Apple's MacBook Air 15 M2 is expensive, but practically unrivaled

[Redaktion]

The new MacBook Air 15 performed very well in our review, even if there appear to be a number of shortcomings. In everyday life, however, these do not play a major role and, if you take a closer look, there are a few areas where Windows laptops still fall behind.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-s-MacBook-Air-15-M2-is-expensive-but-practically-unrivaled.727913.0.html

[ramirez789]

"While some people don't like to hear it, the base model with 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD is perfectly adequate."

Well, that's exactly right...

[AdamB]

I have no problem with saying that this Mac is a good machine, I have just a problem with rating. I also have no problem with spec 8GB/256 SSD- good enough for people browsing web (the most of users) using online storage, office apps etc (even if overpriced, it can be justified).
This mac has great screen, great battery life, very good build quality and silent operation. But for the score 92% it's underpowered. Fails on wi-fi, ssd, cpu performance. Don't want to mention that on notebookcheck all reviewers always say that unupgradable RAM is on the cos side - in case of mac this is not a problem (don't want to mention about ssd).
I replace my home laptop (used also to work) every 2 years, work laptop every year. Many times I was considering buying mac pro, mainly for its performance, build quality and battery life. Due to some software issues, I decided to skip it. I am not against apple - I am against reviews and rating that look like apple's promotional advertisement. 
Just compare it to zenbook 14X with i9 processor, oled screen with vh refresh rate (touch), wifi 6e, pcie 4 (replaceable) and cheaper. I have no words...

[Neenyah]

Unrivalled for? Surf the web and write emails? $1300 is really necessary for that? 1 minute of screen recording in 60 fps is 660-710 MB, btw. Good luck recording several 5-10 mins clips with 256 GB storage 😀

[Andreas Osthoff]

Soldered components affect the rating of every laptop we test. The MBA 15 did not get any points for maintenance in our rating (part of the chassis section). We always mention the lack of upgrade options in our review. just because we do not mention it as a specific con (only in the written review), does not mean it does not affect the rating.

[Niraj Chandra]

There is another benefit to using Apple products, including MacBook Air, that no one talks about. Apple products are relatively free from viruses. As a result, they are much more user friendly. I am very happy with my MacBook Air. It's always ready to use. On the other hand, my windows laptop has to be booted up every morning, it needs frequent re-starts and constant virus protection.

[Neenyah]

There is another benefit to using Apple products, including MacBook Air, that no one talks about. Apple products are relatively free from viruses.

"Complete list of Mac viruses, malware and trojans" - macworld.com/article/672879/list-of-mac-viruses-malware-and-security-flaws.html

As a result, they are much more user friendly. I am very happy with my MacBook Air. It's always ready to use. On the other hand, my windows laptop has to be booted up every morning, it needs frequent re-starts and constant virus protection.

Disable hibernation and you won't need constant rebooting, it will just wake up from sleep and work equally good (or bad if it's a weak machine) as when you left it.

[Verona]

Unrivalled for? Surf the web and write emails? $1300 is really necessary for that? 1 minute of screen recording in 60 fps is 660-710 MB, btw. Good luck recording several 5-10 mins clips with 256 GB storage 😀

Get higher versions if your requirements are more or get MacBook Pro 14/16 with 8TB variant. And by the way if you are a real professional who uses vram (not RAM) near 90 GB then it's not possible for windows systems even for a windows desktop. You just can't even open the file, Mac is the only option as the MacBook Pro offers 96 GB of unified RAM which will take more than a decade for nvidia, amd and intel combined to provide in a laptop form factor and with the power efficiency of Apple M chips.

No matter how much you spend on windows laptop their main weekness shows when they run on battery power. That's why windows is better in desktop but for laptop mac is the best. not for the price but for the actual purpose of buying laptop in the first place.

[ramirez789]

"Apple chips are passively cooled, which is a huge advantage. In the Windows camp, you have to rely on ARM chips from Qualcomm, which results in somewhat sluggish overall performance that cannot be compared with faster x64 laptops."

Not true !
Hey ppl come on, do your research... surely you must be aware of Intel's N-series chip existence ! because , for example, both ASUS and Lenovo IdeaPad 330 sports the Intel Pentium Silver N6000 (and older N5000) - 4 cores, totally fanless !

And... While some people don't like to hear it, the N series is perfectly adequate, even for video editing, but you must have 8 GB of RAM and replace HDD drive with SSD (though nowadays most come with SSD out of the box).

Besides... There's a new wave of CPUs coming through, all those recently presented Intels N100, N200 and N300 (8 cores!), all with very low TDP, something like 6 or 7 W. Very fast, certainly could compete with that Macbook of yours... while being passive cooled at the same time, of course. Oh , and 5 times cheaper :)

[Neenyah]

Get higher versions if your requirements are more or get MacBook Pro 14/16 with 8TB variant.

