielding while leaving an empty space that would've been perfect for a heatsink. My take, Apple reuses this exact logic board in the M2 iPad Pro. Still a great machine though for simple use.

wow i’m really impressed by this review. I was expecting a standard affair like every other youtuber, but snazzy took an unconventional approach to comparing the new air to the 12in which i loved. kudos

4:01 Small correction: the M1 iMac definitely DOES have a fan, and sometimes two, depending on if you buy the base config or spec it up. And as someone that owns one, unfortunately it is NOT silent under load.

I had the first generation of this 12" MacBook with the Intel Core M, and as a student it was wonderful, I loved it so much

As a life-long PC user (who was running an absolute slab of a Thinkpad when the 2015 Retina MB came out), I do have to say that those things were the closest I'd ever been to buying a Mac. I remember seeing them around, and seriously considering picking one up just because of how small it was. I didn't end up doing it after testing the keyboard out at an Apple store, but it remains, to me, the most compelling product Apple has ever offered.

The M1 Air is still enough for most music and video production needs, I know of many pros using one, due to its weight and battery life, and importantly cost. The M2 tries to offer more, but raises the price, negating the benefits. Plus the base model M2 air is slower on SSD speeds. I know many will buy the m2 air, but practically, if you have an M1 in any variety you can smile knowing that you still own in my view the best purchase of the last few years.

I'd argue that the "simplification" of the internals is for greater repairability. Look at those generous battery pull tabs, the modular ports, the simple internal structure... Apple said that macs would also be a part of the self repair program in the near future and I think this points to that

my guess with this restrained logic board design is simply so that apple can take this exact same board and place it in every other m2 device, iMac, Mac mini, iPad pro, etc, etc. without having it modified and thus driving the cost down...

If Apple released this design today, with an M1, I would 100% buy one.

It’s very sad that Apple are releasing a second gen product that in terms of engineering / design is (in some ways) inferior to its predecessor. Deliberately cutting corners and yet upping the price! The lack of a heat sink makes it thermally flawed, plus the base model has slower storage than M1

You are by very far the best tech RU-vidr. The quality and creativity of the analysis is just so far beyond the same old stuff everyone else is putting out

It's not the first to thermally throttle. Verge tested M1 MBA vs M2 MBA, and the M1 version throttled more than the M2 MBA. What do I think. Snazzy making mountains out of molehills again.

Quinn always has the most interesting and unique takes on products… so glad I found Snazzy.

I still use and love my 12" MacBook - it is - without any doubt - THE best computer Apple ever designed and made.

the only problem i have with jony leaving is because the macbook wedge design was so good and iconic!

Man that thing is just neat, an M1 version would be awesome! The ThinkPad Nano is a pretty cool modern equivalent at least, weighs exactly the same and is pretty much compromise free.

To be fair, the 16" Intel MacBook Pro would perform MUCH better if it was installed in the 16" M1 MacBook Pro chassis and if it had USB-C PD 3.1 to supply it with more power.

You’re spot on, Schnazzy. I have a 12” MacBook and was really hoping the new MacBook Air was going to something around that form factor and it wasn’t. To this day, I pick that thing up and am amazed of it’s weight and design, most people also want to know what it is, as they themselves are stunned at how light and small it is.

"they have increased margins rather than pushed the boundaries" Pretty much sums up every corporation in the 21st century.

My dad loves his 2017 12" MB cuz he likes carrying it around with one hand funnily 😅. But, imagine an M2 MacBook and how light it would be!

I'll never forgive Apple for ditching the cooling metal plaque that was present in the m1 air, for a flimsy bit of steel of the same dimensions without the cooling capabilities. This is where you can see them cutting costs and riding the hype wave. I was so eager to get an m2, but in real use, theres no reason to go for it over the m1.

