Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M2, 2023) review: Bigger is better

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference used to be pretty much all about software, with perhaps the odd hardware announcement filtered into the mix of what new features would be coming to your iPhone, iPad, Watch and Mac in the coming months. That all changed for 2023 though, after Apple not only announced the Vision Pro mixed reality headset, which marked the company’s entrance into another new market, but it also revealed a larger model of the MacBook Air.

The conference in 2023 was most definitely not just about software, but while the Vision Pro was of course exciting and impressive, I would argue that the MacBook Air 15-inch was the bigger news. I adored – and continue to adore – the MacBook Air (M2, 2022), so what do I think of its bigger brother? Here’s my full review of the MacBook Air 15-inch. I’ll give you a hint … I’ve got a new favourite.

Solid and premium design

• Dimensions: 237.6 x 340.4 x 11.5mm, 1.53kg
• Ports: 2x USB-C (USB 4) / Thunderbolt 3, MagSafe 3, 3.5mm headphone jack
• Finish options: Starlight, Midnight, Silver, Space Grey

The MacBook Air 15-inch takes on an identical design to the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) but that is no bad thing in my opinion. Not at all in fact. The 2022 model saw quite a big departure from the MacBook Air as many of us knew it. The original MacBook Air was pulled out of a manila envelope in 2008 and its wedge-like design remained a signature trait right up until the 2022 model arrived.

Some might mourn the old look – and don’t get me wrong, I was a huge fan of it – but the 2022 model was refreshing, modern and an excellent evolution of a brilliant design, which this larger model continues to offer. If you do prefer the wedge, the MacBook Air (M1, 2021) model is still an option, but it packs the smaller 13-inch display – if you want the larger 15-inch display (the first Air to offer it) you’re going to have to embrace the new design.

That means that, like the 13.6-inch 2022 Air, this larger 15.3-inch model has a flat lid rather than rounded, which places it much more in line with the MacBook Pro. The base is flat, solid and premium and the edges are flat too, delivering a slim and slender device that has a lovely uniformed and symmetrical look.

It’s an aluminium body, as we have now come to expect from MacBook – it’s been the material of choice since 2008 – and there are four colours available for the 15-inch model, comprising Starlight, Midnight, Silver and Space Grey. My favourites are Starlight and Midnight, though the Silver and Space Grey are more traditional so it depends on what you’re looking for as to which is the best colour for you. Our review model is Midnight, and while it absolutely loves a fingerprint – more so than the Starlight colour we had as a review unit for the 13-inch model – it is glorious as an option. It appears black in some lights, while in others you get some lovely blue undertones with plenty of depth.

In terms of weight, the 15-inch model weighs just 1.53kg (3.3lbs) and it is lovely and light for its size, which is the biggest story of this device really. The first time I picked it up, I was pleasantly surprised and I’ve continued to be each time I’ve carried it around during my review period. Unsurprisingly, it’s not quite as light as the 13.6-inch model, which comes in at 1.24kg, but it’s still a great weight for its size and unless you’re holding the 2022 model and this model in each hand, you wouldn’t notice that difference.

By comparison, the 14-inch MacBook Pro weighs 1.6kg, and the 16-inch weighs 2.13kg, so the 15-inch MacBook Air is quite a bit lighter than both of these, certainly in the case of the 16-inch model.

Open up the lovely flat lid and you’ll be greeted with a Magic Keyboard like the 13.6-inch model. Being slightly larger in build, there is some extra space either end of the keys on the MacBook Air 15-inch, though you won’t find speakers like you get on the MacBook Pro models. Instead, the speakers are positioned at the back of the MacBook Air 15-inch’s base, where the hinge gap is. This is the same as the 13.6-inch model – which struggled in the sound department – though there are two extra speakers on the MacBook Air 15-inchf. More on the speaker performance a little further down.

At the bottom of the keyboard, there’s the trackpad, which was very responsive – something else we have now come to expect from MacBooks. There’s also a Touch ID fingerprint scanner at the end of the keyboard’s function keys tucked away neatly in the top right corner. This is especially useful for a manner of things, from paying with Apple Pay to entering passwords. That does of course mean that there is no Face ID on the larger MacBook Air, though given the MacBook Pro models don’t offer this feature either, that won’t come as a surprise to most.

Larger and stunning display

• 15.3-inch Liquid Retina, 2880 x 1864 resolution, 224ppi
• 500nits brightness
• True Tone support
• P3 wide colour

Despite not offering Face ID, the MacBook Air 15-inch does have a notch at the top of its display housing the 1080p FaceTime camera. You might find it a little distracting at first, but it’s something you get used to within a matter of minutes. The notch is also less obvious on the 15-inch Macbook Air compared to the smaller MacBook Air thanks to the larger screen. There are slim uniformed bezels – only 5mm – and while the bezels aren’t as slim as the MacBook Pro models, they are significantly reduced compared to the M1 MacBook Air.

