MacBook Air (2022)

An all-new design and Apple's M2 chip makes this a must-have laptop for most people

- ROB MEAD-GREEN

The 2022 MacBook Air has lost its predecessor's wedge-shaped design in favour of a classy, uniformly flat chassis that's both elegant and light.

The world's best-selling laptop has finally been given the Apple silicon makeover it deserves, ditching the wedge-shaped design of its forebears in favour of a superslim, uniformly flat design that's 20% slimmer by volume than its predecessors - yet is still powerful enough to snap at the heels of its closest Apple sibling, the new M2 MacBook Pro 13-inch (Mac/Life #197). Measuring 11.97x8.46x0.44-inches and weighing 2.7 pounds, the new MacBook Air is slimmer and lighter than its M1-powered predecessor (still available for $999), yet comes with a bigger 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display, an upgraded 1080p FaceTime camera (up from 720p) and Apple's next-gen silicon: the M2 system-on-a-chip (SoC), which promises up to 1.4x more performance than the M1 version and up to 15x faster performance than its Intel Core i5powered ancestors. That's some upgrade.

The MacBook Air comes in four somewhat sober colours: Silver, Starlight, Space Gray and almost-black Midnight.

Pricing for the new MacBook Air starts at $1,199 for the entry-level model equipped with an 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU M2 with 16-core Neural Engine, 8GB of unified memory and 256GB of solid-state drive (SSD) storage. And a step-up $1,499 version with an 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU M2, also with 8GB of unified memory and a 512GB SSD. As ever, there are a number of build-to-order options with prices dependant on configuration. These include a choice of either 16GB (from $200) or 24GB (from $400) of unified memory, plus 512GB, 1TB or 2TB of storage (starting at $200, $400 and $800 respectively). The entry-level model can also be configured to include an M2 with a 10-core GPU for an extra $100, which we think is worth it.