Great video! The 12” Retina was my daily driver for more than 5 years. It was the first Mac in our entire family. After a month of using this machine and MacOs, I switched the entire family to the 12” MB and ditched every Windows device we had. We are still using a couple of them today. By far the best laptop ever made for the average business person, student or normal user. The keyboard was not as bad a everyone made it out to be. Not amazing but it was good enough. The single USB port is just not an issue for 98% of users. I would give up my 14” MBP without hesitation for a new 12” MB with an M1 and the same sub 2 lb weight, same thin design and even the same keyboard if I had to. The camera was complete garbage and would have to be much better though. I’ve had the 14” MBP for 8 months and have never used more than 10% of it’s potential. It is an amazing laptop, amazing screen, camera, keyboard, processor and battery life, but, it’s too big and too heavy. I really only use it at my desk because I don’t want to carry it around. I don’t even bother to take it out of my bag on an airplane. I opt for an iPad instead any time I leave my desk. The 12” MB on the other hand was perfect for travel, airplanes and for lugging around in a backpack or from one meeting room to another. The new 14” Air is close to perfect and I might make the switch. Just wish they would have gone smaller and lighter. I miss Jony Ive. Jony wasn’t the problem, Intel was.. Jony and Apple Silicon would have been an amazing combo. All the new battery powered Apple stuff is too big. They caved to the battery and port shaming from the Tech You Tubers who don’t represent the average user. 12” MB and iPhone 8 were the best size for me. Both easily lasted a full day. My iPhone 13 Pro last 2 full days. 14” MBP last 2 full days. Why? Again, iPhone 13 Pro, 14” MBP are an amazing devices, but, an iPhone 8 thinness with the screen, processor and camera of an iPhone 13 would be perfect even if the battery only lasts 1 day. Probably not possible but a worthy dream.

This whole review made me smile so wide, and honestly, never would have thought I would over a review on a laptop. This was just so inspired and filled with so much strong emotion that it's really nothing short of compelling for even a casual techie like me. Absolutely loved that final line "Forget the sun, it seemed that Apple didn't even leave Earth's orbit" OOF too REAL, too good

One of the best videos I've seen this year. Well done Quinn. Solid arguments. LBH, if the new Air looked like that retina MB, the demand would be 3x.

I still have a 12" MacBook and can't seem to part with it even though I rarely use it. It really was and still is a marvel of technology. BTW, this issue with thermal throttling on the M2 seems to me to be way blown out of proportion. The M2 Air was made for standard use for regular folks, not people crunching video and graphics all day. The idea was to differentiate enough that professionals or semi professionals would and should move up to the Pro line of laptops.

I bought an M3 Macbook in 2017, upgraded to the M1 Macbook Air in 2022. I was so surprised by how much bigger and heavier the computer was. I also was surprised that it didn’t feel that much faster. It is noticeably faster but I was expecting to be blown away based on reviews. Also surprisingly I never had an issue with the keyboard.

I remember buying a dead 12" Macbook back in 2015. Upon opening it I was shocked to see how small the logic board was!

I've owned the 2016 Retina MacBook for a while, and while I've since upgraded to a MacBook Air M1, I miss the impossibly thin and light design so much, and if apple were to have put a m1 or m2 in a revamped version, it would be a no brainer buy for me and many people like me

Great vid! Loved my 2015 MacBook used it all the way until last year as a content consuming device and then swapped to the MacBook Air which feels huge in comparison. Don’t get me wrong I struggled with it it was nearly unusable toward the end but loved the form factor!

I do also think its important to consider the availability of silicon and various electronic parts in the market right now. Apple, with its size can probably lessen the effects of such a market wide shortage, but I doubt they are immune to it. There may be signs of cost cutting seen in the product but to what extent was that done to mitigate the cost increase of raw materials which can be upwards of 50% from last year.

I bought the M2 Air with the student discount and a special promo at the Apple store, which saved me $250, so it was definitely worth it for me. I’m planning to trade it in when the new M2 14 MBP comes out so I bought the cheapest model, expecting to lightly edit on LR and code for school👍🏻

As someone upgrading to the M2 Air from a 2018 MPB, I am still excited. But as someone who has used the 12" MacBook you're comparing against, this video is describing what I wish the M2 Air was.

