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Home / Hot Stuff / Tablets & computers / Apple’s latest MacBook Air is here, boasting a new M2 chip and an angular, flat design

Apple’s latest MacBook Air is here, boasting a new M2 chip and an angular, flat design

The wedge-shape has been dumped in the form of a more angular, flatter design

Stuff WWDC 2022 Apple MacBook Air M2 colour choices

As rumoured – but contrary to convention – Apple has used its developer conference to debut non-Pro hardware in the form of a brand new MacBook Air with a speedier M2 chip. The wedge shape has been dumped in the form of a more angular, flatter design.

During the talk at WWDC22, Apple said the new device has a 20 percent reduction in volume and is 11.3mm thick, weighing in at around 1.2kg. The Air also supports Fast Charge with a 67W adapter (not in the box it seems).

Apple reckons the 8-core M2-based Air can perform around 20 percent faster than the M1 Air for a Photoshop Filter and it’s 5x faster than the speediest Intel-based Air. Once again, it’s fanless unlike the MacBook Pro range. The graphics is powered by a 10 core GPU now rather than an 8-core unit, leading to a modest 18 per cent uplift in performance. The new Air can also support up to 24GB of memory and be specced with up to 2TB of storage.

Display-wise, it’s the same 13.6in liquid retina, 25 percent brighter (500 nits) screen that’s been used in the MacBook Pro, with thinner bezels. There’s a Full HD webcam, plus a four-speaker sound system that can work with Spatial Audio.

Sadly the rumoured slew of different colours didn’t emerge, but there are four – silver, space grey, starlight and midnight (blue). Apple also dropped the tidbit that the Air is the world’s best-selling laptop – we’ve known that before, but it’s still interesting to hear Apple boast about it on stage.

Apple also previewed macOS Ventura, coming to Macs later in the year.

Profile image of Dan Grabham Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home