You can now pre-order the overhauled MacBook Air laptop powered by the new Apple M2 chip. The redesigned laptop is set to land on store shelves on July 15.
- Aside from Apple’s latest M2 chip, the new MacBook Air also has MagSafe charging though you can also charge it via its two Thunderbolt / USB4 ports.
- Another small but important improvement over the previous models: the new MacBook Air upgrades that paltry 720p potato camera to a crisper 1080p one.
- The tapered design is gone. The redesigned enclosure is just 11.3 millimeters thin and weighs 2.7 pounds, a 20 percent reduction in volume versus before.
You can now pre-order the new MacBook Air with M2
On Friday, July 8, 2022, Apple began accepting pre-orders for its new MacBook Air laptop powered by its M2 chip. The redesigned MacBook Air with M2 was unveiled at the WWDC22 on June 6, 2022, alongside the updated 13-inch MacBook Pro, also powered by the new M2 chip. The new MacBook Air is slightly more expensive that its M1-powered predecessor, which remains available to purchase.
You can place your order on Apple’s online store at apple.com/store or via the official Apple Store app [App Store link]. Orders will begin arriving on Friday, July 15, the same day retail availability will start. The new MacBook Air with M2 is available in two new colors—midnight and starlight—joining the existing silver and space gray color options. The baseline configuration with 256 gigabytes of storage and eight gigabytes of unified memory is priced at $1,199 in the United States. The online Apple store lets you configure your order by increasing the RAM and storage.
You can also choose whether your order ships with Apple’s new 35W USB-C power adapter or a stronger 67W one. The 35W accessory is a dual-port charger with a pair of USB-C Power Delivery ports for charging two devices at once. The 67W version has a single USB-C port but it does fast-charging which the 35W adapter lacks. With fast charging, your M2 MacBook Air goes zero to fifty percent in 30 minutes. To compare Mac models, visit apple.com/mac/compare.
Apple’s MagSafe 3 charging cable is now offered in the new MacBook Air-matching colors, including Starlight and Midnight. Made with a woven design, the cable is 2 meters long and costs $49 https://t.co/8Uiabds0Zo pic.twitter.com/EKIvTJ44s0
— iDownloadBlog (@iDownloadBlog) July 8, 2022
MacBook Air models: M2 vs. M1
If you passed on the M1-powered MacBook Air because it skipped on MagSafe charging and other features, now’s your chance to pre-order the redesigned M2-powered model. The latest M2 MacBook Air does offer MagSafe charging via a connector that snaps into place magnetically and detaches just as easily (super useful if you accidentally trip over the cord). People will know that you’ve upgraded because the enclosure has been redesigned. Instead of a tapered look the enclosure is now uniformly thin, giving the new MacBook Air a more modern look. And it’s even a tad lighter than the M1 model, weighing 2.7 pounds.
Aside from the updated design, MagSafe charging and a better camera, the notebook has four speakers instead of two. The improved sound system now supports spatial audio. The display is slightly larger (13.6 inches vs. 13.3 inches) and brighter (500 nits vs. 400 nits) while supporting a billion colors. The Apple M2 chip brings improvements of its own: This MacBook Air supports up to 50 percent more RAM (24GB vs. 16GB). The M2 will b of particular interest to anyone working with video thanks to hardware-accelerated ProRes/ProRes RAW and Apple’s ProRes encode/decode engine. For those wondering about battery life, you get the same 18 hours of video playback on a single charge as before. Read: How to turn on the “Save As” option in app menus on macOS