I have been using the M2 Macbook Air for a bit over 2 weeks now and this thing is amazing, but its not the ultimate recommendation.
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Timestamps
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0:00 – Intro
0:35 – Entry Level
1:00 – Which Model
1:45 – How I Use It
4:05 – Can You Game?
6:56 – Battery Life And Charging Ports
8:10 – Design
10:20 – Overall Thoughts
#m2macbookair #macosventura #m1ipadpro
I think this is the best M2 review ever… Everyone was comparing to MacBook Pro and other stupid things.. well done mate…
@heliogene At that point, nobody should consider the air. It shouldn’t even be in the conversation if someone thinks to spec it to near 2 grand USD. The M1 14″ should be the automatic focus.
The reason they’re doing that is because it’s priced above the m1 which is the real low end and is still an amazing computer for all normal computing tasks. That leaves the m2 in an awkward middle child place where it’s not good enough to compete with the pro when specced up, but it’s value proposition at the low end is sort of compromised by how easy it is to get a great deal on the m1- leaving aside all ssd issues (which yes, do matter in an 8gb laptop)
@A Z You’re wrong. I use the M1 14″ Pro, and I’ve chosen an upgraded M2 Air as it fits the portability requirement I have with improved styling.
assuming you want 16 gb ram and 512 gb ssd the price is only about $400 differences for a ton of differences in the machine
@Mols4999 that price difference is not the same in all countries… And that price difference is still like almost a quarter a price of the product.
This is probably the only review I’ve seen that reflects my intended use case. I’m out of school and just want a casual machine that browses the web and takes notes/run excel quickly. My office provides us with work laptops for our design work, so this is entirely for light personal use.
On a separate note, I think the quality of your reviews are great, but you need to adjust the outro music at the end of your videos because it’s hard to hear you at the end. Otherwise, I’m looking forward to your 3, 6, and 12-month reviews lol
For light personal use you can choose basically any laptop)
It’s more than capable to what you need. What maxtech new video m2 air vs macpro. M2 air outperforms the 14k$ machine.
@Alex Prevost that’s not what I meant bro.. relax)
Everything you do can be done easily with an M1 Mac with room to spare. Heck, this can be done with any older Intel machine. This is just pure new toy lust which is fine, just don’t pretend that you choose the M2 Air because its the practical choice.
Finally a review that doesn’t assume we’re all freaking editing video at 4K or 8K. These other “Techtubers” need to get their act together and put the common people use case in their assessment instead of just sticking to what they know which is video editing. Us common folks use a browser with multiple tabs open, productivity suites, programming for some and the occasional gaming.
Yea! I thought I’m the only one that thinks that. I don’t do media editing, and I don’t know anyone that does that personally. I however needs to use really large Excel sheets often, PDF files from stock exchanges, and I need a lot of browsers tab opens up, no reviewers test those.
Like he mentioned in this video, most tech tubers will showcase how good it is at video editing (since they edit videos on the fly all the time). But we need to understand that If an entry level laptop can do that… it can surely handle word, excel, pdfs, browsing the web, casual gaming etc. Though these can easily be done on any ultrabook that costs around 600-700 bucks as well. The new Silicon Macs are very powerful machines, even the entry level ones, but they might not be for everyone else.
thank you!!!!!
@Irsan S. New design, better processor, larger display, brighter display, magsafe, and two additional years of updates compared to M1…
Great review. I almost returned my entry level M2 based on all of the reviews I read and watched. I use my laptop in a similar manner described in the video and agree 100% … you need to understand what it is meant to be used for. Thanks for an honest review and not one loaded with all kinds of technical scores that don’t apply to most of the real workd users. BTW … I like the Mars globe on your desk ! Where did you get that ?
I’ve been seeing more of these sensible reviews on the base model lately. That’s a good thing. I upgraded to the base model M2 Air…in midnight…from a base model 2017 12 inch MacBook. That’s a big upgrade for me and I’m loving the computer so far.
thats amazing! Apple should put an M1 chip in that 12in macbook. that design was flawless just a bit ahead of its time
@9to5Mac That computer wasn’t as bad as some people said. Served me well for 5 years!
