As expected, Apple introduces the 15.3-inch MacBook Air

As expected, at today’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote, Apple debuted a 15.3-inch MacBook Air. 

It boasts a 15.3-inch Liquid Retina, the performance of the M2 processor, up to 18 hours of battery life, and a silent, fanless design. What’s more, with an all-new six-speaker sound system, the 15-inch MacBook Air delivers immersive Spatial Audio, along with a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, and MagSafe charging.

According to John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, the new MacBook Air’s Liquid Retina display provides up to 500 nits of brightness and support for 1 billion colors. It’s also twice the resolution and 25% brighter than a comparable PC laptop, he adds.

The new MacBook Air measures only 11.5mm thin, which makes it, according to Apple, making it the world’s thinnest 15-inch laptop. It weighs just 3.3 pounds, so is nearly 40% thinner and half a pound lighter than a comparable PC laptop, Ternus says.

The MacBook Air also features MagSafe charging, two Thunderbolt ports for connecting accessories and up to a 6K external display, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack. It comes in four finishes — midnight, starlight, space gray, and silver.

With the M2 chip, the 15-inch MacBook Air is purportedly up to 12x faster than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Air. The laptop features a 8-core CPU with four performance cores and four efficiency cores, a 10-core GPU for fast graphics, and a 16-core Neural Engine. The M2 also delivers 100GB/s of memory bandwidth and supports up to 24GB of fast unified memory.

The 15.3-inch MacBook Air offers a 1080p FaceTime HD camera and three-microphone array for FaceTime and other video calls. The design of the new 15-inch MacBook Air also features a new six-speaker sound system with two tweeters and two sets of force-cancelling woofers. Apple says the new speakers deliver twice the bass depth for fuller sound, and Spatial Audio with support for Dolby Atmos provides immersive experiences whether listening to music or watching movies.

The 15-inch MacBook Air with M2 is available to order today on apple.com/store and in the Apple Store app. It will begin arriving to customers, and in Apple Store locations and Apple Authorized Resellers, beginning Tuesday, June 13.

The 15-inch MacBook Air with M2, available in midnight, starlight, silver, and space gray, starts at US$1,299 and $1,199 for education.

What’s more, the 13-inch MacBook Air with M2, available in midnight, starlight, silver, and space gray, now starts at $1,099 and $999 for education. And the 13-inch MacBook Air with M1, available in gold, silver, and space gray, remains in the lineup, starting at $999 and $899 for education.