Apple 15-inch MacBook Air./Photo = Reporter Yujin Baek byj@
This is an era where smart electronic products are overflowing. We already use a lot of electronic devices in our lives, but tomorrow, next month, and next year we will meet new products again. ‘Boni Hani’ is a hands-on experience that aims to share the experience of using electronic devices as much as possible from the general consumer’s point of view. I would like to convey to the readers the newness I felt through seeing, hearing, and touching, without adding or subtracting.
The MacBook Air, one of Apple’s laptop lineup. A 15-inch model with a larger screen size came out last June in a car that was disappointing with the existing 11-inch and 13-inch sizes. While increasing the size, the thickness and weight were minimized to increase portability. This is why Apple is confident that the 15-inch MacBook Air is the ‘world’s thinnest 15-inch model’.
The strength of this new product is not just the screen size. Although named MacBook Air, some of them have MacBook Pro-level specifications. A typical example is the speaker. If you mainly use a laptop to watch videos or listen to music, you can clearly feel the difference from existing products.
Apple 15-inch MacBook Air./Photo = Reporter Yujin Baek byj@
Wide screen, moderate weight
The 15-inch MacBook Air has almost similar product specifications to the 13-inch MacBook Air released last year. Both products are equipped with Apple’s own chip, M2, which was released last year. The M2 is a system-on-chip (SoC) with a 15% increase in CPU (central processing unit) speed compared to the previous generation M1.
In the case of the 13-inch MacBook Air, if you could choose an 8 or 10-core GPU, the 15-inch MacBook Air comes with a 10-core GPU as standard. The 10-core GPU provides up to 35% improved graphics performance compared to the M1.
In addition, the 16-core neural engine integrated with the CPU and GPU processes 15.8 trillion operations per second. This is a 40% improved throughput compared to the M1. Although it is a product with the lowest specifications among Apple’s products, this is the reason why it performs as well as other premium products.
There was no stuffiness when performing various tasks using the stage manager function on the 15-inch MacBook Air./Photo = Reporter Yujin Baek byj@
When I actually used the product, I was able to experience the performance of the M2. There was no stuttering when simultaneously performing tasks such as watching videos, surfing the Internet, working on Excel documents, and editing videos using the ‘Stage Manager’ function.
When I ran the benchmark program Geekbench, the single-core score of the 15-inch MacBook Air was 2582 points and the multi-core score was 9773 points. Considering that the MacBook Air equipped with the M1 recorded 2320 points for single core and 7638 points for multi-core, the multi-core score improved by about 20%. Geekbench is a test program that measures CPU performance. Single-core measures the ability of one CPU core to execute tasks, while multi-core measures all CPU cores.
Geekbench test results of MacBook Air with M1 (top) and MacBook Air 15 with M2 (bottom)./Photo = Geekbench capture
The 15-inch MacBook Air is characterized by a larger screen size while producing similar performance to the existing 13-inch product. The horizontal length increased by about 4 cm, and the vertical length increased by about 2 cm. As the screen size has increased, more information can be contained on one screen, and the size of the touch pad has also increased, increasing usability.
The thickness is almost similar (1.15cm) to the 13-inch MacBook Air (1.13cm), and the weight is 1.51kg, which is 0.27kg more. It felt heavy to hold with one hand. However, compared to some other 15-inch laptops, it was similar and I received the impression that it was ‘light for Apple’.
The 15-inch MacBook Air weighs about 1.5 kg. The usage time of the MacBook is up to 18 hours, so it is possible to go out without a charger. /Photo = Reporter Yujin Baek byj@
Improved speakers… turn my room into a movie theater
In particular, the most impressive thing about this product was the speaker. The 15-inch MacBook Air completely changed the speaker system from the 13-inch MacBook Air. The 15-inch MacBook Air has a six-speaker sound system with two pairs of tweeters for high frequencies and two pairs of force-cancelling woofers for low frequencies. Compared to the 13-inch MacBook Air with four speakers, a clear difference was felt.
In particular, Apple has been putting six speakers only in the MacBook Pro so far. This is the first time a MacBook Air has had a six-speaker system. Of course, the pro-level model has a ‘hi-fi’ function that produces sound close to the original sound.
In the 15-inch MacBook Air (left), the speaker was not exposed and was built into the product, so it felt like the sound was coming from the entire product. Although the screen has grown, it was disappointing that the bezel (border) was wider than that of the 16-inch MacBook Pro (right) released in 2021./Photo = Reporter Yujin Baek byj@
It is true that there is a difference when compared to the MacBook Pro model with a real hi-fi 6-speaker system, but the sound of the 15-inch MacBook Air is also satisfactory enough. It was a level where there was no big difference to the general public unless you listened carefully. Although it was an Air model, only the speakers were pro-level. Since Dolby Atmos technology is applied, it seemed suitable for watching movies or listening to music.
But there was also a downside. Excluding the MagSafe charging port, I felt that the fact that there were two Thunderbolt ports was savage. If it is enough, it can be enough, but in the pro-level model, not only Thunderbolt port but also HDMI and SD card port are provided, so Apple’s unique ‘class division’ is still present.
The 2021 16-inch MacBook Pro (below) and the new 15-inch MacBook Air (above). Relatively thin thickness and light weight were advantages, but the number of ports was disappointing./Photo = Reporter Yujin Baek byj@
In addition, the ‘promotional’ display that Apple has applied only to the Pro model was not applied to the 15-inch MacBook Air. This is still a limitation of the Air model. Apple expresses the function that supports the 120Hz refresh rate (a number that indicates how many times the screen changes per second) as a promotion.
Nevertheless, the advantages of the ‘large screen MacBook Air’ are clear. Apple products are clearly divided into products used by experts and non-professionals. The Air model is a product suitable for use by the general public. Especially for MacBook users who watch videos or listen to music on a laptop, there seems to be no better option than the 15-inch MacBook Air.
(From left) 2021 16-inch MacBook Pro, new 15-inch MacBook Air, 2021 MacBook Air./Photo = Reporter Yujin Baek byj@
