After learning that the M2 MacBook Air was on the market, he immediately rushed to the direct-operated store after get off work to check out the actual machine of the new M2 MacBook Air. After looking around for a long time, let me give my conclusion first:
The "game" of thin and light notebooks is over. The M2 MacBook Air, which has powerful graphics, zero noise, is ultra-thin and relatively light, has a long battery life, a great screen and sound, has been approved. If you are interested in buying a high-end thin and light notebook now, I really don’t recommend choosing those X86 ones. It’s a novice village level thin and light notebook.
Let’s talk about the appearance first. The new Air is really beautiful. What’s even more ridiculous is that the thickness is really too thin! The thinnest and thickest parts of the fuselage are only 1.13 cm. What is the concept? The whole machine doesn’t even have the concept of the base surface thickness of MBP16.
Before MBP14/16 used this design, it could only be said that the appearance was thicker. But after using it for a long time, you will find that the machine is really not thick, and it is even much thinner than many Windows thin and light notebooks.
As for the new Air, it is: everything is really thin in seconds. Even if this new design ID itself is not visually thin, it is physically really ultra-thin and has the same ultra-thin look and feel.
In terms of color, midnight color and starlight color are the best choices. The starlight color is not very different from the silver white of MBP14/16 under indoor light, with a little champagne color, but the shape itself is very suitable for this type of color matching, so the effect Very good.
Midnight color, this is the rare true dark version of MacBook. It is close to black under many indoor lights, but the look and feel is still obviously dark blue. It is very beautiful and restrained. The only drawback is that fingerprints are too serious.
One detail is that this time MacBook Air does not have the model number engraved on the D side like the new MacBook Pro. Maybe the model number engraved on the D side is also exclusive to the Pro series (laughs).
The notch screen frame of the new MacBook Air is slightly thicker than that of the new MBP, and the resolution is one step lower, but the scaling ratio is similar. The screen performs very well under SDR, and the 10bit+500nit brightness effect has surpassed the previous generation MBP13. There is not much difference between it and MBP14/16 under normal desktop conditions, but under HDR there will be a gap between it and miniLED in terms of dark details, point light sources, contrast and brightness, but it is still good enough. Nowadays, the global brightness of many Windows OLED screens is only about 400nit, and the window brightness is only 600nit. Coupled with PWM dimming at 50% brightness, I personally think that the screen of the new MacBook Air is better than that one and is not particularly suitable. OLED laptop screens for PC screens are even better. The only laptop that can surpass this screen is the current top-of-the-line miniLED of the MacBook Pro 14/16.
is significantly smaller than the MBP14 in terms of body size. The sound effect is also significantly improved compared to the previous generation Air, with the speaker moved to the bottom of the screen. But it is still inferior to MBP14/16, but this is already the upper limit of current thin and light laptops!
Overall, the performance of the new M2 MacBook Air is really outstanding. If you are still hesitant, go check out the actual machine! Now when you see the actual machine, you will find that MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are two completely different products. Pro is no longer a better Air, and Air is no longer a cheap Pro. Now as a top-level thin and light notebook, M2 MacBook Air is the absolute upper limit product, and compared to Windows high-end thin and light notebooks, the price/performance advantage is huge!
So on the question of whether to buy the M2 MacBook Air or the lowest-end MacBook Pro 14: As a first-time user of MacBook Pro 14, in fact, if you really want the Pro, you would have bought it last year, and it would not be right at all. Does Air have even the slightest opinion?
Because of the performance and configuration of the Air series, it is within any of your considerations. My personal requirements at that time were that the performance should exceed 11800H, the GPU should reach at least 2060, the UMA memory should be at least comparable to the Xbox series S, the hard drive must have the top speed of PCIE4.0, and the display must be miniLED.And these are obviously impossible to achieve whether it is the M2 or Air series. The M1 is too far apart, so I simply ignore it. There is no demand for the thinner and lighter features of the Air, so once the M1 Pro/Max is released, it will Got it immediately.
If you are confused now, it may be because the price of M2 exceeds expectations, but this is also because lighter, thinner, better design and screen require additional money to purchase. Apple still retains the M1 series to express this idea.
Many people’s needs can be met by both old and new Air, so what you need to consider is whether to buy the cheaper M1 or M2. The disadvantage of M1 Air is that it is thicker and the screen is quite different. 8bit is a problem, and more importantly The brightness is only 400nit. This means that in outdoor scenes, the screen will not appear bright enough in bright environments. At least it is not as bright as the Pro back then. However, the screen frame is larger and the sound effect will be different. The old Air sound is actually not as good as the old pro13. However, the advantage is that if you want to buy 8+256, because the speed of the lowest hard drive of M2 has shrunk, the overall performance of the old M1 is actually better. And the M1 MacBook Air is also very beautiful, thin and light, and its performance can meet the needs.
Speaking of performance, basically the difference between the new Air without downclocking and the M1 Pro 8-core CPU and 14-core GPU is about 15%. After downclocking, it is almost the same as the M1 Air without downclocking. It mainly depends on personal needs, these are more experience upgrades worth spending an extra 2K-3K.
Just a few suggestions about the M2 MacBook Air: I really don’t recommend buying the 8+256 model!
Maybe some friends will eventually decide to bite the bullet and get MBP14/16, so let’s talk about the new MacBook Pro: In fact, if it reaches the true Pro level, then there is no need to stick to the lowest configuration.
Because if you really buy the M1Pro 8-core CPU14-core GPU version, I’m afraid friends who are confused will be confused about why the Pro’s benchmark performance is not much better than that of the M2?
In fact, in terms of the new MacBook Pro, the full-blooded version of M1Pro and the 16+1T MBP14/16 are the main battlefield of the new MBP and the starting point for mainstream configurations. In this configuration, except for portability and battery life, there is no comparison with the M2 MacBook Air in every aspect.
However, the performance advantage of the lowest configuration M1Pro is not great. The hard drive is only 512G, and the performance of this hard drive has also shrunk a bit. The read and write speed of 6800M has also become about 5000M.
When the new MBP was released last year, many people actually bought the entry-level version of the new MBP14 as an MBA. The reason was "you can't use such high performance, so just buy the entry-level version." After using it, my overall experience is that everything is good, but it is still a bit heavy and a lot of performance is wasted. It can be seen from these feedbacks that in fact, what these users need more is the M2 MacBook Air's
PS: If the final configuration is added to the M1Max, then a 14-inch 24-core GPU will be enough. The 14-inch mold cannot hold down the 32 If you want a GPU-core model, buy the 16-inch version for the top version. Except for the top version, the only difference between 14 and 16 is the size. They have the same performance and can be used, so the price is not much different. Which one to buy depends on your size requirements.
Well, the above is the entire content of this article. Okay, thank you all for your patience in reading, see you next time!