Great writing, and I really enjoyed this perspective! I hope the designers at Apple watch this.

I bought that 12in in June 2016, as stopgap until MBP 2016 was available. I used it for 9 months and it was utterly useless for iOS development. For general use, it was a bliss. A lawyer bough it off me and was super happy with it.

I loved the 12” and would love for Apple to try to create a successor. But let’s not forget that it was pretty expensive for what it was - comparing it to a MacBook Air now is pretty unfair, as that’s Apple’s lowest end computer. Also Apple’s naming is super frustrating - the fact that the 12” wasn’t called the Air still grates 😫

I really wish that Apple had revitalized the MacBook as their fanless computer rather than removing the fan from the Air. The M1 chip in my 13" MBP is plenty for my job as a professional video editor - sure, if we were shooting raw and doing crazy VFX the 14 or 16 inch models would be a better fit, but we aren't so it's unnecessary cost. The M2 Air would have been a very nice upgrade to my 13" MBP with it's better design, lack of Touch Bar, addition of MagSafe, and of course, faster chip - if it wasn't thermally constrained. The 13" M2 MBP only has one of those benefits, and therefore isn't worth the upgrade to me, but because the Air can't cool itself, I'm left waiting until the M3 or whatever else comes next. All of this could have been avoided if Apple had left the fan in the Air and instead brought back the MacBook as their new entry level fanless option.

My wife has had the 12" macbook since it first came out. She loves it. And while it's woefully underpowered for me to use I am constantly jealous of the weight of it compared to my 2022 13" MBP. She does a ton of photo processing on it and she's really really unwilling to give it up for a bigger machine.

I remember at the time people complaining about apples obsession with thinness, now they complain they aren't thin enough. People are never happy.

I had an 11” MBA for a moment years back and it was my favorite Mac I’ve ever used, the lightness and tiny form factor made it seamless to bring everywhere. Perhaps the M2 MBA landing at $1199 indicates potential to replace the M1 MBA with a callback to the MacBook with a release of a super light M1 powered device, hopefully keeping the $999 price point and fitting nicely in the lineup.

Great deep dive! I used to love the 12" MacBook. At the time I had 13" MBP Retina 2013. A powerhouse laptop, but it was really heavy sitting besides the MB 12". Now I'm at M1 and I sincerely feel I have a device that sits between those 2 machines from back then. M1 can handle graphics fairly well and it's thin and light!

Still rocking my 2017 12inch MacBook, my first MacBook that it still incredible light and also great battery life when compared to my other windows laptops. I would instantly buy if they made an M2 (or even M1) 12inch MacBook

"Increase margins rather than push the boundaries", pretty much sums up. I doubt Apple has it in them to do something like the 12' macbook now. Hard to make a case for it in the spreadsheets.

I had the 12” MacBook and loved it. I still have it and am amazed how small it is. I used it to work offsite regularly and it was just awesome for portability. The big negatives for me were the one usb-c port and the keyboard didn’t feel right but I could overlook that due to size.

"Apple is at its best when it tries to fly a little close to the sun" very much true. The M2 Air just isn't remarkable. The price for the base model increased 20% while having the storage chip downgraded, and while it's thin, it doesn't feel any thinner compared to the classic wedge design. It simply looks... new. It's missing the Apple charm.

I think you are absolutely wrong. the m2 macbook air is the first macbook air that I would buy or recommend to other people. it‘s an awesome machine and the throttle is non existent for users that use this machine. if you need a computer for heavy load you get a macbook pro, it is that simple. you can easily edit 4k videos on this without slowing down in any way. this is not noticable unless you compare apples to peas.

I think the concerns about thermal throttling on a MacBook Air (!) show how ludicrous the standard is for Macs. However, this video is great for pointing out how lower risk and higher profit might stifle innovation. Great video and food for thought. Personally, I would get this Mac if iPads were not as great as they are. I rarely use a personal laptop anymore; almost everything I do daily my iPad Air can handle, and I prefer it to a laptop anyway.