Well yes, obviously, but I talk about the article here and the Air 15 with its mentioned 8/256. Quote from the article:

"For example, there is no WLAN with 160 MHz, PCIe 4.0, and the specs (8 GB RAM, a slow 256 GB SDD) of the base model are meager. However, you also have consider the device's intended purpose, and the new Air 15, like its smaller sibling, is aimed at casual users who primarily use the laptop for surfing, writing emails and viewing photos/videos. While some people don't like to hear it, the base model with 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD is perfectly adequate."

One literally doesn't need to pay $1300 to do that when you can do all that equally good for not even half the price.

And by the way if you are a real professional who uses vram (not RAM) near 90 GB then it's not possible for windows systems even for a windows desktop.

Real professional? So others non-M1/2/3 users are fake professionals? Last time I checked in a Windows desktop you can add like 4x GPU (say 4090) and that's 65536 CUDA cores + 96 GB of GDDR6X.

Just one 4090 with 24 GB is significantly faster (because not everything is related to the amount of VRAM) than anything Apple can offer; actually M2 Ultra's GPU level of performance is around the RTX 3050 desktop, so nothing particularly wow, and the CPU itself is weaker than comparable AMDs and Intels, refer to this article: "Apple's M2 Ultra Seemingly Can't Beat AMD and Intel Rivals" - tomshardware.com/news/apple-m2-ultra-geekbenched

M2 Ultra is certainly a beast but it's not a true professional-grade workstation-level SoC. Its (all Ms, not just M2U) main advantage is power efficiency with Apple-optimized native software like Final Cut Pro. Add something like Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve and Apple is simply incapable to match that level of performance from Windows competition, even in performance per Watt ("PC vs MAC for the SAME PRICE - Which is better for VIDEO exporting?" - youtube.com/watch?v=_D0K3-uZMyY). And then battery suffers a lot too.

There is also so many x86-exclusive professional software, it's not available on current M-Macs nor it will be. Can you install ABB RobotStudio Suite (new.abb.com/products/robotics/robotstudio) on your M1/2 Mac? No, you can't, despite 96 GB of unified memory. Apple's targeted audience is content creators. Content creators are not the only real professionals among professionals. And I would say that ABB is really not a "fake professional" company, nhf.

[Neenyah]

Oh yeah, btw, you can't buy the Ultra-tier SoC in a laptop. Max is their strongest SoC for laptops and that one is essentially half the power of an Ultra. Ultra is also quite literally two Max chips put together. And that same Ultra is getting smoked easily by AMD and Intel, so...

[RobertJasiek]

@Verona, I have tested my Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU and compared it with someone else's test of an Apple M1 for machine learning by the same application. Result: The 4070, even at its default power target and voltage, is 5 times as hungry, 32.5 times as fast and therefore 32.5 / 5 = 6.5 times as efficient (application speed per watt)! Nvidia - not Apple - is the king of efficiency!

[Neenyah]

Thank you Robert for that info! Very useful and good to know 🙏

[Eric]

8 GB on a MacBook is nothing like 8 gigabytes on a Windows machine don't forget. People have done a lot of things (video editing) with 8 GB MacBooks...

[RobertJasiek]

8 GB on a MacBook is nothing like 8 gigabytes on a Windows machine don't forget. People have done a lot of things (video editing) with 8 GB MacBooks...

What are you trying to say? Inhowfar differ application experiences?

On a system with unified memory, software needs it for every storage purpose. On a system with RAM and VRAM, software needs VRAM for GPU-/TPU-specific storage and needs RAM for general purpose storage. Both systems can run out of storage space. If VRAM is filled, some swapping to RAM may be needed, but if there is sufficient VRAM, this swapping need not occur - just basic transfer between VRAM and RAM (with or without help of the CPU). Conceptually, unified memory is simpler for the software because modifying pointers to storage addresses is enough (as long as there is enough storage).

Then there are different operating systems with different needs to use parts of unified memory or RAM for themselves. With small RAM, such as 4GB or 8GB, Windows uses a significant fraction for itself. Badly programmed basic software (such as browsers) also needs some space.

But what does all this mean in practice? For basic needs, 8GB RAM might be just too small on a Windows computer. I do not know but maybe less so unified memory on a Mac?

So are you just trying to tell us Linux or MacOS is more efficient for small amounts of storage? Or are you trying to make an argument that unified memory instead of RAM + VRAM has a practical advantage (which?) for software that needs VRAM at all on a system with the two types of storages? If the latter, how do such practical advantages result in faster speed for what kinds of softwares (while other kinds of softwares, as I have already explained, are very much faster on RAM + VRAM because GPU / TPU speeds dominate the storage architecture's conceptual disadvantage)?