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New MacBook Air 2022: A photographer’s perspective after 3 days


The MacBook Air 2022 is a big change from previous models, with a complete redesign, larger screen, new color options, and more. Is it the laptop for you? Read on for my review.

Design

The reveal of the original MacBook Air was one of those things Iconic moments in the history of technology, and as someone whose first Mac was original, I can attest to how thin and portable it is and what a joy it is to use. That wedge design has been with the line for over a decade. It wasn’t until the 2022 release that we received a significant external redesign, but I think Apple made a lot of the right decisions here.

The wedge is gone, replaced by a uniform plate that is still extremely thin, only 0.44 inches thick. The screen size has increased from 13.3 inches to 13.6 inches, however, the new model is 20% smaller overall than its predecessor. New colors available (Silver, Starlight, Space Gray and Midnight). I went with Midnight, which is an elegant dark blue that is eye-catching. The 2.7-pound aluminum frame is sturdy yet very light, and the shape it cuts to is both subtle and modern. Along the left edge are the MagSafe port and two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports, and on the right edge is the headphone jack. Overall, it’s a very clean exterior.

What helps that even more is the fact that the MacBook Air 2022 is completely passively cooled; means no fan. The machine runs perfectly smooth. More on that later.

Of course, it’s not just the redesigned chassis; The 2022 model comes with a host of new feature and specification upgrades.

Chips and RAM

The 2022 model comes with Apple’s new M2 chip, featuring an 8-core CPU with 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, an 8- or 10-core GPU, a 16-core Neural Engine, and 100 GB/s memory bandwidth. The multimedia engine provides hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes video encoding and decoding. You can pair with 8, 16, or 24 GB of RAM. I opted for a 10-core GPU chip with 24 GB of RAM to help keep up with some of my more demanding photo and music production tasks.

Air flying over missions. For reference, my main horse right now is the tricked Mac mini 2018, the last generation of that series with an Intel chip. Mine has a 6-core i7-8700b running 3.2GHz and 64GB of RAM, max specs of both. If you like benchmarks, its single-core Cinebench R23 is 1,146, while its multi-core score is 7,969. For comparison, the new Air with its 10-core GPU scored 1,695 on the single-core test and 8,714 on the multi-core, easily competing with my not-so-old desktop that, by the way, still performs perfectly well. .

In practice, this means the ability to meet both my day-to-day needs and my need for more power. I usually keep a large number of tabs open (40-60 across three windows), with Photoshop open, along with Outlook, Discord, and a few other miscellaneous apps running in the background. Working on 45-megapixel Canon EOS R5 files in Lightroom, slider movements and other adjustments are instantly registered. More sophisticated Photoshop filters worked, beating my aforementioned Mac mini manually.

Warehouse

All Air models come with an SSD that’s configurable in four capacities: 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB, or 2 TB. I recommend most people to choose between the two options. I chose 512 GB. Although I have a lot of clunky apps, I store most of my documents and files in the cloud, and my hard drive usually has 350-400 GB of free space.

Storage speed is also very fast, generally for read and write speeds of just under 3,000 MBps. You should note that if you choose the 256GB model, the SSD takes up only one NAND chip instead of two, meaning you’ll experience read and write speeds that are only half of those quoted above.

Cooling

As mentioned, the new Air is completely passively cooled, which means it’s completely silent. It’s something you don’t realize how much you appreciate until you have it. Never hearing the fan spinning is really nice and it helps you focus more. I find this especially important on laptops, where you can’t put physical distance between the fan and the speakers, meaning the latter often competes with the former for being heard. It contributes a lot to the clarity of computer audio. The absence of a fan also means that the case is completely sealed, which means it will never get dusty.

The downside of passive cooling is that it is not as effective as active (fan) cooling. This means that despite having the same chip, the M2 MacBook Pro will be faster to sustain heavy tasks. However, the key point there is “maintaining.” There’s been a lot of talk about this already, but during day-to-day use I’ve yet to notice a slowdown. It seems that the computer takes 5-6 minutes at maximum demand to start accelerating. This means that at least for my purposes, adjustment will only be an issue for things like video output. Even things like working in Photoshop are generally short-term needs that never push it to that extent. As the chip sped up, I found myself losing 10-15% of performance, and for it to ramp up, I had to do things that no one using an ultraportable requires a computer to do often. In the short term, regulation is not an issue.

Display

While the new M2 chip gets a lot of attention, the display really deserves a close look. As mentioned, it’s now larger, and the difference between 13.3 inches and 13.6 inches is both noticeable and appreciated. The Liquid Retina panel, with 2,560 x 1,664 resolution and 224 pixels per inch, supports 1 billion colors and wide color (P3). It has a brightness boost to a maximum of 500 nits, making it easier to work in direct light. There’s also Apple’s True Tone technology, which automatically measures colors and ambient light to adjust white balance and screen brightness. You can turn it off for things like photo editing, but otherwise, it’s a nice feature. I’ve been using it on my iPad Pro for several years, and it does a great job of ensuring a consistent experience regardless of ambient conditions. Overall, the display is a joy to look at, with vivid, accurate colors and plenty of brightness for whatever situation you’re working in, excellent uniformity, and wide viewing angles. I feel completely comfortable doing professional work on the computer.