I really love the larger display – it gives you that little bit of extra space that’s really noticeable and it makes excellent use of the available footprint. The bezels could be a little slimmer still, sure, and I’d love to see the notch disappear eventually in future models, but you’re still getting a huge screen in a manageable and portable format, which will be the answer to many people’s dreams – mine included. The bezels and the notch might be the only thing I can complain about on the MacBook Air 15-inch, which is pretty good going. As I said in my MacBook Air (M2, 2022) review too, that notch is far superior to the previous thick bezel design resulting in a menu bar that isn’t squashed here either, so the notch is something I’ll happily take.

This model has a 15.3-inch model Liquid Retina display with a resolution of 2880 x 1864, which delivers a pixel density of 224ppi. That’s the same as the 13.6-inch model but it doesn’t look any less crisp in the larger format. Colours are lovely and vibrant with plenty of punch.

There’s a great level of brightness too. The MacBook Air 15-inch tops out at 500nits like the smaller model, and while that isn’t as bright as the MacBook Pro models, it is 25 per cent brighter than the M1 MacBook Air – and it makes a big difference in outside use. All the other usual technologies are on board too, including a P3 wide colour gamut and True Tone, which sees the screen automatically adapt to your environment when on.

The display is not touchscreen enabled, which I’d love to see at some point, but I anticipate this coming to the MacBook Pro models before the Air lineup.

The only other thing to note is there is no longer MacBook Air branding beneath the display. In fact, there’s no MacBook Air branding anywhere, as the Air models also don’t have it on the base like the MacBook Pro models do. It’s one of those if you know, you know, kind of scenarios.

The easiest way to distinguish a MacBook Air over a MacBook Pro these days is the number of ports. This 15-inch model and the smaller model both have a MagSafe 3 charging port, along with two Thunderbolt 3 (USB-4) ports on the left edge, as well as a 3.5mm audio jack on the right edge, which is pretty much as thick as the base itself. There is no HDMI port, or SDXC card slot, though the majority of everyday users will probably not need these.

If you do, you can just hook up a USB-C hub with these ports instead – it’s just something to bear in mind as an extra to buy, should you require the HDMI port for an additional screen for example.

Apple Silicon performance

• Apple M2 processor (8-core – 4 performance and 4 efficiency cores)
• 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
• Media Engine (H.264, HEVC, ProRES, ProRES RAW)
• 256GB/512GB storage (up to 1TB, 2TB)
• 8GB RAM (upgradable up to 24GB)

Just like the design, the MacBook Air 15.3-inch follows a similar path to the 13.6-inch model that launched in 2022 when it comes to the specifications under the hood. Some rumours had initially claimed this model would run on the M3 chip, but instead Apple stuck with the M2 chip. Essentially, the MacBook Air 15-inch is pretty much just a larger version of the MacBook Air 13.6-inch (M2, 2022).

It wasn’t a bad thing in terms of the design though, and the same applies to hardware. It’s not all about looks after all – beauty comes from within and all that. The M2 Apple Silicon chip – which is built on a 5-nanometer technology – is very powerful in my experience and while it might not offer the same capabilities delivered by the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips that you’ll find in the latest MacBook Pro models, it still offers more power than the majority of people will require. The MacBook Air is designed for the everyday user and the M2 chip more than meets this requirement, offering plenty of power without being overkill.

Taking a closer look at that chip, the M2 in the MacBook Air 15-inch has an 8-core CPU made up of four performance cores and four efficiency cores and there’s a 10-core GPU as standard (there’s no 8-core option like there is in the smaller Air model).

There’s also a 16-core Neural Engine on board, along with 100GB/s memory bandwidth and a Media Engine on board with a video encode and decode engine and a ProRes encode and decode engine. The base model of the 15-inch model has 8GB of unified memory, configurable up to 24GB, and there’s 256GB SSD, configurable to 2TB.

For reference, I had the 16GB MacBook Air model with 1TB of storage in for review, which is the same spec I had for the smaller MacBook Air (M2, 2022) when I reviewed it in 2022. Overall, the performance of the 15-inch MacBook Air is excellent. There’s a solid difference in raw performance compared to the M1 MacBook Air for general day-to-day tasks, as well as gaming and image editing, and the silent fanless operation offered by the MacBook Air compared to the MacBook Pro models is so refreshing and peaceful, though the fans on the latest MacBook Pro models rarely have to kick in.

There’s a lovely fluidity in switching between apps and tasks on the MacBook Air 15-inch too though, and while everything is fast and responsive, the apps that are optimised for Apple Silicon are really impressive – Adobe Photoshop being one of them. I use this regularly for image editing and it runs so smoothly and efficiently on this machine, whilst also not eating too much battery life that it means the MacBook Air 15-inch is more than enough for everything I need to do day-to-day. If you’re video editing, you will likely need a MacBook Pro, but for many people and standard everyday tasks, the MacBook Air 15-inch will handle near enough anything you throw at it, without so much as breaking a sweat.

