The M2 13in MacBook Air: A Year Later

The M2 MacBook Air is Apple's latest MacBook Air redesign. And now it’s a year old. A lot has changed in that year. So let’s talk about this laptop and whether you should consider it or not. Let’s get started.

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Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
0:20 How’s the Laptop Body after a Year?
3:55 What Upgrades Are Worth it?
5:55 How’s the Base Model Performance after a Year?
7:54 Conclusion - Would I Have Purchased This Again?

The m2 2022 MacBook Air is Apple's cheapest M2 laptop. For the last year this thing has been an absolute workhorse. It’s thin, light and every time I begin to use my 14in MacBook Pro again, I miss how light the M2 13in air is. The midnight color is still looking nice but like I mentioned in the last video, the finish around the ports is slowly chipping away to reveal a bare silver look, The rest of the body has held up pretty well, and after 122 battery cycles, the Macbook still has 97% of its battery capacity left. While you can charge it through usb-c, you probably want to charge through magsafe as much as possible. Because magsafe safely detaches once a certain amount of pressure is applied.

I have the base model configuration here, and while the 8gbs of ram and 256gb of storage are limiting on paper and the storage is half the speed of all the other storage sizes. The target demographic who’s buying this machine won’t notice those differences but it’s worth noting the shortcomings of this laptop in case you do fall out of that “typical user”. Apple uses memory swapping on their Macs. Once you fill up your ram the laptop will begin treating your computer’s storage as extra. Ram is super fast. SSDs have been getting faster, but it’s still slower than ram. So by having a slower SSD in the base model MacBook Air, you’re more likely to experience slowdowns especially if you’re the type to have a ton of apps open or do some intensive tasks. Also, RAM is meant to be written to and wiped constantly, an SSD is not meant to be as frequently as RAM. This memory swapping does increase wear on the mac’s SSD. If you have to make any upgrade to the M2 MacBook air or any base model Macbook with only 256gbs of storage, go for 16gb of ram. If you need more storage you can always get an external ssd and it’s much cheaper than what Apple charges for it. You’ll have to carry it around with you, but it can outlive your laptop and be used with your next laptop too.

So in everyday performance, this thing hasn’t let me down. I find it really useful as a lightweight companion for general productivity, but I use it like a tablet too, like for watching videos, streaming, or having reference material up when playing video games. I don’t use it too much for my YouTube channel, but when I have used it for that task, it handles my video and photo editing fine. I wouldn’t recommend gaming on this thing, because current support for games isn't great. It’s slowly getting better. Apple has been making some in-roads on this. The M2 chip in this laptop does not heat up in basic tasks, and general productivity, but does get warm during charging, or when I do something more graphically intensive like video editing. Also, these Non-pro Macs only support 1 external monitor, you don’t really notice it with this MacBook air, since it’s an on-the-go type of laptop anyway and I don’t think I was ever in a situation where I wanted to plug in two monitors to this thing. But if you are, you might want to consider the MacBook Pro 14in instead. docks that can enable this through 3rd party software, but that can be hit or miss and costs a decent chunk of change too. So if you’re considering any apple computer that doesn’t have a Pro/max or ultra chip, be sure you’re okay with this limitation.

Before, I’d recommend the M1 air because it’s budget friendly, had good enough performance and cost $200 less than the M2. Now the M2 is only a little more for a bunch of nice little quality of life upgrades, like a newer design, the convenience and safety of magsafe charging, and a faster chip. And if you’re using the laptop long-term. I think it’s worth it. This M2 MacBook air has served my own uses fine and I’d recommend it for casual laptop users focused on productivity, personal entertainment and office type tasks. This machine is pretty good. There’s rumors of a newer model in October, and if that's the case, this one will be on sale for an even better price, or you could go for the latest version instead.

[brachiator]

Agree with others that this is more helpful than first impression reviews, especially for people who may be buying a back to school laptop.

[chubs]

I prefer the long term reviews over the release ones. I feel like every day 1 review is just a spec comparison with previous generations and does not tell much on what those improvements/changes translate to in usage.

The fact that you've used the device for a while also adds a lot of credibility to your recommendation. This time around you actually changed your initial recommendation because of the 15" version. Adds a lot of weight

[chriscasillas]

The base M2 Air (13 or 15 inch) is a great computer and would meet the needs of 90-95% of users out there. I've had my 13" since launch day and it's been a beast from day one.

