The new 15-inch MacBook Air seems to strike the right balance between the too bulky 16-inch Pro and too small 13-inch Air
This year’s WWDC will forever be remembered as the show where Apple introduced the Vision Pro, its AR headset that will either trigger the start of a new product category or be a complete flop. But another new product announced at the show will almost certainly be more practical and useful right out of the gate, and could be the ideal laptop for an ever-increasing group of digital nomads.
That’s the 15-inch MacBook Air, which could strike the right balance of portability, screen size, and power for someone like me: a content creator who works on the go often, but aren’t necessarily producing content high-level enough to need all the raw power of Apple’s Pro laptops. I’ve always thought the 13-inch MacBook screens are a bit cramped for my work, but the 16-inch MacBook Pros are a bit heavy to lug around. The 15-inch MacBook Air looks to be the happy medium.
Price and availability
The new 2023 MacBook Air is available for pre-order on Apple’s website now, and will begin shipping next week. It’s priced starting at $1,299 for the 8GB RAM, 256GB storage variant, and could jump all the way up to $2,499 for the 24GB RAM and 2TB storage model.
Apple MacBook Air (2022)
Apple’s new 15-inch MacBook Air is powered by the M2 chip and is “the world’s thinnest 15-inch laptop.”
- Brand
- Apple
- Color
- Silver, Space Gray, Starlight, Midnight
- Storage
- Up to 2TB SSD
- CPU
- Apple M2
- Memory
- Up to 24GB
- Operating System
- macOS
- Ports
- 2 x USB4/Thunderbolt, 3.5mm headphone jack, MagSafe 3
- Camera
- 1080p Full HD FaceTime camera
- Display (Size, Resolution)
- 13.6-inch Retina (IPS), 2560 x 1664, P3 Wide Color, True Tone, 500 nits
- Weight
- 2.7 pounds (1.22 kg)
- Speakers
- Quad-speaker stereo setup, Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos
Design and hardware
Other than its larger size, the new 15-inch MacBook Air has the exact same design as the 13-inch MacBook Air. Do note we’re talking about the redesigned 2022 edition MacBook Air, not the 2020 models. This means there’s a notch at the middle top of the screen housing a 1080p webcam, and a blockier design without the tapered edges that have been a trademark of the MacBook Air for most of its existence.
You actually get a bit more screen size than advertised, as the 15-inch MacBook Air display measures 15.3-inches diagonally. It’s a 60Hz Liquid Retina LCD display, so it doesn’t look quite as nice as the 120Hz MicroLED screens of Apple’s recent Pro MacBooks. But having used the 2022 13-inch models for a few weeks and having seen the new 15-inch models in person, I can say the screens still look fine, and get bright enough for outdoor use in most settings.
The laptop weighs 3.3lbs, a jump from the 2.7lbs of the 13-inch model, but significantly lighter than the 4.7lbs of the 16-inch MacBook Pro. The new MacBook also measures just 0.45-inch (11.4mm) thick, which apparently makes it the “thinnest 15-inch laptop in the world.” Placing it on top of my 16-inch MacBook Pro, I can see clearly the slimmer profile.
15-inch MacBook Air on top, 16-inch MacBook Pro at bottom.
On busy work days like today when I attended WWDC in person, lugging a nearly 5lb laptop is not fun, so I welcome any downsize without losing significant screen space. The 15-inch MacBook Air has the same ports as the 13-inch machines, so there aren’t much: just a MagSafe charging port and two USB-Cs with Thunderbolt support on the left, and a headphone jack on the right.
There’s really not much more to talk about in terms of hardware: it’s powered by the exact same M2 chip we’ve already tested and reviewed in multiple machines, including the 13-inch MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro.
I wrote the latter review and concluded that most people would be perfectly fine with the MacBook Air, because both the Air and the Pro run on the exact same M2 chip, with the only notable performance difference being that the Pro model has a fan which would in theory help with thermals. But the thing is, most reviewers, including myself, have found that we’ve very rarely ever pushed the MacBook Pros hard enough to need the fan. And if the fan isn’t on, this means you’re getting the same performance from the Pro as using the Air.
This is not a review, and we plan to do more testing, but it’s highly unlikely there’s going to be any meaningful performance differences between the 15-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air. Expect smooth, fast, efficient performance.
Software
The laptop will ship with the current MacOS Ventura out of the box when it ships next week, but will get upgraded to the newly announced MacOS Sonoma in the fall, so you can expect all the cool new features like new desktop widgets and improved video conferencing capabilities. With the current software that ships with the machine, it’ll behave like any other MacBook.
Final thoughts
16-inch MacBook Pro on the left, 15-inch MacBook Air on the right
Unlike the Apple Vision Pro, which will surely spawn countless debates and arguments over the next half a year, the 15-inch MacBook Air are pretty uncontroversial devices. Its appeal (or lack of appeal) should be perfectly clear. You should know whether it’s for you or not. For someone like me who types words into a CMS and edit videos for a living, a 13-inch screen just feels too small. But as I said, the 16-inch Pro machines are a bit too heavy for me. So I think the 15-inch MacBook Air would be more ideal fit for my particularly lifestyle and work flow.
I do think there’s a bit of overlapping with the 14-inch MacBook Pro, which starts at $2,000 but has a more powerful M2 Pro chip superior MicroLED screen, but the $700 difference should be enough to create a separate line between the two machines too?
Apple MacBook Air (2022)
Apple’s new 15-inch MacBook Air is powered by the M2 chip and is “the world’s thinnest 15-inch laptop.”