Apple’s Surprising New Addition: The 15-Inch MacBook Air with M2 Chip – Review and Thoughts

At WWDC 2023, in addition to the Vision Pro AR glasses that make people very curious about the actual experience, Apple also brought a surprising new item: the 15-inch MacBook Air. In a series that focuses on thin and light bodies, adding a large-screen model seems to be a conflict, but after spending a few days with this M2 chip MacBook Air 15-inch, I actually feel that Apple should have launched such a product long ago. My thoughts: With ample screen space, the body is still light, but the performance is not sacrificed too much. It is very suitable for advanced users like me who often work outside.

appearance

The MacBook Air 15-inch is basically an enlarged version of the M2 chip version of the MacBook Air 13-inch that Apple replaced last year. The body is a flat, straight-edged and rounded laptop with a thickness of only 11.5mm, and the I/O is only a pitiful two groups. USB 4 / Thunderbolt 3, 3.5mm headphone jack, fortunately Apple has MagSafe 3, charging and external devices will not be a problem of choice.

The screen of the MBA 15 is a 15.3-inch diagonal Liquid Retina panel. The notch with the 1080p FaceTime camera in the middle takes up relatively little space in a wider space, and the taskbars of most of the apps I use are not affected. The screen used to locate the Air only uses 2,880 x 1,864 IPS materials, with a brightness of 500 nits and supports P3 color gamut. It is actually capable of browsing the web and watching videos, but if you originally hold an iPhone 14 Pro or iPad Pro 12. inches and other machines that use relatively high-end display panels, or even MacBook Pro, the MBA 15’s screen will be inferior in terms of color vividness and fluency.

In any case, the screen space of the MBA 15 is relatively large. It can easily display a full board of articles, edit Premiere Pro videos comfortably, and place multiple different apps on the same screen at one go. No need to squint when creating, organizing files, and more.

The surface of the notebook keyboard, commonly known as the C side, has a different design from that of the M2 MBP. Although it is also the so-called 78-key layout with full-height function keys and inverted T-shaped arrow keys, the keys of the MBA 15 grow directly from the case, without adding a dual-material chassis like the MBP, but this does not It does not affect the use of. Another difference is the speaker design. The MBA 15 is upgraded to a 6-speaker system, which includes a woofer with vibration cancellation technology, but there are no mesh sound holes on both sides of the keyboard like MBP. That is to say, the editor himself prefers the MBA design that saves the speaker opening. The most obvious and direct reason is that it eliminates the chance of dirt getting stuck in the hole.

The editor tried to play the music content in Apple Music to listen to the new speaker effect of MBA 15. Considering the sound from such a thin machine, its three-dimensional sense and bass are good, and the spatial sound effect of Dolby Audio is also obvious. , can have a certain sense of immersion.

Then turn to the D side of the MBA 15, which is the bottom of the fuselage, and only see the flat bottom plate. Of course, there are no exhaust holes on both sides of the MBP. After all, the MBA 15 does not have an active fan, but there is not even a laser engraving indicating the name of the machine? When I came here, the editor was actually a little confused. Because the new iPad body is engraved with the model name (iPad Pro, iPad Air, iPad) to facilitate the identification of triplet-like models; MacBook Pro is also like a status symbol, deeply embedded in the bottom of the machine, but when it comes to MacBook Air has changed again? The conceivable explanation is that it may be limited by the thinner and lighter casing used by the MBA 15.

Although the MBA 15 has a large screen and a body, it weighs only 1.51kg, and the sense of conflict is more obvious when held in the hand. The editor has recently used MBP 14, iPad Pro / iPad Air and even the exquisite keyboard, but they are not as light and practical as this MBA 15.

Specification

Unlike the MBA 13, which has high and low M2 chips, the MBA 15 is directly equipped with a high-end version with a 10-core GPU as standard, and a more practical 35W dual-hole USB-C charger is included in the box, but the memory There will continue to be 8GB, 16GB, and 24GB three-level choices, and the storage space will also start from 256GB, so that the MBA 15 can lower the starting price.

Speaking of price, the same 10-core GPU version M2 chip + 8 / 256 configuration, the price difference between MBA 15 and MBA 13 is only HK$700. From the perspective of practicality and eye protection, it is definitely worth paying a little more to get straight to MBA 15.

Apple Silicon has shown its strength no matter in the benchmark test or the actual media creation experience. The editor still remembers that the Intel processor version of the MBA was “lightweight” (according to the specifications at the time), and it was a bit difficult for general documents, and it was completely useless when it came to retouching and editing. But the M2 chip allows you to edit 4K movies on the fanless MBA without any worries. It is inevitable that the body will heat up, but at least the work can be completed smoothly.

in conclusion

The MacBook Air 15-inch is Apple’s response to the current trend of emphasizing the use of screen content, and it also highlights how the M2 chip is so plentiful and can provide high-efficiency performance without an active cooling system. After the WWDC 2023 press conference, the editor who sat in front of the computer screen once doubted Apple’s move, because the two elements of “15-inch large screen” and “lightweight Air series” should have conflicted with each other, but in After picking up the MBA 15, I realized that today’s technology can realize a laptop that is both large and light without sacrificing performance.

Due to the addition of the 15-inch version of the M2 chip MacBook Air product line, the initial price has been slightly lowered to HK$8,999, which lowers the threshold for experiencing the new generation of MBA, and provides an additional high-end, lightweight laptop option for the start of the school season. .