MacBook Air (2022) review: An amazing upgrade in almost every way

When Apple unveiled the new look of the MacBook Air at WWDC in June, Apple touted the model as the most popular laptop ever.

It is not difficult to understand why.

The MacBook Air has been a hit ever since it was introduced by legendary Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. The overall ethos of Air is to provide users with a thin and light laptop with excellent performance and all-day battery life.

This isn’t the processing power of a MacBook Pro, but it’s Apple’s Everyman laptop, perfect for most workers.

And since 2020, the company has improved on the latest model in (almost) every way.

For starters, the design is different. Gone is the symbolic wedge shape that favors a more robust, slab-shaped approach. It looks better than the old Air design, it’s more modern, and it’s actually slimmer.

The 2020 Air chassis was 16mm thick, but this new version will be slimmed down to 11mm. The weight is almost the same.

Apple kept connectivity minimal (two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack), but revived the MagSafe charging cable.

This means you can plug in and charge your Air without losing one of its USB-C slots. You can also pull the cord without the entire laptop touching the ground. In fact, when it comes to cables, it’s a very good cable connected to a 30W USB-C power adapter.

I wish this update included an SD card reader, but unfortunately Air owners still can’t give up the dongle.

Apple’s design has changed, but the quality hasn’t. The rigid chassis doesn’t flex, the material is luxurious, and you can lift the roof with one finger.

On the screen there is a part of the new Air look that I have a little problem with.

Apple has now slightly increased the Air display from 13.3 inches to 13.6 inches. The frame is cut and the corners are rounded. It’s also brighter for outdoor use and, as far as I know, the color accuracy is excellent.

But it also has a level. You won’t notice it on your iPhone, but you can’t miss it during streaming. Also, the menu bar gets a lot of use, and if it’s too much, the notch will crash altogether. Thanks for the bigger screen due to the extra vertical space on both sides. But it’s still annoying.

Anyway, the webcam will be updated. Currently, it has a built-in 1080p camera inside it. This is a clear step up from the previous Air 720p camera. This is also a big plus, as I video call at least once a day when I work remotely (as most people do).

Finally, a note on colors: Apple has expanded its color options, not just silver and space gray. You can also choose midnight (cold blue black) and starlight (bright silver gold).

In addition to the appearance changes, the Air’s big update is in its processor. According to Apple, the Apple M2 chip offers 18% higher multi-core performance and 35% faster graphics.

The M2 chip has a few tricks. It includes a media engine with a high-bandwidth video decoder that supports 8K H.264 and HEVC playback.

There is also a ProRes media engine for hardware accelerated encoding and decoding. Avid video editors and creative professionals may choose the MacBook Pro, but nothing stops the Air from being a totally useful machine for Final Cut Pro enthusiasts.

This new processor, which can run iOS apps, also has a neural engine that can handle 15.8 trillion operations per second. Apple says this is 40% more than the M1.

The base model Air (the version Apple loaned me for this review) comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Most people will take it to the next level if possible and benefit from a 16GB RAM configuration with 512GB storage. You can also activate a slightly more powerful charging block (35 W).

Of course, it’s £1,249 higher than a £1,749 laptop. This is a big jump and it can be even bigger if you need 24GB of RAM and 1TB or 2TB of storage.

However, if you want to store this machine for 5-6 years and multitask frequently most of the day, you’ll find it’s worth the extra upfront costs in the long run.

Finally, perhaps the most important feature to people (and the feature known in the MacBook Air line) is battery life.

According to Apple, the 2022 MacBook Air has a full day’s battery life, even with larger screens and better performance. This means up to 15 hours of wireless web browsing and up to 18 hours of video playback.

While working at Air, I was able to afford to complete 8 hours a day.

This allows you to multitask across multiple websites in both Chrome and Safari, hold video conferences on Zoom, play music on Spotify, and process photos as needed.

Air wasn’t meant to be a game console, but thanks to Apple Arcade, I was able to walk away for a few hours after working on things like Fantasian and Oceanhorn 2.

As always, the usual benefits of the Apple ecosystem are that if you’re an existing iPhone user or have multiple sets of AirPods, you’ll be able to enjoy cross-departmental benefits.

Needless to say, the 2022 Air is a vast improvement in every way. All it takes for the format is one review, which should be the top candidate for most people when choosing their next laptop.