Updated June 18th: article originally posted June 17th.
The faithful fans have been waiting for Apple’s launch of the 15-inch MacBook Air. Now it’s here, and the reviews make it clear; this laptop barely meets expectations. This isn’t Apple pushing the boat out with a new wonderful experience. It’s the same tired laptop that Apple has been releasing since 2020.
Update: Sunday June 18th: The ever-reliable team at iFixit has got their hands on the 15-inch MacBook Air and as always has stripped down the new hardware to look at both the new components but also how easy it is to repair. And both answers are disappointing.
In terms of new hardware – beyond the display – Apple has bumped up the battery capacity to offer a similar lifetime as the 13-inch laptop. It’s a multi-cell unit that facilitates fast charging. As reported, the space not used is filled with two extra speakers. Aside from those features, the MacBook Air 15’s internal construction is eerily identical to that of the MacBook Air 13. It genuinely is ‘same again but bigger’.
One decision is a poor choice, though; the MacBook Air is packed full of adhesive tape and tightly packed components that will make repairs incredibly difficult. Malcolm Own picks up the story:
“Disassembly is a “miserable” experience, with the components assembled and overlapping each other in a “maze” that makes battery removal and taking out the logic board a tough challenge. That logic board also has “pretty much the same stuff” as the 13-inch version.
“As part of the teardown, Apple’s continued reliance of adhesive strips to hold the battery in place is thought to be unnecessary, given the sheer amount of components that must be removed beforehand that also holds the cells in place.”
One of the criticisms of the 15-inch MacBook Air is that it’s behind the times and should have been released last year. The laptop’s specs (beyond the 15-inch screen) match that of the 13-inch MacBook Air launched at WWDC 2022 with the M2 chipset. If Apple had launched the 13-inch and 15-inch Airs simultaneously, there would have been significant synergy.
Instead, the industry had to wait a year for a bigger laptop. The increased internal volume allows for two more speakers, but everything else feels like a laptop from 2022. Even with Apple’s aggressive pricing, buying into the macOS laptop ecosystem is a big investment. Is that one where you want to be buying old goods?
Matching the 13-inch MacBook Air specs means that the issues present in the smaller laptop have been carried over. That means the memory read/write speeds have been halved compared to the M1-powered laptops launched in 2020.
Putting aside revolutionary, where’s the evolutionary large MacBook Air? That’s not arriving until next year. Apple’s upcoming M3 chipset family will offer more performance with better battery life and will be the heart of all consumer-focused MacBook Air laptops.
In the meantime, the current 15-inch M2 MacBook Air feels like a placeholder, a laptop that is a ‘new’ released to keep interest and momentum high. Last year’s laptop will carry that disguise until the true next-generation MacBooks arrive.
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