Apple has introduced a completely redesigned MacBook Air and an updated 13-inch MacBook Pro, both powered by the new M2 chip.
The MacBook Air also features a larger 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display, a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, four-speaker sound system, up to 18 hours of battery life,1 and MagSafe charging. It is now available in four finishes — silver, space gray, midnight, and starlight.
The M2 processor also comes to the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the world’s second best-selling laptop and delivering up to 24GB of unified memory, ProRes acceleration, and up to 20 hours of battery life.
New MacBook Air
Built from the ground up around the M2, MacBook Air has an entirely new design that is remarkably thin from every angle, according to Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. It measures just 11.3 mm thin and is only 2.7 pounds, and features an all-aluminum unibody enclosure.
The design integrates its components so efficiently that Apple says it results in 20% reduction in volume. With the power efficiency of M2, all of the capabilities of MacBook Air are built into a silent, fanless design. In addition to silver and space gray, MacBook Air is now available in two new finishes — midnight and starlight.
MagSafe returns to the MacBook Air, giving users a dedicated charging port that is easy to connect, while protecting the laptop when it is plugged in by quickly releasing if the charging cable is accidentally pulled.
MacBook Air also features two Thunderbolt ports for connecting a variety of accessories, and a 3.5 mm audio jack with support for high-impedance headphones. Additionally, the Magic Keyboard features a full-height function row with Touch ID, and a Force Touch trackpad.
The new MacBook Air features a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display, which has been expanded closer to the sides and up around the camera to make room for the menu bar. The result is a larger display with much thinner borders, giving users more screen real estate to view their content in brilliant detail.
At 500 nits of brightness, it is also 25% brighter than before. In addition, the new display now supports 1 billion colors.
The MacBook Air includes a new 1080p FaceTime HD camera with a larger image sensor and more efficient pixels that purportedly deliver twice the resolution and low-light performance of the previous generation. The new laptop also sports a four-speaker sound system. To fit inside such a thin design, the speakers and mics are completely integrated between the keyboard and display.
A three-mic array captures audio using advanced beamforming algorithms, while the speakers produce improved stereo separation and vocal clarity. The MacBook Air also supports immersive Spatial Audio for music and movies with Dolby Atmos. According to Apple, the M2 takes the performance of MacBook Air even further.
- For intensive workloads like editing complex timelines in Final Cut Pro, performance is nearly 40% faster than the previous generation, and up to 15x faster for customers who haven’t upgraded to Apple silicon.
- Applying filters and effects in apps like Adobe Photoshop is up to 20% faster than before, and up to 5x faster for customers that haven’t yet upgraded to Apple silicon.
- And even with a larger display and increased performance, MacBook Air delivers all-day battery life as before, with up to 18 hours of video playback.
The MacBook Air offers a number of charging options, including an all-new 35W compact power adapter with two USB-C ports, so users can charge two devices at once. And for the first time, MacBook Air supports fast charge for charging up to 50% in just 30 minutes with an optional 67W USB-C power adapter.
13-inch MacBook Pro with M2
Apple has also updated the 13-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 chip. The company says:
- With a faster 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU, working with RAW images in apps like Affinity Photo is nearly 40% faster than the previous generation, and up to 3.4x faster for users who are upgrading from a model without Apple silicon.
- Playing graphics-intensive games like Baldur’s Gate 3 is also nearly 40% faster than the previous 13-inch MacBook Pro, and up to 3.3x faster for customers upgrading from a model without Apple silicon.11
- With an active cooling system, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is designed to sustain its pro performance.
- Thanks to M2, the 13-inch MacBook Pro also supports up to 24GB of unified memory — along with 50 percent more memory bandwidth — making multitasking and working with large assets super fluid.
- With support for ProRes encode and decode in the media engine of M2, users can play back up to 11 streams of 4K and up to two streams of 8K ProRes video. And they can convert their video projects to ProRes nearly 3x faster than before.
- The 13-inch MacBook Pro delivers phenomenal battery life with up to 20 hours of video playback.
Pricing and Availability
- The all-new MacBook Air and updated 13-inch MacBook Pro will be available on apple.com/store and in the Apple Store app. They will begin arriving to customers, and will be in select Apple Store locations and Apple Authorized Resellers, next month.
- MacBook Air with M2 starts at $1,199 (US) and $1,099 (US) for education. Additional technical specifications are available at apple.com/macbook-air-m2.
- The 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2 starts at $1,299 (US) and $1,199 (US) for education. Additional technical specifications are available at apple.com/macbook-pro-13.
- Additional technical specifications and details on Apple accessories — including the 30W USB-C Power Adapter for $39 (US), 35W Dual USB-C Port Compact Power Adapter for $59 (US), 35W Dual USB-C Port Power Adapter for $59 (US) compatible with the World Travel Adapter Kit for $29 (US), and the 67W USB-C Power Adapter for $59 (US) — are available at apple.com/mac. The 35W Dual USB-C Port Compact Power Adapter is available to customers in Canada, China, Japan, Mexico, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and the US.
