I’ve been using Apple’s first 15-inch MacBook Air for the last few weeks and it’s quickly become my favourite everyday laptop. For context, I had been using a 13″ M2 MacBook Air prior jumping to this and before that an M1 14″ MacBook Pro.
I initially feared going from the 14″ MacBook Pro to the 13″ MacBook Air that I’d lament features lost, but the improved portability and increased battery life far outweighed those few features that I’d lost. Whilst in the Intel days, you had to go for a MacBook Pro if you were doing video editing or intensive tasks, that’s no longer the case with the Apple Silicon chip and that’s never been more evident than now.
The one thing that I was missing with the 13″ MacBook Air was that little bit of extra screen real estate, that I’ve now got in the 15″ MacBook Air and it makes the world of difference.
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The new 15″ MacBook Air display is that same Liquid Retina Display that can get up to 500 nits of brightness. It doesn’t go as far as the MacBook Pro, but it’s still vibrant and it being an Apple display means that it’s super vibrant. It’s a joy to use no matter whether you’re browsing the web or watching a movie.
This is still an Air in every sense of the word. It’s only 11.5mm thin and weighs 1.5kg and whilst you definitely notice a little bit more of heft compared to the 13″ version, it’s absolutely still portable to the point that you can pop it in your backpack and still question that it’s even there.
Battery life on the M2 MacBook Air is the best that I’ve used in a laptop by far, and it’s that same all-day 15-18 hour battery life on the 15″ model as well. It’s the first laptop that I’ve ever used that I can truly take into the office or to Sydney on a day trip, and know that it’ll last the day, no questions asked.
If there was one area that the 13″ MacBook Air suffered a little, it was the speaker system, but that’s been rectified here with a six-speaker sound system that packs in a lot more bass than the 13″ model. I was genuinely surprised with how much oomf came out of those speakers.
I really can’t drive home enough how capable this computer is with Apple’s M2 chip. No matter whether I’m editing in Photoshop, using CapCut to edit a video or even gaming, it never skips a beat. This is no-longer the laptop that you use for general web browsing or uni note taking (although it still excels at both of those things). It will now follow you through that journey into your creative life.
Gaming is absolutely making a comeback on the Mac. Apple recently announced that a game mode will be coming in MacOS Sonoma, which will better utilise Apple’s chip to harness more of its power directly into gaming.
Even without this though, I was able to play the likes of No Man’s Sky, Layers of Fear (the first Unreal Engine 5 game) as well as Resident Evil Village at 1440p, and thanks to Apple’s MetalFX Upscaling, they ran fairly smoothly which is impressive on this fanless laptop.
As far as ports go, there’s still just your MagSafe charging adaptor as well as two USB-C ports. I would have maybe liked to see another port or two on the right-hand side to further utilise the space on offer on the laptop, but you’re just a dock away from having access to a plethora of ports.
All-in-all, I really don’t see myself moving away from the 15″ MacBook Air anytime soon. It’s the perfect blend of portability, having a bigger screen-size, but still not sacrificing on performance. It’s a fantastic laptop.
