The new 2023 15-inch MacBook Air is available this week online and at Apple stores islandwide, and as we can expect with every new Apple launch, it’s a whole new beast with better hardware and better specs. The design falls away from the previous tapered exterior that the Airs were famous for, and instead has a squarish, uniform thickness that follows the look and feel of the more expensive MacBook Pros. It comes in four colours: Midnight (a really dark bluish-black), Starlight (a light champagne gold that’s less polarising than the previous Rose Golds that Apple pushed out, and featured in the photos below), Space Grey, and Silver, with each of them coming with its own matching MagSafe charging cable.
There are two big upgrades: the screen size, now being available in 15-inch, and the M2 chip, which is up to 1.4x faster than the MacBook Air fitted with the M1 chip. Here’s first looks and thoughts on the machine.
Above: The MacBook Air box packaging.
Above: The 15-Inch Macbook Air in Starlight. Under natural light and at certain angles, it looks almost silver.
Above: in the box, there’s a 35w usb-c power adapter and a magsafe cable in a colour that matches the starlight exterior.
Above: the power adapter has two usb-c ports built-in.
Above: the 15-inch macbook air measures just 1.15cm thick.
Above: the macbook pro 14″ (on top of the new macbook air 15″) measures 1.55cm thick. in comparison, the macbook air is just 1.15cm. In terms of weight, the Macbook pro 14″ weighs 1.6kg while the macbook air 15″ weighs 1.51kg.
Above: the new 15.3-inch display is liquid retina and has 500 nits of brightness.
Above: there’s a backlit magic keyboard with touch id and ambient light sensor.
Above: the force touch trackpad is large and ACCOMMODATES pressure-sensitive drawing and multi-touch gestures.
The 15-inch MacBook Air is definitely suitable for everyday tasks, like watching movies, playing games, and writing emails; and even for editing photos and home movies. On the other hand, if your line of work requires you to work with really large files and 3D-rendering software, you’re still better off with a MacBook Pro that will give you the heavier processing power that these tasks require. But for the most of us — students included — the MacBook Air is an excellent computer for its lower price point (compared to the Pro), and now with a larger and brighter 15-inch screen and a faster processor with the M2 chip, the experience is one of the best in its class.
The MacBook Air 15″ with M2 chip starts from $1,899 and is available for purchase on APPLE.COM and at Apple stores islandwide.
You must be logged in to post a comment.