From the mighty Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, to its own Steam Deck, to a wonderfully neat Geekom mini PC, there were some tech I thought would be my gadget this year. .
Years ago, a colleague gave me an old-fashioned MacBook Air. So when Apple redesigned the Air and added an M2 chip, I perked up and paid attention.
The MacBook Air M1 was well-reviewed, but its design felt dated. But the 2022 MacBook Air looked fresh. And after seeing the critical acclaim for the new Air, I decided he’d buy one.
But as soon as I finalized my purchase, I immediately felt the pain of buyer remorse.
Reflect on your MacBook
I paid for the MacBook Air M2 in interest-free installments. It also meant I could afford to use his 512GB mode with an extra GPU core.
But despite this move to pay back about £60 a month, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had made too much of a luxury purchase. I’m here.
That feeling stuck with me when the MacBook Air arrived. In fact, my unfamiliarity with macOS shocked me and made me wonder if I had made an even bigger mistake.
And so began my journey of relearning macOS and adapting to a slightly different keyboard layout. Over time, I started to realize that there are many things I like. Although it was small, it created a great laptop experience.
The Force Touch trackpad is great, providing a large tactile space that makes using the trackpad a pleasure rather than a poor mouse replacement. It really lives up to its hype.
Its 13.5-inch display is also beautiful, offering plenty of brightness, color, and contrast. Sure, the notch looks a little goofy in person, but the slimmer bezels are a good compromise.
a breath of fresh air
This appreciation only grew as I got used to macOS. The slim, seamless design is great, and although the Macbook Air gets hot, I didn’t feel it hurt the M2’s performance.
Of course, I’m not a video editor, so I rarely push silicon. But even with a variety of apps open and lots of tabs on the screen, the Air never felt sluggish.
This made me try out a few games. Cyberpunk 2077 won’t be running on the Air anytime soon, but it can run less demanding games like Divinity Original Sin 2 and Disco Elysium. Both are excellent games. Not to mention, it’s perfect for Apple Arcade games like Game of Thrones: Tale of Crows.
There was something really refreshing about using a laptop that runs quietly, has no quirks that Windows can throw at it, and feels so nice as an overall package for daily use.
But when I went to IFA 2022 in September, the MacBook Air M2 proved its worth and won me over.
I got through a Berlin-based tech conference on almost one charge. I think I did one quick refill.
The sheer efficiency of the M2 chip is the true star of the show, like it’s consuming power while I’m typing live blog posts or walking around with my laptop in sleep mode. I saw. Speaking of which, the Air boots up instantly, so it’s very effective at covering busy meetings.
So when I got on the plane back to London, I was totally in love with my MacBook Air M2.
Of course it’s not perfect. No such laptop exists yet. The keyboard doesn’t have the tactile response of the Dell XPS 13 or Surface Laptop 5. I would also like an SD card reader. You might complain about having only two USB-C ports, but for charging he uses MagSafe to free them up. And the lack of USB A tends to rival the course of modern ultra-portable laptops.
All that said, I think the MacBook Air M2 is basically the best laptop for most people who don’t need the power to render 4K video while on the move. I’m curious where Apple will take his MacBook Air next.
