Speaker 1: Apple has got a new version of one of the best selling laptops of all time. One of my favorite laptops, that is the MacBook air. Now I have said for many years, over many generations that that 13 inch MacBook air is probably the most universally useful computer you can buy. It was in fact, one of the very first apple computers to get that first M one chip, one of the first ones to switch from an Intel chip to an apple Silicon chip. And now it's the first Mac laptop line to get a second version of that. Not only [00:00:30] do we have the new M two chip in this system instead of the M one, it's got a whole new design that takes a lot from the recent 14 inch and 16 inch MacBook pros, but actually add some new wrinkles on top of that.
Speaker 1: So the first thing that's really gonna jump out at you besides anything that's happening inside is that this looks like that 14 inch, that 16 inch, uh, MacBook pro it's kind of squared off a little boxy. [00:01:00] Uh, it's got the camera notch in it, but unlike those guys, this now comes in a wider variety of colors. Yes, you can get the silver and you get the gold and you can get the gray, but now it's got midnight black and obviously looking at all these side by side, that is the one that you're gonna want. It takes me back to the very first Intel Matt books, where you could get them in polycarbonate white and polycarbonate black and black was definitely the cooler one to get. It was this awesome matte black color. And that's kind of what they're recreating here. Unlike the 24 [00:01:30] inch IMAX that have a whole rainbow of colors.
Speaker 1: This is just standard Mac colors plus this new black one, but frankly I've seen it up close. I've picked it up. I touched it. It looks really cool. So of course being a MacBook air, the screen is one of the most important things they've shaved down the bezel a little bit. So now it is a slightly larger screen. It's a 13.6 inch screen diagonally. It's also brighter. Apple says it five hundredts. This is 25% brighter than the previous MacBook air screen. And of course the biggest improvement, the one I've been waiting for a long time, [00:02:00] it now has a full HD camera, a 10 80 resolution camera. Our MacBook airs have traditionally had cameras that were frankly not very good. More recently, the 14 inch and 16 inch MacBook pros and the 24 inch iMac. They all moved up to these higher resolution cameras. And because we've all been home for so long, doing zoom meetings, uh, you know, calling into stuff, everything is video based.
Speaker 1: Those web cameras are so much more important than they used to be. So the fact that the MacBook air is now getting this upgraded full HD [00:02:30] 10 80 resolution webcam. Uh, that's a really big step. It's kind of a late step, but it's great. And I'm very excited that it's in this new model. So on the outside, it's 2.7 pounds. I think it's a hair lighter than MacBook. Air's traditionally words a little bit under 12 millimeters thick. Uh, it has again, more of a squared off boxy shape than the traditional MacBook air, which had a little bit more of a taper to it. But app was moving away from that in general. Uh, everything I think has transitioned to that kind of squared off boxy shape. Now around the sides, you're [00:03:00] gonna see some interesting new stuff, not a ton put a little bit on the right side.
Speaker 1: You still got the one headphone Jack, and guess what? This is an apple product that fill the headphone Jack. So, you know, thumbs up on that. And then on the other side, you've got your two USBC Thunderbolt ports, but now you've also got that mag safe port they've brought mag safe back, uh, I think last year for the 14 and 16 inch MacBook pros. So the option of using that magnetic connector, that was always great and saved you from knocking the laptop off the table of you tripped over the cable. You can use that, [00:03:30] but of course you can still charge it through SBC. And since so many of the things I have are charged through USBC, that's just what I use by default. I can use the same USBC plug on anything on the MacBook, on my NTEN switch on my steam deck on a lot of windows, laptops that use USBC.
Speaker 1: It just very universal, but it's still nice to have the Mac save in there as well as an option. And it actually plugs into a charging brick, uh, that is more compact and has two USBC ports built into it. And all that is part of a system that [00:04:00] actually brings the MacBook air into the rapid charging era, where it will build up a significant chunk of its battery charge in a very short window of time. If you don't have a lot of time to leave it plugged in. So of course inside this guy has the new M two chips SQL to the M one. You have the M one and then you have the M one pro and the M one max and the M one ultra. Those are very high end chips. The M two is just the next iteration of the baseline consumer, you know, mainstream model.
Speaker 1: However, apple says that this system with the M two [00:04:30] can be 20% faster than the M one version of the MacBook air in some tasks, and can even be up to 40% faster. In other tasks, they used an example of a particular type of, uh, final cut workflow, uh, to show that the M two can be a lot faster than the M one version. Now, all of that sounds fantastic. And again, it goes to my philosophy of saying that MacBook air is just one of the most universally useful laptops anywhere going back to the very first model that I've reviewed years and years ago, up until the most recent one, the M one version, and now this M two version, [00:05:00] however, there's a catch. There's always a catch. And in this case, apple is actually bringing back one of my least favorite MacBook air features for this new model.
Speaker 1: What is that? It's that the base price is not $999 anymore. Now it jumps up to 1199, and that really changes your calculation of what's kind of a, a mainstream really mid-price laptop that you can use for years and will just be universally useful across a wide variety of circumstances for 9 99. It's really [00:05:30] a no brainer for a lot of people for 1199, you have to think a lot more about it, and you're getting a lot more with it, but breaking it out of that, uh, traditional 9 99 price has always been a mistake when apple has done it before within a year or two, they've gone back to the 9 99. Other than that, I like just about everything about this new MacBook air, especially the, uh, new color options. And we should see it next month.
