NEW MacBook Air M2 2022 - The Perfect Redesign

What's going on everyone it's Justin here and today I've got a video with my first impressions of the brand new M2 MacBook Air for 2022. This is the redesign that we saw at WWDC last month and it's one that I've been very excited for even beyond the lead up to this event. My favorite MacBooks over the years have been the MacBook Air M1 as well as the MacBook 12 inch which I used during university and this year we see a fresh redesign that much emulates the M1 MacBook Pro 14 inch and the 16 inch which has a squirt off edge but still has all the best characteristics of the MacBook Air and that is the fact that it is thin, it's light, it's fanless and it has Apple's own silicon that has been updated to deliver more power than the previous generation of course making it a computer that I think it's going to be a very compelling option for a lot of people out there. If you guys want to stay the most up to date with the Apple launches and early unboxings just make sure you go ahead and subscribe to the channel, drop a like on this video and also leave a comment down below as to what your favorite feature of the MacBook Air M2 is because I really look forward to bringing that coverage and I had a great time at the Apple campus last month for WWDC. So restorers let's go ahead and talk about design. The biggest advantage to having the MacBook Air of course is the weight and this comes in at 2.7 pounds which is 0.1 pounds lighter than the previous generation MacBook Air which obviously isn't a noticeable difference. What is noticeable though is the design approach. Instead of being tapered down in the edges it is now a consistent block that rounds off and that is what we first saw on the MacBook Pro 14 inch and the 16 inch and I really enjoy that design approach. The overall thickness is actually 0.19 millimeters thinner than the previous generation MacBook Air which traditionally had a bit of like a thick point and then it would taper off to what seems like is thinner than what this MacBook Air is but in fact based on the measurements alone it is actually 0.19 inches thinner. It is also thinner than the original iPhone which is a cool fact because over the years Apple has really shown that their silicon is able to deliver a lot of power with little compromise to the Air models whereas in the past I felt like the MacBook Air was more of something that was for students doing like lighter work. I used it for notes and Evernote and all that kind of stuff Microsoft Word and not necessarily for video editing but the MacBook Air M1 upon its initial release was a computer that I was pleasantly surprised by because I was actually able to edit videos in 4k. I personally think the computer looks stunning and I love this approach because it is just a lot more balanced and the one that I have right here is in the brand new midnight color which is probably as close as you're going to get to matte black. I really didn't expect Apple to make a model of this color anytime soon because space gray was so popular and I'm honestly a little bit split between space gray and midnight because as good as the midnight looks it is going to be a bit of a fingerprint magnet compared to the lighter colors out there. The new MacBooks also look really good in the silver so you have a few different options and you also have a fourth color option that includes a starlight gold which I would say is probably my least favorite of the bunch. Other than that though you're going to notice on this side you have the MagSafe connector which is making its return to the lineup and there's also two thunderbolt ports on the left side and on the right side you just have a 3.5 millimeter jack. I like the fact that you can use the MagSafe to charge instead of taking up one of the two thunderbolt ports. The port selection is still relatively limited and I would have liked to have seen another thunderbolt port over on the right side because there are definitely scenarios where one side is just all taken up and it would just be a lot easier maybe if like my desktop or monitor setup is over here to be able to plug it in through this port right here. But I do appreciate the fact that we do have MagSafe because that is easily one of the most popular features that people have been asking for for many years now and it's nice to see that it is slowly making its way back with every redesign. As you open it up though another great practical improvement is that the display is larger while keeping pretty much the same form factor as before. Because of the smaller bezels and the integration of the notch it is a 13.6 inch display. It is an LED backlit with IPS technology and the resolution is 2560 by 1664 giving you a ppi of 224. It has 1 billion colors, 500 nits of brightness, and a wide p3 color gamut with True Tone technology and those are all great features to find on the Air model because in the past the Air had some compromises when it came to the display compared to the MacBook Pro even with the same processor. The p3 color gamut is very important for anyone who does like photo or video editing where you want to get the most accurate colors possible and 500 nits is also brighter than the 400 that we found on the previous generation MacBooks. So even though it isn't as bright as like the Super Retina XDR that is found on the MacBook Pro which you can probably use outside and still be able to see things, it is a good enough improvement to the point where I feel like a lot of the features that they have integrated are welcome in this generation of MacBook especially with the starting price point of $1199. This size and aspect ratio is great to work with and the reason why the MacBook Air has always been my favorite computer is because whenever I'm traveling I may not necessarily be doing high level editing because my trips are relatively short but it's still important to have a computer that is not only portable and fast but has great battery life and in addition to that is able to deliver just enough power so that I can make some edits on the spot or also do some Instagram content that is due on site. And the MacBook Air since the M1 model has been able to live up to that expectation but now transitioning over to talking about the processing power and the chip, this is the M2 model. So there are two main options when it comes to the M2 setup. You have an 8-core CPU and an 8-core GPU or an 8-core CPU and a 10-core GPU at a $100 upgrade. In addition to that you can also pick between 8, 16, and 24 gigabytes of unified memory and that's really going to come down to what you need specifically. I do feel like the $100 upgrade is one that can make