Does it charged with usbc also
@Harsh Bardhan Shah yes it does.
@Harsh Bardhan Shah Yes it does.
Good review. It does give balance from a usability standpoint. But I do think it was good to know that the ssd is half the speed of M1 MBA in the base model. So if I was getting a M2 MBA I’d get 512GB, and possibly 16Gb ram.
i do wish the base storage was higher, but i use a combo if icloud and Gdrive for all my file management. so i never have any files on device usually
@9to5Mac yes but slower ssd?
@9to5Mac no but the ssd slows the whole base M2 MBA down because of swap file. Drive won’t solve that.
@Paul Jazzman which is why you get the 16GB memory, and leave the SSD at 256GB. That way it doesn’t swap, and you don’t notice the SSD speeds since it gets cached.
This is a good, balanced review. So many reviewers have written off the M2 base model and added to the overall confusion for potential buyers.
A truly realistic review of this machine not clouded in destroying specs. Thank you!
I love this review. It feels like it actually approached my use case and not look at extreme use cases that really only the smallest amount of buyers are actually going to use it for
Great review. Simple and informative. Not overselling something which an everyday user does not need. Keep up the good work!
The M1 completely changed what we have come to expect from “entry level” laptops. I bought an Intel i3 MacBook Air in April 2020, and you could *lightly* edit two streams of 1080p footage MAX on that thing and you’d still need to drop res while editing. The battery lasted like five hours or so, and it was hot to the touch with just a few tabs open.
The M1 completely revolutionized and changed what was possible on a $999 device. Now people are like “why can’t this entry level device edit five streams of 8k?”
Ridiculous lol
So true. People always getting greedy lol
Lol I remember when max tech was surprised that the M2 lost to the M1 Pro 14 inch
@Thesadguy Fun fact, M2 (16ram) actually does something faster than M1 pro (16ram). I remember a reviewer opened google earth and M2 is faster…well, jokes on max tech
@Sophie-Anne W if i remember correctly… wasn’t the problem that the m2 macbooks did not had a uniform speed of ssd or ram (do not remember) with entry ones like 8 gb ram being slower than 16 gigs one?
A few weeks ago ordered this laptop and upped it to 16GB of RAM and the 512 SSD. Stayed with the base 8 core. It’s a beast. I’ve thrown a lot at it and it absolutely smokes my new office issued Dell Latitude with equivalent specs.
Thank you for your honest review for ordinary people. You’ve factored in all the use cases for this laptop and I think it fits mine just perfectly
I use my entry level (8Gb Ram/256Gb SSD) M1 Macbook Air for full time software development work, photoshop, illustrator and some adobe premier… its never got close to letting me down… so I can only imagine the M2 would perform better…. i’m holding out on upgrading because i have a think against camera notches…
I picked up a MacBook Air M2 – best computer I’ve ever had, absolutely perfect for me. Did customize it, 16GB RAM 1TB Hard Drive and the extra couple cores – I will be using this computer happily for years to come. It’s really about the overall experience using it, the M1 Air is an amazing deal, but the extra money for the M2 is well worth it in my opinion with a modern design, better Cam and faster processor. Plus I love the midnight black color so much the computer looks just badass sitting there.
Glad to see this review!. Bought a M2 base air, space grey. Old boomer here, for productivity it is great, battery life amazing. Always loved Macs for the ease of use. My brother laser printer was simple as the old cups days for printers. Also my Epson flat bed scanner was just as easy to hook up. Yes some of us old folks still use a flat bed scanner, for documents and pictures.
Thanks for this. I plan on upgrading my laptop which I use for office work. I had concerns over word/365 programmes but this is great content and helps me decide. I do sometimes, use 2 monitors which I believe can’t be done with Air but assuming I can sort this with a dock (correct me if I’m wrong) . cheers
Honestly, the best review I have come across about the MBA M2 base model. You have cleared all my doubts and am gonna buy the machine asap. Thanks.