I have the 12" MacBook, it was amazing for its time and I hoped the new Air would go back to that form factor. Fanless, tiny, powerful (for the time with the M7, I did all my programming work on it) and just great to carry everywhere with you.

Such a good retrospective on the 12" MacBook, Quinn! In my opinion, since iPads have M1 chips and be just fine, I was hoping for them to put one in a 12" MacBook form factor, with a Magic Keyboard and a better webcam. 12" MacBook was so unbelivably portable, and I wish I could have it with Apple Silicon architecture.

Apple has moved to a more realistic approach that focuses on what the consumer actually wants and what is practical. While this generation of the air may be underwhelming, going back to the pursuit of thinness would be a mistake.

Totally agree. I had a MacBook back when it came out and loved the fanless design but the processor was not good.

"now youre sitting on the toilet,watching this video" me-staring to look around😂

I still, to this day, think the 2015 MacBook Retina is one of the coolest laptops apple ever made. I wanted one so bad when they came out but could never justify the cost

Fantastic video, I always wanted the Retina MacBook. Never bought one due to the butterfly keyboard… Would love to see Apple give it another go with the new keyboard and Apple Silicon. (Plus I’m actually in a position now to buy one than I was 7 years ago)

I still use my 12” MacBook. It was exactly what I was looking for when I bought it. I never understood the hate that it got. Maybe that’s because I never experienced the issues that people complained about. It definitely got hot and slow when editing a video but that wasn’t unexpected.

The 12” MacBook is still my travel machine (companion to my once 15” and now M1 Max 16”) The form factor and weight is unbeatable, I really wish they’d make an Apple Silicon version.

We’ve gone from lambasting Apple’s innovation to now missing it dearly.

I wrote my full master thesis for months on a 12“ MacBook. I was able to have hundreds of documents and tabs open at the same time without any issue. It was one of the best MacBooks I ever used, mostly only by the fact that i could carry it everywhere. It fullfilled a job that the next best small computer-like device (the ipad) never could. But it aged poorly, so i had to replace it. I would instantly buy a m1 or m2 version of it.

This video is absolutely bonkers! Loved every bit of the writing and explaining.

The old designs were exactly why we shouldn’t let designers run engineers and computer scientists, and vice versa honestly.

This is pretty much what has been on my mind for awhile with apple. Make no mistake. The m series is amazing. I’m running adobe cc on a mba m1 with only 8gb of mem and it works great. That being said you nailed it. this came to light for me when trying to get a problem fixed via apple support. Theyare not putting $ into certain aspects of the biz and it is all about squeezing every ounce out of everything. Even the tech i talked to on the phone mentioned they hear this when people are trying to solve issues. Still enjoy my apple products and also wish they would respect their users a bit more.

Finally someone said it! I love the 12” Macbook, and I’m jealous of everyone who bought it. I bought the mid-2015 15” Macbook Pro and it was heavy. I thought of future-proofing and I was right. Buuut seeing M1’s capabilities, I was wishing that the Macbook would have a resurgence. Thanks for this vid Quinn. I kinda needed someone to be on the same boat with me.

I’m literally freaked out I had to pause the video. How did he know I was sitting on the toilet. I LEGIT just sat dow🤣

You can't talk of the 12" MacBook, without talking about the fact that it wa the first (if I remember correctly) to have an SSD soldered to the motherboard; and as I got to experience personally - The computer had a tendency to brick itself in a way that was often unrepairable (I even sent this MacBook to Louis Rossman who returned it without being able to fix it). This design meant that you could not, generally, recover any information that was on the drive. Ever since the 16" MacBook Pro, Apple has had a trend of, what seems to be, listening to what their clients want. Such was the repleacement of the butterfly keyboard. the larger displays, the larger chassy to allow better thermal performance and the return of magsafe. In general, The MacBooks (specifically the pros) have gotten better. They still need to allow upgrading and also - stop using soldered RAM and SSDs to help users protect their information... but to sum up: listening to what users complained about and changing the design accordingly is not a bad thing that I would like to see Apple go back on.

