MacBook Air 15 review _ the best laptop 

this is Apple's new 15-inch MacBook Air and it may be the best MacBook ever made

but does that mean that it's right for you well I've spent a month using this laptop testing its larger form factor its performance and its battery life to find out not only if you should choose it over the smaller MacBook Air but also is that larger display good enough to have you skipping an upgraded MacBook Pro and did I do this walking shot all in one take well .

the world shouldn't know but you know

what we should figure out can this

MacBook Air actually survive a drop test

off this ledge you actually thought I was going to drop it off the ledge you're sick you're sick and twisted individual we all know the MacBook would break from this height you know what let's let's just get to  and find out if this laptop is

right for you.

so the 15-inch MacBook Air is Apple's

biggest MacBook Air that they have ever

built it's even bigger than the 14-inch

MacBook Pro in overall dimensions and

it's also the heaviest MacBook Air that

Apple has ever made weighing in at 3.3

pounds and you don't have to be Greg's

gadgets to figure out yeah for the most

part this design down to the flat sides the bezels the notch is the same as Apple's 13-inch M2 MacBook Air which was released over a year ago this time.

MacBook Air the real difference is it just has a bigger 15.3 inch display so while that's an easy way to explain it I did actually want to dig a little bit deeper here into the overall philosophy of this product to see if this was

really worthy of the MacBook Air brand because as a bigger laptop I believe that to be worthy of the name air it still needs to be portable and lightweight so is it well the 15-inch Portability.

MacBook Air had no problem fitting into

the bags I used to carry my laptops it was thin enough to slide easily into my bag and out of my bag for quick access and the 3.3 pound weight still felt pretty lightweight and is still lighter weight than some of Apple's smaller products like the 14 inch MacBook Pro it didn't feel out of place sitting with it in a chair and even though it had a bigger footprint it still felt right at

home at a cafe or a smaller table I haven't been on an airplane with it yet but I'd probably guess that it would just fit on that smaller tray table.

while this is a big laptop I would say that it is indeed worthy of that MacBook Air name and it does still carry that philosophy of a lightweight and thin laptop that isn't a pain to carry around and that's what impressed me the most about the air the design felt like I was carrying a smaller laptop than it

actually was until I opened up the lid and was greeted by that bigger 15-inch display and this display size made a noticeable difference it felt like you could fit an extra app on the display pretty comfortably whereas on the smaller 13 inch you'd probably feel a little bit more limited in overall display space.

 I also just love the bigger display for blowing up a single app maximizing it right to a full window and then in apps like Final Cut Pro or Affinity photo I could see bigger

previews of my videos more of the timeline and see less of a cramped arrangement of my tools it was a much more comfortable workspace to work in and yeah it's also great to kick back and just watch a video on it but if you're wondering if there's any extra display advantages versus the smaller

13-inch air well there isn't it's the same exact LCD panel just bigger so it has the same 500 nits of brightness the same pixel density the same P3 wide.

color gamut and it lacks some of the more expensive display upgrades found on products like the MacBook Pro so it you know doesn't have like a mini LED HDR

capable display it doesn't have the faster 120 hertz refresh rate but take it from me as someone who has lived on that 14 inch MacBook Pro for what like over two years now the display on the 15 air held up just fine and honestly you know I can notice the difference between the displays but after being on it for a month.

 while display Speakers quality between the 13 and 15 inch laptops are the same the speakers are not the 15-inch MacBook Air has a better six speaker system and it is impressive how good the speakers sound given the relatively thin profile of this laptop there's just a bit more bass a bit more richness and a bit more clarity to these speakers that make them a better upgrade.

Over the 13-inch MacBook Air they're really good for listening to music and watching video they still don't have the speaker prowess of something like the 14-inch MacBook Pro and especially not the 16-inch MacBook Pro which have thicker design so

obviously you can probably fit in better you know speakers and better Acoustics overall inside of those machines but you know for 700 less at the base model between those Pro laptops this 15 inch one sounds remarkably good apple is just really great in the speaker Department.

what about other features well it's the

same aim again as the 13-inch air For

Better or Worse which means for ports it

still has two ultra fast Thunderbolt USB

C4 ports and a dedicated magsafe charging port now one criticism I would give the 15 inch errors it's a much larger Mac than that 13-inch laptop so I would have loved to see an additional Port maybe like a third USBC port or hey maybe even something like an SD card slot I feel like it's big enough to include it so why not and other things are the same right.

 It does have is a slightly larger trackpad than the 13 inch but they're both really big so they're both great for scrolling and using Mac gestures and I know this video is

getting a little boring now because I

said the same this and the same that and

yeah the battery life on the 15 inch is

kind of the same it's great don't get me

wrong but it is the same as the 13 inch

which gets around an 18 hour battery

life rating it felt about exactly the

same to me and that is the gold standard

for Apple silicon laptop batteries but

Performance.

that's a good thing right and you guessed it there's more good things but the same the M2 Chip it makes its way from the 13 inch and it is now on this 15 inch laptop however while benchmarking this chip I actually found some interesting results and that was that with longer multi-threaded CPU workloads and during GPU benchmarks the 15-inch thermals were better than the 13-inch model the MacBook Air does not have a fan in it to dissipate heat so that means that all of this extra

cooling was due to the larger size of the MacBook Air you wouldn't think that

the bigger size would add that much to the performance difference but in this Tomb Raider Benchmark the 15-inch air scored closer to an M2 MacBook Pro which does have a fan in it than the 13-inch.

