Apple's new 15-inch MacBook Air with M2 processor is 12x faster than Intel's version
At the 2023 WWDC, Apple revealed a 15-inch MacBook Air with an M2 processor, with speeds up to 12x the fastest Intel version, starting at $1299.
15-inch MacBook Air
Apple announced the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air with a redesigned chassis during WWDC 2022, so it is only fitting the larger 15-inch model was revealed during WWDC 2023. It is nearly identical in every way, just bigger.
Jumping from a 13.6-inch display to a 15.3-inch display is significant enough to warrant a different model. The larger display and long battery life set it apart as a budget laptop.
Rumors suggested that Apple has had this MacBook Air ready to go for a while, perhaps since the summer of 2022. However, supply chain constraints and other issues seemingly pushed this product back an entire year.
Design and display
The 15-inch MacBook Air has an aluminum case that is 11.5mm thick. This generation of MacBook Air is the thinnest laptop Apple has sold yet -- without the taper.
Apple didn't announce any new color options for this New MacBook Air. It is available in silver, space gray, midnight, and starlight.
A 15.3-inch display
The classic oversized glass trackpad sits below a backlit keyboard with full-height function keys. It has a Touch ID button embedded in the top-right key.
The Liquid Retina display has 500 nits of brightness, a P3 color gamut, and True Tone. The display has a notch cutout that houses a 1080p webcam.
A six-speaker audio system enables Spatial Audio, while a three-mic array keeps audio calls sounding crisp. That's two more speakers than the 13-inch model.
The 15-inch MacBook Air has two Thunderbolt ports, a headphone jack, and a MagSafe port.
Apple quotes this MacBook as having an 18-hour battery. That's in line with Apple's usual all-day battery quote, but testing must be done.
Pricing and availability
The 15-inch MacBook Air starts at $1,299. It will be available to purchase on Monday once the Apple Store is live after the WWDC keynote.
Apple says the 13-inch MacBook Air now costs $1,099, and the older M1 model is available at $999.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Agree, this could be one of their biggest selling Macs in quite some time.
iPad Air and other products are obvious candidates for similar adjustments.
As for MBA 15 - very nice, but it should have been delivered last year for back-to-school.
Apple has done this in other product lines for many years. Every fall, when the newest iPhone generation is introduced, Apple typically keeps one or more of the older iPhone models in the lineup at freshly-lowered prices.
Although the low price for a traditional laptop would certainly be appealing to some, I tend to think that the time for 11- or 12-inch Mac laptop models has come and gone — we'll never see one of those again. If sufficient demand had existed the last time such models were available, presumably Apple would have introduced newer versions of those models rather than discontinuing those sizes altogether. (The last 11-inch MacBook Air was discontinued in October 2016 and the last 12-inch MacBook went away quietly in July 2019.)
Or, potential market demand aside, perhaps Apple wants to satisfy demand for smaller screens only by offering the various iPad models.
1) A large number of people use their MBAs in clamshell mode connected to an external display and bluetooth keyboard and trackpad. They only use it as a laptop when they are travelling and small-size and weight is then an advantage.
2) While 'bigger is better' in the US, in the Far East and a section of the global population generally, 'smaller is better'.
The MacBook Air was launched as an impossibly small and light laptop - made possible by the miniature hard drive that Apple adopted from prototype (the same tech later became the Microdrive) - with relatively poor performance and at a premium price. SSD chips have eliminated that constraint. There is huge demand for impossibly small and light laptops. Apple could sell an 11" OLED MBA at a higher price than the 13" MBA.
As with TVs, if you want a larger screen just get closer to it - aptly demonstrated by the Vision Pro which only has 1" displays.
I have to say the pricing is fantastic. In fact, if you consider that spec'ing up the base 13" to the 10 core GPU costs an extra $100, while it's standard on the base 15", the real price difference for same spec machines is only $100 more for the 15".
The 15” Air blows 15” PC laptops out of the water. This thing is going to sell like crazy. I have two immediate family members who will be buying.