Webcam and Notch

The webcam has been updated to 1080p and the difference is noticeable. On the other hand, the Air model achieves the notch for the first time. As someone who is overly sensitive to things in their visual field, I was worried it would bother me, but since it’s surrounded by menu bars on either side and not in the active work area, it disappeared from my mind after few minutes of use. If you’re worried about that, it’s worth noting that the space below the notch is a traditional 16:10 aspect ratio, so in essence you have a normal Mac display with a little extra for the bar. menu at the top.

Battery and charger

One of the biggest benefits of Apple Silicon is its terrible battery life, and that abounds here. The battery has a slight increase in capacity to 52.6 watt-hours, which is Apple-rated for up to 18 hours or 15 hours of video playback or web browsing. In practice, I find those numbers consistent with normal usage, which is fantastic. In the three hours I spent setting up the Air, installing programs, browsing the web while decompressing apps and transferring data, watching YouTube, etc., I went from 100% to 78%. That’s impressive, and it’s nice to know I can leave the charger at home.

That being said, the new Air comes with three charging options: a 30-watt USB-C adapter, a 35-watt dual USB-C compact adapter, and a 67-watt fast-charging USB-C adapter. I opted for the fast charging option and it’s great to have. Being able to get 50% more battery life in 30 minutes is great, especially when that translates to 8-9 hours of use. This is truly a laptop where you don’t need to worry about charging all the time.

And, of course, you can rejoice, because MagSafe is back! The Air comes with MagSafe 3, and as someone who lives in a house with two dogs and two cats who all love to make a ton of noise, it’s a welcome addition. Apple matches the color of the cable to your laptop, which is a nice touch. That being said, if you’re traveling light, the Air can still be charged via USB-C.

Ports and connections

The MacBook Air 2022 comes with two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports on the left side, delivering up to 40 Gbps throughput per port. On the right side is the 3.5mm headphone jack. Since Thunderbolt is a relatively versatile port that allows for a lot of expansion and this is an ultraportable computer, I don’t mind having only two options. However, I wish that there was one on each side of the laptop instead of placing them right next to each other on the left side. Unfortunately, there is only support for one external monitor (used simultaneously with the built-in monitor) at 6K and 60 Hz, so if you plan to work in clamshell mode with multiple monitors , you’ll need to upgrade to a MacBook Pro. For wireless connectivity, you have Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 available, both with high speed and reliability. I have no problem maxing out my 1 Gbps symmetric fiber connection.

Keyboard and touchpad

Coming from my 15.6-inch MacBook Pro, I was blown away just by the size of the Air’s trackpad. I expected it to be smaller simply because it’s a smaller computer, but it’s bigger – noticeably so. There’s plenty of space to work here, and tracking, multi-touch recognition, force sensing, and palm rejection are all excellent.

The 2022 model features full-height function keys, which are great to have. On top of that, the ambient light sensor does a great job of controlling the keyboard’s backlight brightness automatically. And finally, Touch ID is available. It’s not something I think I would care that much about in a laptop, but being able to quickly press my finger on a button for anything from logging in to making a purchase is really cool. . The key travel is good and typing for long periods of time is quite comfortable.

Sound

The 2022 Air comes with four speakers, but you won’t see any of them. They are all hidden between the screen and the keyboard. I was quite impressed by how good they still sound and how loud they are. As a musician, I would still choose speakers or headphones with a purpose, but that’s not the knock on the Air; I wouldn’t use any of the laptop’s speakers for important listening. That being said, the bass, mids and treble are all present and well articulated, and stereo separation is good. This means in practice Zoom calls have clear, intelligible voices, watching YouTube videos is fun and immersive, and you can easily fill the room with sound if you don’t. Watching a movie with friends. Like camera sensors, when it comes to speakers, bigger is always better, so don’t expect miracles, but for normal use, the Air’s speakers perform very well. The speaker system also supports Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos, as well as dynamic head tracking when using AirPods (3rd generation), AirPods Pro, and AirPods Max. If you decide to go with wired headphones, the headphone jack will support high impedance options.

To speak, the Air 2022 has a three-microphone array with beamforming orientation. In practice, this translates into the ability to hear clearly, even in noisy environments. It’s a good system that handles well, especially in the age of video calling.

What I like

  • Beautiful and attractive design
  • Very light
  • Easily able to solve even demanding tasks
  • Totally silent
  • Vivid, impressive display
  • Good sound
  • Webcam 1080p
  • Awesome keyboard and trackpad
  • All-day battery life

What I don’t like

  • Both Thunderbolt ports are on one side
  • Supports only one external monitor

Inference

Simply put: MacBook Air 2022 is a flagship laptop with a very portable design. While ultraportables are used to sacrificing power-hungry capabilities for portability, the MacBook Air 2022 can handle even the typical heavy-duty tasks of one’s work. creation. You can get yours here.





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