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Apple Inc has often treaded the path of giving in to user demands cautiously — but when it eventually does, it does so well. The latest MacBook Air 15-inch is one such example where this size option was a glaring omission for a long time, at a time when pretty much every other brand — ASUS, Acer, Lenovo, HP & Dell have had 15-inch options in Windows since what seems like forever. I tried it out and roped in our in-house multimedia producer to chip in with his hands-on experience of working with AV on the system, and here’s what we experienced.
Design
As is the case with most Apple products, the latest MacBook Air also feels sturdy and something that’s very consciously built to last. The aluminum chassis — 100 per cent recycled — is familiar and Apple hasn’t played around much with the colour options either. You get the usual Starlight, Midnight, Silver and Space Grey. The review unit we received was Starlight and has that minimalist classy look that’s the signature of so many Apple products.
The 15-Inch MacBook Air weighs 1.5 kg and measures 0.45 inch x 13.40 inch x 9.35 inch. In the packed market of 15-inch laptops, Apple claims the new MacBook Air is the “world’s thinnest” and it’s impressively thin! However, it’s definitely not the lightest in the category. The likes of LG Gram 15 and the latest Zenbook S13 OLED that I recently reviewed are definitely lighter to carry around. Technically, the MacBook Air 15-inch is comfortable to carry in a backpack. However if you have experienced a MacBook Air 13-inch, that extra heft is hard to ignore at first.
- Also read: Apple’s privacy boost to Safari with iOS17
Display
With this 15.3-inch display added to its kitty, Apple now offers consumers options across 13 to 16 inches. It was long due, but at least it has got all its size bases covered now. As a multimedia producer (Siddharth), the first thing that struck me while using the new MacBook Air was the vast screen real estate available, making both content consumption and production much easier, compared to the 13-inch which is my daily driver.
The 15-inch MacBook Air (M2) features a Retina True Tone display that supports upto 500 nits brightness. The screen real estate is large, with significantly smaller bezels compared to the previous MacBook Air M1 variant.
There is a notch on top of the display housing a 1080P webcam, which is clear and bright enough for Zoom and Microsoft Teams calls. The notch tends to disappear once I switch to full-screen mode. In terms of connectivity, it has a MagSafe 3 charging port on the left along with two Thunderbolt ports. On the right, there’s a lonely-looking 3.5 mm jack. With all the extra space available, we wish the company had included a few more connectivity ports.
Owing to all the extra space compared to the 13-inch variant, Apple has set up a six-speaker sound system under the hood. There are no visible speaker grilles, however the sound is possibly the best we’ve heard on any MacBook Air. There’s also immersive Spatial Audio for movies and music with Dolby Atmos and the system also supports dynamic head tracking which some of the newer AirPods are equipped with. Overall, with the acoustics, the 15-inch MacBook Air punches well above its weight!
Keyboard
The keyboard has been carried over from the previous models and offers a satisfying-enough tactile feel and key travel. The top right corner of the layout now features a power button doubling up as the Touch ID sensor. Compared to the MacBook Air (M1), the Touch ID sensor feels much larger and is snappy with logins.
Performance
Out of the box, the MacBook Air comes with MacOS Ventura 13. The configuration we reviewed features 16 GB RAM and a 512 GB SSD, although you have options available starting with a 8 GB RAM/256 GB storage combination available.
Everyday tasks such as reviewing office documents, writing mails, consuming media, and editing content and videos are all handled with ease on this device. On synthetic benchmarking tests such as Cinebench R23, the M2 Chip scored 1,548 points in single-core, placing it below the AMD Ryzen 9 5980HS and 7,923 and in multi-core score well above the M1 chip. The Air was able to render a one-minute 1080P video with minimal graphics in under 50 seconds in DaVinci Resolve.
With a fanless design, the device stayed silent throughout and also managed to stay cool during basic document typing and watching video tutorials on YouTube for hours. However, the laptop does tend to get warm while editing videos and running benchmarks.
Battery
Battery life continues to be amazing — pretty close to the 18 hours promised by Apple. It kept me company for 12-14 hours on average with web-browsing, watching videos and regular office communications. With more demanding workflows such as editing podcasts, producing and editing video promos on DaVinci Resolve, it kept me company for about 7-8 hours on a full charge before it touched the 10-20 per cent charge left mark. There’s a 35W dual USB-C charger included in the box and it took a little over two hours to charge fully from zero.
Conclusion
The new 15-inch Apple MacBook Air offers users the quintessential MacBook experience in a bigger form-factor that many users have wanted for sometime now. If the prowess of the MacBook Pro is not something you need — you just need a big screen MacBook as your daily companion, then the new MacBook Air is a great system to have. The variant we reviewed, though, is not significantly cheaper than the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M2) — which boasts a superior M2 Pro processor, a 120 Hz screen, and a bunch of extra connectivity ports — and costs about ₹30,000 more.
If you’re not in the Apple ecosystem already, it’s worth noting that there are Windows-based 15-inch laptops that cost around ₹1 lakh and offer similar specs, and at times even more connectivity, an OLED display and cool features such as the touchpad doubling up as a small secondary screen.
However, if you’re looking to enter the Apple ecosystem and are shopping for a device with Pro-like features, great performance, and display quality and don’t have the budget or functional needs of a MacBook Pro, the 15-inch MacBook Ar (M2)is the one for you.
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