inflated air — Review: Apples 15-inch MacBook Air says what it is and is what it says Like the M2 Pro Mac mini, it’s a bridge between Apple’s low- and high-end Macs.

Andrew Cunningham – Jun 12, 2023 1:00 pm UTC Enlarge / Apple’s 15-inch M2 MacBook Air.Andrew Cunningham reader comments 0 with

It’s a credit to Apple’s chips that when I’m using my 13-inch MacBook Air, I feel much more constrained by the screen size than I do by the performance.

That wasn’t always the case. The Intel MacBook Airs of years past were perfectly fine for basic computing, but you could feel the difference between an Air and an iMac or MacBook Pro as soon as you tried to edit something in Photoshop or Lightroom or export something with iMovie. The M1 and M2 Macs also feel slower than their Pro, Max, and Ultra counterparts, but for the kinds of light-to-medium-duty work that I spend most of my time doing, I rarely find myself waiting around for things to happen.

That’s why I’ve been looking forward to the 15-inch MacBook Air, which has been rumored for at least a year and is being released to the public this week. Before now, getting a larger Mac laptop meant paying at least $2,000 for the privilege$2,500 for the 16-inch MacBook Probecause getting that bigger screen also came with extra ports, more powerful chips, and fancier screen technology.

Those things are all perfectly nice to have, but they add extra weight, and they’re overkill for many people who might otherwise be interested in a larger-than-13-inch screen. The 15-inch MacBook Air is for those people. Whats different about the 15-inch Air? The 13-inch M1 Air on top of the 15-inch M2 Air design, to give you a general idea of how much bigger it is. Andrew Cunningham Apple’s modern MacBook Designflat top and bottom, big rubber feetis on full display here. Andrew Cunningham The keyboard is the same as the 13-inch Air, but the trackpad has been pulled by its corners and resized for the new palm rest. Andrew Cunningham

The 15-inch MacBook Air isn’ttotally identical to the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air that Apple released nearly a year ago, but it’s pretty close. Like the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus or the 11- and 12.9-inch iPad Pros, the 15-inch Air shares nearly everything with its smaller sibling except for its size and its price. Advertisement Further Reading2022 MacBook Air review: Apples clean slate

The new MacBook Air’s screen is obviously the biggest departure from the 13.6-inch M2 Air. The 15.3-inch, 28801864 display has the same 224 PPI density as the 13-inch Air, and an aspect ratio of roughly (but not exactly) 3:2. Although the resolution and density are lower than those on either the 14- or 16-inch MacBook Pro, the screen has nearly the same density as every other Retina MacBook Air and Pro that Apple has ever released, so it’s not going to feel like a downgrade for most people.

It also boasts DCI-P3 color gamut coverage and a peak brightness of 520 nits (as measured by our i1 DisplayPro colorimeter). It’s not a mini LED panel, and you don’t get HDR support or the high 120 Hz ProMotion refresh rates you get from a MacBook Pro, but it matches or slightly exceeds the display quality of every other MacBook that Apple has released in the last few years. The 15-inch Air’s keyboard is the same as the one in the 13-inch Air, with more padding on either side.Andrew Cunningham

Per usual for Macs these days, the 15-inch Air ships using a non-native display resolution (in this case, 34202214), leaning on macOS’s scaling technology and the relatively high pixel density to keep things from looking too fuzzy. Things look fine to my eyes no matter which of the display modes you’re using; I normally use the “more space” display option, which renders at 38402486, and all the “larger text” options are great for people who like using bigger screens because they have trouble reading tiny text.

The larger size also adds weightthe 15-inch Air weighs 3.3 pounds, up from 2.7 for the 13-inch M2 Air. That’s still reasonably light for a premium laptop with a 15-inch screen, though, beating the 15-inch Surface Laptop 5 (3.44 pounds) and Dell XPS 15 (4.21 pounds). It’s lighter than either the 14- or 16-inch MacBook Pro (3.5 and 4.7 pounds, respectively). The 15-inch LG Gram, at 2.18 pounds, is one of the few that’s lighter, and it’s got a lower-resolution screen with a less-useful 16:9 aspect ratio. Advertisement

The other change worth noting is the speaker array, which Apple says “deliver[s] twice the bass depth of the 13-inch MacBook Air with M2 for fuller sound.” They’re definitely nice laptop speakers with distinct-sounding bass, and they get loud enough to fill a large roomthey never distort, but I do think they start to sound a bit muddier once you turn them up past 50 percent or so. Two Thunderbolt ports and a MagSafe port on the left side; there’s still a headphone jack on the right.Andrew Cunningham

The 15-inch Air uses the same design language as Apple’s other post-2020 MacBooks. Tapers and gently rounded edges are out; flat planes and more squared-off edges are in. MagSafe is back, with color-matched cables and connectors depending on the laptop you buy. This effectively adds an extra Thunderbolt port when the laptop is plugged inbut regular old USB-C can still charge the laptop just fine. The keyboard is identical to the one in the smaller Air, with nice travel, an even backlight, and a Touch ID sensor in the power button. The trackpad has been stretched out to take advantage of the extra space, and as with the larger MacBook Pro touchpads, I didn’t have any issues with palm rejection even though my palms were usually resting on it at least a bit any time I was typing.

The one thing I still don’t like about this era of MacBook design is the notch at the top of the screen, ostensibly added to make room for a 1080p webcam without adding the need for a bump or protrusion like some other PC laptops have used.

As we’ve said before, it’s something you get used to quickly, and it’s not a deal-breaker. And if you often use your Mac in full-screen mode, as I do, you don’t see it much because it vanishesthe menu bar disappears, and non-menu-bar things aren’t allowed to use the area to the left and right of the notch to do anything. (I would actually recommend going into the Desktop & Dock area of the Settings and changing “automatically hide and show the Menu Bar’ to “Never” since you don’t actually lose any usable screen space by keeping the menu bar visible in full-screen mode the way you do on a non-notched Mac). Page: 1 2 3 Next → reader comments 0 with Andrew Cunningham Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a focus on consumer tech including computer hardware and in-depth reviews of operating systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew lives in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Advertisement Channel Ars Technica ← Previous story Related Stories Today on Ars