When it comes to typing, which unsurprisingly I do a lot of here at Pocket-lint – the Magic Keyboard continues to impress me. Some big changes were brought in when Apple switched from the older butterfly keyboard, but it’s been the same typing experience on Macs for several years now and it’s excellent. Trust me, when you’re writing between 5,000 to 10,000 words a day, you know when the keyboard isn’t up to scratch. The MacBook Air 15-inch has the same mechanism as the M1 MacBook Air, though it makes the change to full height function keys, just like the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) did, allowing for the Touch ID fingerprint sensor we mentioned earlier, so this is only a good thing in my opinion.

Elsewhere, there are six speakers on board the MacBook Air 15-inch compared to the four speaker array on the smaller MacBook Air model, and the performance is significantly better. The soundstage is considerably wider, with Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos tracks offering much more space than on the smaller MacBook Air. You don’t get quite the same experience as you do on the MacBook Pro models but the MacBook Air 15-inch sounds great and will more than suffice for movie watching.

How long does the MacBook Air 15-inch (M2, 2023) battery last?

• Up to 18 hours battery
• Dual 35W charger

When it comes to battery, the MacBook Air 15-inch model claims to offer up to 18 hours of surfing the web. This is the same promise as the smaller 13.6-inch model despite the larger display, which, when I first reviewed, I found to deliver around 12-13 hours. That’s still impressive in terms of a laptop battery life, but I get a lot more out of the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) now, following the initial review period. I’ve done a couple of 11-hour flights with smaller MacBook Air, both of which I worked for 10 hours on and in both cases I had over 40 per cent left by the end of the flight – the first one I had 53 per cent, the second time (which had Wi-Fi connected), I had 43 per cent. With this in mind, I am going to update this element of this MacBook Air 15-inch review when I have used this model for a couple more weeks as I think it takes some time for the battery usage to settle.

From my experience so far though, the battery is impressive and I am expecting it to be up there with the smaller model. So far, the larger screen doesn’t seem to have negatively impacted the battery capabilities so I only see this improving as the weeks go on and the iCloud downloads in the background settle down.

In terms of charging, this takes place through MagSafe 3, which is positioned on the left edge of the device as I mentioned. You can also charge through one of the two Thunderbolt 3 (USB 4) ports though if you happen to forget your MagSafe cable. These two ports are located on the left edge too, alongside the MagSafe port. It’s worth mentioning that as there is only a 10-core GPU model of the MacBook Air 15-inch, you get the dual-port 35W charger as standard. I love this charger, it is so useful to have one adapter to charge a couple of devices, and quickly too, so I’m very pleased to see it come as standard.

The only thing I would say on the charging front is that while the braided charging cable is colour-matched to the body of the MacBook Air, as is the MagSafe connector, the USB-C end is white to match the adapter instead. I didn’t notice this as much on the Starlight model as the cable is lighter but on the dark cable, the white end looks a little odd. Definitely not a dealbreaker though, especially as you may not even have noticed if I hadn’t pointed it out. However, coming from a company where the inside of the charging ports on iPhone are colour-matched, it’s a slightly odd omission.

macOS software

• macOS Ventura

When it comes to software, the MacBook Air 15-inch runs on macOS, as you would expect and in my experience, it’s very easy to use and navigate, helped by search tools like Spotlight that help you find things quickly. I probably use Command + Space Bar more than most shortcuts on my Mac, as that’s how I find anything I am looking for. The current build of this is macOS 13, or macOS Ventura, though it will also be compatible with macOS 14 – also known as macOS Sonoma – that was also announced at WWDC and will launch later this year.

A number of new features were announced, which you can read all about in our separate macOS Sonoma feature, but for now, the MacBook Air 15-inch will also offer everything the smaller MacBook Air offers, including Stage Manager, which is great for multitasking, as well as improvements to multiple native apps like Mail.

There’s also a macOS Ventura feature that details everything possible on Mac now, prior to the new software launching so you can get an idea of all the features you can enjoy now. I’ve also written a Mac tips and tricks feature that is well worth a read as you will probably find a couple of handy tips you may not have known were possible.

Verdict

The Apple MacBook Air 15-inch is pretty much the answer to my laptop prayers. I am an avid MacBook Air user and the 13.6-inch model is the MacBook I find myself recommending most, especially for everyday users. Previously, there was only one screen size to choose from, which meant that if you wanted a larger display, you would need to look at the MacBook Pro line, which is significantly more money and comes with more power than most people would ever be able to fully utilise.

Now though, there’s the option of this larger screen size, whilst still retaining a slim and lightweight build, plenty of power and a superb battery life like the smaller model. The bezels could be slimmer, the notch might be annoying for some and the end of the charging cable could have colour matched the cable itself, but that is literally all I can complain about here, and to be honest, that’s clutching at straws.

The MacBook Air 15-inch is a truly superb everyday laptop, with a solid and premium build quality, a stunning big display, excellent performance and an exceptionally promising battery life. There’s nothing not to love here. It’s the everyday laptop dreams were made of.