Apple announced that the M2 chip-equipped MacBook Air will be available for order from 8 p.m. Beijing time on Friday, July 8, and will go on sale on July 15.
According to the official introduction, MacBook Air has a new slim design, four elegant appearance, with a wider 13.6-inch Liquid retina display, 1080p HD camera, support for MagSafe charging and more powerful features.
IT Home has learned that MacBook Air with the M2 chip starts at RMB 9,499, with education discounts starting at RMB 8,749.
The MacBook Air is available with 8-core GPU and 10-core GPU versions of the M2 chip, with the latter costing RMB 900 more; 16GB and 24GB of memory are available, with 8GB of memory costing RMB 1,500; 256GB to 2TB of SSD is available, with 256GB costing RMB 1,500 to 512GB. The full-blooded M2 + 16GB memory + 512GB SSD costs $13,399.
In terms of design, Apple says the MacBook Air has a new design that is extremely thin from every angle. It’s just 11.3 millimeters thick and weighs just 2.7 pounds (about 1.22 kilograms) and features an all-aluminum unibody design. It’s 20 percent smaller than its predecessor.
The new MacBook Air continues to use a fanless design for all its features.
In addition to Silver and Dark Sky Gray, MacBook Air comes in two new colors: Midnight and Starlight.
MacBook Air also features two Thunderbolt ports for connecting several accessories and a 3.5 mm audio jack for connecting high-impedance headphones. In addition, the keyboard features a full-height function key row with Touch ID and a wide, industry-leading strength trackpad.
On the screen, the new MacBook Air features a 13.6-inch Liquid retina display with the screen area closer to the edges and extending up around the camera to make room for the menu bar. This design results in a larger screen area with narrower bezels and 500 nits of brightness, making the display 25 percent brighter than before. In addition, the new display now supports 1 billion colors.
MacBook Air’s new 1080p FaceTime HD camera features a larger, more effective pixel sensor and up to twice the resolution and low-light performance of the previous generation camera.
For audio, MacBook Air also features a four-speaker sound system. For a slim design. The three-microphone array uses advanced beamforming algorithms to capture clear sound, while the speakers deliver excellent stereo separation and clear speech. MacBook Air also supports spatial audio for an immersive audio-visual experience when playing Dolby Atmos-enabled music and movies.
In terms of performance, Apple gives MacBook Air the following workflow performance.
When working on heavy tasks, such as editing complex timelines with Final Cut Pro, the M2 chip boosts MacBook Air’s performance by nearly 40 percent – and up to 15 times faster for customers who haven’t previously upgraded to an Apple chip.
And applying filters and effects in apps like Photoshop can be up to 20 percent faster, or up to five times faster for customers who haven’t upgraded to an Apple chip before.
As for battery life, Apple says that along with a larger display and more performance, MacBook Air also delivers the same great battery life as before for all-day use, providing up to 18 hours of video playback.
Finally, there’s a new 35W compact power adapter that offers two USB-C ports so users can charge two devices at once, and for the first time, MacBook Air supports fast charging, which can charge up to 50 percent of the battery in just 30 minutes with the optional 67W power adapter.
