MacBook Air M2 review: better than its predecessor, but pricier too

MacBook Air M2: Design, specs, and features

• Sleek design
• 4 color options
• We miss the illuminated logo

While there’s still part of us that wants a light-up Apple logo on the lid, the MacBook Air M2 remains immediately recognizable as a MacBook – it has rounded corners, a slim profile, and (sadly not illuminated) logo on the top.

It also comes in four different colors: Space Gray, Silver, Stardust, and Midnight. Our review unit is the Midnight version and, as you can no doubt tell from the photos, it attracts fingerprints like nobody’s business. It doesn’t take much to cover it in smudges, but we’d expect it to be a little less obvious on the other color options.

On the left-hand side, you’ll find a pair of USB-C ports and a MagSafe connector for charging, and the right has just a 3.5 mm headphone jack. We’d have certainly liked a right-sided USB-C port, especially since you can charge via those ports too, but the key takeaway is that unless you’re all in on USB-C you’ll need a dongle or two to get going.

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best photo editing laptops out there, especially if you need a portable device. The notch returns, too, and contains a 1080p webcam (finally).

MacBook Air M2: Features and performance

• M2 chip is a big upgrade in power
• Great battery life
• Near silent running

We’ve waxed lyrical about the performance benefits of the Apple Silicon line-up once the M1 arrived a couple of years ago, but it really does bear repeating that it’s a huge step up over the Intel machines of prior generations.

The M2 continues that trend, albeit at an iterative pace rather than the generational leap of the M1 over its predecessors. Apple says it offers 1.4 times the performance of the MacBook Air M1, and while we can’t put an exact figure on it, we can say that we threw everything at the M2 and nothing seemed to stress it out.

Editing audio, images, web browsing, gaming – you name it, the M2 chip makes it look easy. It has four efficiency cores for standard tasks, with another four that kick in when things get taxing. It also incorporates the GPU on the same SoC (system on chip), which means the Unified Memory is able to be distributed directly to where it’s needed.

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MacBook Air M2: User reviews

The MacBook Air M2 has an average customer rating on Amazon of MacBook Air M1, the performance jump alone here isn’t enough to make the M2 version a “must buy.” If you’re coming from an Intel Mac, though, it’s the best MacBook Air Apple has ever made, and the changes thanks to Apple Silicon will be transformative.

For students new to the Mac ecosystem who have the cash to spend, it’s also a very easy recommendation. The slim profile, portability, and powerful chipset make it easily one of the Mac Mini M1 is a great choice so long as you have a mouse, keyboard, and monitor to attach to it.

However, if you decide that you’d rather get a Windows laptop, then the

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Lloyd Coombes

Lloyd Coombes freelance tech and fitness writer for Live Science. He's an expert in all things Apple as well as in computer and gaming tech, with previous works published on TechRadar, Tom's Guide, Live Science and more. You'll find him regularly testing the latest MacBook or iPhone, but he spends most of his time writing about video games as Gaming Editor for the Daily Star. He also covers board games and virtual reality, just to round out the nerdy pursuits.

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