Absolutely loved the "story"telling of this video. It felt like a scientific paper in video form!

Jony ive's loveform website is still literally just a letter.

Was actually sat on the toilet watching this. Made me laugh out loud 😂

I had a 12” MacBook with top-end processor and it was amazingly slow. Last booted it almost four years ago because the battery had died after a logic board replacement and it could only be run off battery. It drove me to drink. Looking forward to my long-awaited maxed-out MacBook Air M2 to server as my first portable Mac since then.

Spot-on video! Since it’s debut I knew the 12-inch MacBook wasn’t a practical computer for me as of unfortunate compromises, but it seemed like a revolutionary and interesting computer from a technological standpoint because it was so different from every other MacBooks at the time.

I don't get all the criticism about thermal throttling with the M2 MBA. It only throttles when you push the chip to the extreme which literally no one who buys this computer will do. My 65 year old mom ordered this computer. It will handle her web browsing and emailing perfectly. Anyone who wants performance already owns a MacBook Pro.

I definitely respect this perspective but I don't think I agree. The M1 MacBook Air was essentially an iPad chip in a design meant for Intel chips, it's no wonder it didn't throttle much because the chip was designed for a smaller thermal envelope and the laptop was designed for a hotter chip. Apple could quite easily have given M2 the same small performance increases over M1 as A15 over A14 while actually reducing power consumption or keeping it the same, but they decided to push what it can do to the limits of what the chassis can handle. It's not like this is an Intel chip that throttles so much it performs worse than the last generation (or a lower end version of the same generation). M2 throttled still outperforms M1 unthrottled, but it can get even more performance in short bursts, which is really what the MacBook Air is meant for. To address your comparison to the 12" MacBook, the MacBook Air has been somewhat of an afterthought for years now, it's just a cheaper echo of the Pros from 1-3 years ago. In 2018 the MacBook Air got redesigned with a slightly worse version of the exact same things the Pros had already had for 2 years, it's not supposed to be new and innovative, that's what the 14" and 16" Pro were for, it's supposed to be thin, light, well made and relatively cheap.

I had the same feeling about the new Macbooks Pro. Sure, they do what pros want them to do, but the hardware design is incredibly pedestrian. I guess if computers are nothing more than tools, it shouldn’t matter too much what they look like, but at the same time, I don’t typically think of Apple as a boring design company, and the new Macbooks Pro were the first Apple laptops in years that I thought looked pretty boring and uninspired.

Just imagine if Apple would use their engineering resources to design a laptop like the Framework laptop or a Fairphone... But that would actually require being environmental and consumer friendly, they can't do that...

The form factor of the 12 inch MacBook was a work of art and I miss it so much. The M1 MacBook Air is the machine that comes closer to that experience, with some drawbacks and enhancements. I pair my M1 MBA w/ an M1 iPad Pro and I it’s working perfectly. The MBA had I hard time in a fairly common situation for me: participating on a video call while sharing the screen using a heavy web app (like a big google sheet) and trying to record the whole thing at the same time. The only area my MBA struggles is totally addressed by the combination of these two machines, specially now with universal control. My go to setup right now is to enter calls on both the iPad and Mac, using the center stage camera to broadcast myself and the laptop to share the screen. This setup works perfectly with the “companion” feature in google meet, so now I don’t really need anything else and I have the best of all worlds. An M1 12 inch MacBook would be the only thing to make my head turn again

4:07 speaking on that, if i'm not mistaken because obviously it actually used efficient silicone it used the core m chips, it didn''t have thermal issues like the 2020 macbook air did

I don't expect they will try the thinness of the old air again, they have the ipad pro to replace that. I expect they are looking to replace the 13" macbook pro with the air in the near future.

“Now you’re sitting on the toilet watching this video…” Guilty as charged.

Hey, don’t monitor me. I am literally sitting on the T doing my job.😂

Damn called out for pooping I feel attacked.

