Anybody living in an apartment will complain about cramped quarters. What the pandemic taught us is that we will always crave more space and will slowly get there. The case is similar with the laptop: Once you experience those extra inches of screen real estate, there is no returning to vanilla living. For Apple, it is always about finding inspiration in human needs and wants, which is the case with the new 15-inch MacBook Air with the supercharged M2 chip.
The new offering is a classic example of why inches matter more than pounds; why lightness and delicacy matter without compromising horsepower. There is already an impressive 13-inch MacBook Air with the M2 chip but somehow, there’s that je-ne-saisquoi element about the new 15.3- inch variant. These two extra inches will help Apple make the new MacBook Air the default choice for laptops for millions of users globally. It will begin a race for bigger laptops and it will not be a surprise if this machine becomes the bestseller of the year.
COMPACT AND… LARGE
For someone whose work is not chained to a table, it’s the best travel laptop on the market. At first, it could be slightly intimidating to even think of buying a 15-inch machine. Only when you see it in person and experience it, will you get a fair idea of what Apple has done. The shape of the MacBook Air combined with its freakish lightweight makes it enjoyable to carry around.
The screen real estate has been increased but weight has been restricted to 1.5kg and, at the same time, it remains slim… so slim that you can carry it in any bag without the fear of it bending. Beyond the MacBook Air, there is only one bigger size, which is the MacBook Pro with 16 inches. Here’s what Apple has achieved: There are now two sizes for MacBook Air (13 and 15 inches) and three sizes for the Pro model (13, 14 and 16 inches), giving customers enough variety.
When the 15.3-inch LED-backlit display with IPS technology is placed next to any similarly-priced Windows laptop, the difference will be dramatic. Even without having an OLED display, it can generate inky blacks and, needless to say, colours are represented spot on.
The screen size-to-weight ratio is absolutely bonkers. Plus, there is 500 nits of brightness, which is just about the perfect level for usefulness on a computer that needs to be ready to operate in any environment. Making the 15.3-inch feel even larger is slightly taller than 16:10 aspect ratio. You will literally be spoilt for screen space. You can work simultaneously on two windows side by side without having to zoom into either.
Some may say that Air means having something light and compact. That’s exactly the engineering marvel behind this machine — even at 15 inches, there have been no compromises to its compactness and the weight is not at all unwieldy.
When the machine was first showcased at WWDC, there was trepidation that the device could feel slightly wobbly. Now that I have been using the MacBook for two weeks, there is no such fear. The width has been increased by an ever so small amount but it gives the whole shebang an amount of rigidness that makes it assuring in the hand and makes the user feel that it won’t get bent out of shape when it gets thrown inside bags.
REAL-WORLD EXPERIENCE
Instead of boring specs, let’s look at real-world uses of the MacBook. For a DJ who wants to splash out on a laptop, the 15-inch model is a good choice. There is obviously the extra screen space to view more in any application. As important a difference as screen real estate are the speakers. The speakers on the Air 13 are very good; on the Air 15, it’s boom-bastic. Similar to those on the 13-inch, the speakers have been integrated between the keyboard and display. Being a bigger machine, it comes equipped with a mighty six-speaker system, instead of a quad-speaker setup, with force-cancelling woofers. The headphone jack is still very much there. Listening to both the M2 Airs side by side, I have been left speechless by the bass the new entrant can generate.
For coders, the go-to machine has been the MacBook Pro but that may change for some people. You can go about coding on the 15-inch Air. For example, you can run on the machine Visual Studio Code, an iOS simulator and an Xcode build system without noticing too much of a difference in terms of performance. It’s a fanless machine but even on a hot summer day, the Air can soldier on.
What I wanted to find out is whether having a larger machine will improve performance because of better heat dissipation. Overall, the performance using the M2 chip matches that of the 13-inch MacBook Air. When rendering heavy videos, the machine can go the distance without heating up too much. There appears to be some performance benefit.
In day-to-day performance, you will notice no difference between Air 15 and Air 13 with M2 chip. In fact, the machines that come with Apple’s M1 chip can outperform most Windows laptops any day. But that doesn’t mean we are recommending you the older M1 chip. Get the M2 and have peace of mind for a longer period of time. The new device comes with an eight-core CPU and 10-core GPU and you can upgrade the unified memory and storage all the way up to 24 GB and 2TB, respectively. Maxing it out will be overkill for day-to-day tasks, but, if budget permits, it’s recommended that you upgrade to at least 16 GB of unified memory.
The keyboard and trackpad on a MacBook are among the best in the industry
POWERING THROUGH THE DAY
You must be thinking that a bigger machine comes with more battery power. The truth is there is a bigger battery but there is also a bigger display that needs to be powered. With the 13-inch MacBook Air I usually get around 13.5 hours while the new model is giving me around 15 hours. Either way, both the figures are impressive and enough to have me covered for a day at least. Even at the end of a workday, I am usually left with 35-45 per cent of battery, which is enough to watch a couple of episodes of Silo or High Desert. On days when there is too much work, I am left with around 25 per cent. All this while having Safari as my web browser, which consumes less power than Google Chrome. What I am trying to say is you don’t have to worry about charging the device.
In the box is a 35W dual USB-C port power adapter, which is very helpful, and a high-quality USB-C to MagSafe 3 cable. If you want to juice up the 66.5-watt hour battery quicker, opt for a 70W USB-C power adapter.
SHOULD YOU GET IT?
Given the screen size, portability factor, battery life and, of course, the powerful processor, it’s a MacBook that’s highly recommended for 90 per cent of the workforce; the other 10 per cent needs more powerful devices. If not anything, the build quality is enough to make this a nobrainer of a choice. There are few Windows laptops at similar price points offering the durability of a MacBook. Apple’s own silicon has solved a lot of problems that one faced with Intel Macs and things have changed dramatically for content creators, coders or the officegoers. Even though this is an Air, you can get away with editing short videos without having to thwack the trackpad. For a person who loves to write, the MacBook offers the best keyboard in the industry. The click of the keys is music to the ears and now that the size has increased, there is more space to rest your palm. The machine delivers everything that one expects and wants from a MacBook Air. Stream films? Check. Browse and email? Check. Coding? Check. Content creation? Check. Photo editing? Check. Gaming? Check (keep an eye out for our take on the MacBook and gaming). I keep asking myself what makes a good laptop. It’s about making life easier, ensuring office work gets delivered on time without having to tear one’s hair out. I started out by saying it’s important to find inspiration in human needs and wants. That’s what Apple has done. There was a need for a bigger laptop without compromising on aesthetics or power. Having the 15-inch MacBook Air (upwards of Rs 134,900)will ensure stress-free working for at least five-six years and that’s not something rival platforms can always boast of. Now you can squint less, work more.
The difference in screen size is obvious when you compare the 15-inch MacBook Air (right) with the 13-inch variation
There are two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports and a MagSafe 3 charging port on the left of the chassis while on the right is a 3.5mm headphone jack