a lot of sense and especially if you have the student discount and are saving a little bit of money you can put that money towards the upgrades but at the same time deciding between 8, 16, and 24 gigs is really down to your specific needs and I would say for most people out there 16 gigs is going to be enough. In the previous generation of MacBook Air you only had the choice to go up to 16 gigs so it's nice that there is the choice to go to 24 gigabytes but of course if you are like really relying on the computer for like heavy amounts of work I would recommend switching to either the M1 Max or the M1 Pro processor MacBook Pro 14-inch or 16-inch. And when it comes to the fast internal storage it is available from 256 gigs all the way up to 2 terabytes. Before we move on though I'm sure a or creative one program that I rely on fully for my business is Notion. I've been using it for many years now and I would say that it is like a central hub of the company and essentially a visual representation of what's going on in my brain. There's always a ton of different projects and ideas and things to manage as well as deadlines and personally we use Notion as a company to be able to organize all these ideas, color code them effectively, and also visually sort all the information in one main database. The tabs that I have include the videos that are coming up, the sponsorships and deadlines that we have, as well as budget calculations, the estimated revenue of some of the additional sectors such as the Airbnb business, as well as AdSense. It also has different tasks lists for every member of the team while also keeping track of the recommendations of the renovation. On my online course I actually do give out my Notion template and as I've said if you guys have seen the channel for a while I've been using Notion all throughout and the entire team has completely integrated within that system as well. It is simply the best way to be able to organize all the different categories and ideas in one place to ensure you're always staying on top of things whether it's your school work, productivity, or for your company. Notion is also a really good personal life checklist as well to be able to organize all the different appointments, tasks, and errands that you have to do so beyond work you can have two different sides of Notion through your own customized template. My Notion template has definitely changed over the years and it's also gotten more complex by building my own formulas within to figure out what specifically works best for the company and was the most efficient way to organize and visualize information. Notion is an amazing collaboration tool that helps you dream, plan, work, and build. So if you guys want to go ahead and check it out for free I'm going to drop a link down below and a huge thanks to Notion once again for sponsoring this video. So in the design and processing standpoint this is like the perfect replacement for my portable computer just based on its form factor and the increased power that it is able to deliver. I do find that in a lot of scenarios editing 4k to 6k video content is able to be handled on even the base processors that have the upgraded memory on say like the macbook air but specifically if you're doing very long projects that is where you might want to look towards a pro model but for the specific needs that I have of a portable computer I'm very happy with what they've done so far. When it comes to the battery life though you should get around the same battery life as a previous generation macbook air. Included in the box of the new macbook air you get a 30 watt charger with the base model and if you upgrade you do get the dual 35 watt charger which is brand new and was announced alongside the computer at WWDC. With that you get two different ports so say you want to charge your smartphone or accessories you're able to do that at the exact same time but you can actually charge the computer at a speed of up to 67 watts to get that fast charge. This dual charger in Canada for example is about $79 and if you don't want to upgrade your computer you can spend a little bit more money to be able to get this upgraded dual charger but to be honest there are so many good options for third-party chargers on the market at the moment that I would say if you need additional chargers you should be checking on amazon and making sure you look at the reviews because there are so many that I've tested out and they've all been very solid at significantly lower price points but also at higher wattages. Before we forget though one other upgrade that some people would care a lot about and others really don't at all is the webcam. The webcam on the previous generation macbooks were absolutely awful. They're 720p facetime cameras and now you have 1080p that is the same upgrade that we saw across the lineup in the past year or so. The full HD resolution webcam is able to perform two times better in low light and through the processing it's just able to get you better dynamic range and image quality as a whole especially in scenarios where you're backlit say you're sitting in front of a window for example. If you're doing a lot of conference calls this is obviously a very important improvement but personally I usually just do calls on my phone so I don't really notice it as much but 720p in 2022 is absolutely unacceptable so it's still a welcome upgrade aside from all the other things. I feel like that was like the one change that was absolutely necessary whereas all the additional features are more so bringing it up to the lineup but also an introduction of the redesign and the new chip. So after having some time with the MacBook Air M2 for 2022, what are my initial impressions? And I would say that this is a computer that I'm going to enjoy a lot because for work it is just nice to have a computer that is very light. I have my desktop setup that I rely on for the most part but this delivers the perfect amount of power, great battery life, a beautiful design that is nearly this matte black finish and so every single upgrade that I was sort of expecting out of this lineup this year has been checked off on my wish list. The only thing that I would have liked to have seen is maybe a speaker grill setup but also a thunderbolt port on the right side but other than that I've really enjoyed my time with the MacBook Air so far and if you guys want to see a full review make sure you go ahead and let me know down in the comment section below along with any questions specifically of this laptop but if you enjoyed it make sure you go ahead and subscribe to the channel, drop a like on this video and I'll see you all in the next one.