MacBook Air so yeah there is a

performance difference in this bigger

laptop now listen I don't think that

performance jump is significant enough

to have you buying this model if you prefer the smaller size of the 13 inch model but you can take it as a nice little bonus for most tasks though yeah the 15-inch air will perform exactly the same as the 13 inch because let's face it most of the users buying this laptop don't need high-end CPU or GPU performance they just want a laptop that works opens app fast and is responsive

and the great news is that any Apple silicon Mac this 15-inch MacBook Air included is a speed demon for everyday.

tasks web browsing word processing video

calls watching video yeah it is a reliably fast computer it is very hard to slow uh these Apple silicon Max down and at thirteen hundred dollars I think this base model would probably fit most people's needs and in terms of whether you should get the 13 inch or the 15 inch don't overthink it if you want a smaller laptop go for the 13 inch air

but if you want a bigger display well this is a no-brainer it has a bigger display and a few other benefits.

 

Now you no longer have to spend 2 500 to 

a display that is above 14 inches in the Apple Mac laptop lineup That is a very very good thing for consumers because I think most of the people that want a bigger laptop just want it for the bigger display they don't actually need all of the additional performance that would come on a MacBook Pro model so who Who is it for is this 15-inch MacBook Air really for well I think the real power of what Apple has done with their apple silicon.

MacBook lineup is that they have made

products based more on personal

preference rather than a necessity and

what I mean by that is in the Intel days

there were more noticeable benefits

going from something like MacBook Air

to a higher end machine like a MacBook

Pro normal users could notice real speed advances by upgrading but that's not really the case anymore the 15-inch air is great for anyone that wants a MacBook Air but bigger and that's a lot of people that's everyday computer use for home or work.

 whether you're a student or traveling for business and it's even good for intermediate users on a more limited budget who can't spend two thousand dollars on MacBook Pro I have no problem recommending this laptop to users just starting out with video or photo editing as well as music production or development. you're reading this Blog you might be more of a power user .Mac MacBook Pro to answer that first part of the question I think the best upgrade to make if you have to pick one is to add in 16 gigabytes of memory my review model again it's the base model right.

It has eight gigabytes of memory it has

256 gigabytes of storage but if I wanted

to edit something like multiple 4K

streams in Final Cut Pro having that

eight gigabytes really does slow me down

but the 15 inch air is powerful enough

to run apps like Final Cut Pro or

photoshop so if you plan to run a lot of

apps at once or more powerful apps like

that spending 200 on 16 gigabytes memory

it's a wise investment 256 gigabytes of

storage listen it is limited too so if

you want to store more files like larger

video files or photo files directly on

the laptop without using an external SSD

drive upgrading to 512 gigabytes might

be smart too but unlike memory you can

always buy cheaper external ssds to plug

into your MacBook .

if you want to really use this for like

a travel laptop and you don't have to

want to worry about plugging in external

storage but it is an option at least

it's an option whereas with the memory

you're stuck with whatever you get so

again if you had to make one upgrade I'd

probably go with the memory but for

argument's sake let's say you upgrade

both you upgrade the memory and you

upgrade the storage well that would then

take that base model and bump that up to

a price of around Seventeen hundred

dollars which does put it 300 less than

Should I Upgrade the 14 inch MacBook Pro which may have you wondering well for 300 more should I just upgrade to the MacBook Pro well.

I think that's a question well honestly

it's hard to answer for everyone but I'd

say all of these Macs have their place

in the lineup right for most people that

means the MacBook Pro upgrade is just

unnecessary and most people don't need

that level of performance however if you

are planning to buy a Mac for

professional grade tasks and you have

that higher budget well it's all in the

name right it's called the MacBook Pro

like I get it maybe this 15 inch air

design or that larger display is

tempting and obviously a lower price is

always nice but don't be fooled the 14

inch MacBook Pro it's going to perform

better and it's going to be a better

laptop for demanding Pro users still

that doesn't mean this 15 inch model is

slow or bad like I said for most people

this is going to be super super fast for

most everyday tasks.

And if you're coming from an older Intel MacBook even if it's an older Intel MacBook Pro this 15 inch is likely to run laps around it it's likely to be even faster it's kind of

like an amazing time we're living in

that you can get such a great laptop at

these price points with very little

compromises and for most tasks yeah

these are even going to be the same

speed really in single core performance

as the Pro Models I actually think out

of all the laptops that Apple sells

right now the 15 inch air is the most

well-rounded it has great performance

for most users excellent battery life no

noisy fan good speakers a bigger display and it doesn't sacrifice significantly on portability it's why after one month of using this laptop I think it's the very good MacBook.