[pper]

I bought this beast and boost it up to 16GB RAM & 512GB SSD. I use it as my daily driver for usual task (office365 things, zoom, entertainment). Battery life is crazy.. charging just once in a week. Never charge to 100% anyway but still capable of handle my job for up to 3 days without plugging in.
Very pleasant…
No regrets at all.

[fatlittlenick]

I've had the M2 Air (512GB option with 8GB ram) for almost 9 months now, and it's a fantastic machine.

[dESTRUCTR]

Long-term reviews and comparison reviews are the best. They provide solid insight into the overall value of the product. Thanks for the video it was well done!

[heastin]

I myself went with the Silver model and am still absolutely happy with my purchase. I like the weight of the device, I agree that it feels like I am using a large tablet. The device is quick to wake up, the keyboard is awesome to type on, and the device runs QUIET!. I just wish that I had this device when I was in school, instead of my heavier GateWay devices I used.

[dinis]

I’ve come across your channel last month by chance and I cannot stress enough how I’ve been enjoying your videos!
Good quality and entertaining!
Cheers

[Chimpur]

I'm really happy with my identical M2 MBA 13"! I don't use it for heavy gaming; I have a gaming PC for that. If I had a single MacBook and nothing else; I'd buy the 14" MBP. But for light tasks; the MBA is more than enough for me! I also notice some wear at the the USB C ports and the MagSafe a tiny bit as well. Bit its not a glaring thing that stands out and ruins my sleep.

[ObikenobiHD]

I went from Intel 2020 MacBook Air and went straight to the M2 MacBook Air 15 inch with 24GB Ram and 256 SSD storage and its a definite powerhouse with so much portability! Very worth it!

[bmc]

Best color against fingerprint : Silver & Space grey.

[chau]

Don't stop long term reviews - very helpful!

[victoriaswift]

Thanks for this. I wasn’t too impressed with the m3, so wanted to know if this version will do what I need. I didn’t want to spend $2500 just bc it’s blacker lol😅

[electrified]

The "M" series chips are a great fit for an ultra-portable laptop that's basically a tablet in laptop form factor. You can just close it on a moment's notice and throw it in your bag, then hours later you can get right back where you left off with no battery drain and no loading delay. It can handle most medium workloads for an entire workign day and can do continous video playback for any non-stop commercial flight in the world on a single charge. For higher power laptops there's many cases where the cons outweigh the pros in regards to the M2 chip's incompatibility with some software and external GPUs, but for a simple machine for simple tasks, nothing else comes close.

[madsouris]

1 year review is useful. People like me wait a bit for it to drop some price (also see if there are any long term issues). You are doing god’s work

[avabruner]

I love mine. I bought one over the summer to finish my last year of university and, especially to my $1k+ Dell laptop that died after only 2 years, is an absolute BEAST! I feel stupid for not buying a Mac to begin with. I literally charge it once a week. I keep it on low power mode all the time and I have been using for 2 hours and the battery went only 2%. I upped the RAM to 16gb and left the SSD storage at 256gb because I hardly download apps and files but I recognize that other people would need to upgrade. I can always buy an external drive. The midnight color is gorgeous!! I put a case on the lid of it because it really does attract fingerprints horribly... and also to protect it. I'm a computer science major and this laptop excels at running all of the programs I use. I can't think of a better laptop for anybody. So quick, so light, and so perfect!!

[ShawnJbarrYT]

I do play games on my m2 base Macbook air but the games that I play are really only games that would be good for the mac. Games I play are Roblox and Minecraft. For Minecraft i get 72 - 110 FPS even when i live steam. My m2 Macbook air has worked perfectly fine (so far).

[doomy_doomy]

The crazy thing is you will see this go down to around $899.99 now. A lot cheaper than what I got it for at launch, but I am happy with the computer. I got my wife the 15” model and got her the 16GB model because it was the same price and cheaper than getting the 512GB model at the time. So I am sure she will have a good time with it going for her masters for teaching.

[JonAdamsTech]

Ive been using the macbook air for a year now and man i love it. I do most of my work on there then do all my video editing on a workstation pc i built so it's all covered!

[linkin-]

Yeah..been using it for a month..its really good.. but its a fault of mine to get the base version as i do video editing.. 8gb ram is too less and 256 gb storage variant is a bit slow.. however it is waaaay faster than other windows laptops within budget and chatge backup is insane with no fan.. so i would say a win win.. I'll probably get a macbook pro soon for my editing staffs.