2:35 I’m actually watching this on the can and I was startled

I love my 2016 MacBook. No fan also means no vents to get clogged or fans to get noisy too. Does everything I need it to do.

Gold first gen MacBook owner here. No power house but it was truly a fantastic computer. I’d buy another in that form factor in a heartbeat. The lightness and size just can’t be understood unless you had it and used it.

The base spec M2 has a slower SSD, would this make the M1 base spec a faster machine overall in real-world use? I've watched so many videos about these Macs and nobody has addressed this.

I owned a MacBook. Within a few weeks I had the first one replaced due to graphics issues, then the second one had the same issue. I took that back and didn’t bother with a third. I then replaced my 2015 MacBook Pro for a 2018 MacBook Pro. Thermal throttling and more graphics issues, with a failing keyboard that was honestly painful to use after a short time. The 2018 was maxed out, other than stopping at the 1tb SSD. I still have the 2018 and have never hated a laptop so much. Until you reminded me of the MacBook.

The MacBook Air is that it needs to be thin, light and being the entry-level in Apple's laptop lineup, cheap(ish). I'm sat here typing this on an M1 Air and I can't think of a single reason why I'd want the M2 version. If I were buying today I'd still buy the M1 Air over the M2. It might seem 'dated' to some but it's still a great laptop and it does everything an entry-level laptop should, and a lot more to be fair.

honestly, I really wished the 12 inch MacBook made a comeback. Just give M2 Air that exact 12 inch design with thermal fixes, and I would actually swap my 16 inch M1 Pro for this.

I still use my 12" macbook and i love it. I use it as just a ipad pretty much and then development when travelling. Its bloody great

I bought my 2017 retina in 2018, finished my social sciences degree, switched jobs and I’m still using it regularly. As nice as the M2 Air is, at this point I’m hoping there will be another fan-less 12” with an advanced M-chip in their catalog by the time I have to dispose of mine.

This was great! I haven’t been able to get my hands on one yet, but I’ve been wondering about these very things. I thought I’d be running out to get one straight away, but found myself stuck. I think you just nailed why. I think what I really wanted from this was for them to give the old pro chassis this kind of overhaul and just call it a MacBook. Then keep the old air shape with the M1, add some MagSafe and a better screen? Give it a midnight and starlight option. Then you keep the old price point. Part of me thinks we shouldn’t ever lose some form of that Air shape. The first Mac I ever owned was an 11” Air and I still miss it. It was an awesome size. I ran out and traded my 2016 MacBook Pro, still worked beautifully for my needs, for a gold M1 just cause they were likely to ditch the wedge. I always regret not getting the old rose gold when I had the chance… Innovation is fine, but it’s also good to hold onto some things that really work, and it’s the very things they brought back from that orbit round the sun that I want them to try to keep

So they put a larger core set in than needed, and this is a fault to complain about? It sprints really well, super fast, but it isn’t built for the longer game. Hence the name, “air”, a lighter version of the big gun. It gives your more, but that is nothing to complain about. Great video.

I'm watching this on a 2015 retina MacBook. It is getting a bit old, but the only real problem it has, is that the battery isn't able to supply enough anymore to use it without a charger (but it is fine when in sleep). The performance is getting a little sluggish, but I'm still even able to use AutoCAD without major issues.

The drive for ever thinner laptops was taken to an extreme. I think that practicality trumps aesthetics, for most people, everyday of the week.

Hey Quinn, why don’t you put a M1 or M2 logic board on a 12’ MacBook? A similar project to the Mac Mini. I would love to see that

FInally, an original take on the M2 MacBook Air!

Of course there are compromises, there are always compromises -- that's the basis of engineering ("you can have it fast, cheap, or good -- pick two"). If they wanted to absolutely maximize performance, they would have to compromise on size, and noise.

The M2 Air is perfectly fine. I don't see the point of a 12 inch MacBook except as an exercise in nostalgia. It would probably even have more issues with throttling. The M1 and M2 Air laptops exhibit great performance and battery life. Future iterations should try to exceed the standards set here.