Review: Apple MacBook Air (13-Inch, 2022)

In 2012, I walked into an Apple Store to buy a MacBook for college with all of the money I earned from my summer job. I set a budget under $1,000 and was on a mission to find the perfect laptop for a soon-to-be journalism major. A store clerk pointed me toward the 11-inch MacBook Air and said, “It's light! It's portable! It's perfect for writing stories on the go!” He was right. It powered me through four years of classes, internships, and a stint at my college paper.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't envious whenever I saw another student carrying around a MacBook Pro. I always felt like I was settling for the Air—sacrificing some features I thought I needed for portability. But a decade later, I couldn't feel more different. The new 2022 MacBook Air actually offers more than the new 13-inch MacBook Pro, including a slick new design, a bigger and brighter display, MagSafe support (yes, it's back!), and a 1080p webcam.

With these upgrades comes the inevitable increase in price. The base MacBook Air now starts at $1,199 (you can still get the 2020 M1 MacBook Air for $999). It's still no MacBook Pro, which has a nicer selection of ports and more raw power, but after all these years, the Air is still light, portable, and perfect for writing stories on the go.

Photograph: Apple

Gone are the days of the signature wedge design on the MacBook Air. The new model now has the same boxy chassis as the latest high-end MacBook Pro models, which in my eyes gives it a more sophisticated look. But it's much lighter. At just 2.7 pounds, I tend to lift it with too much force because I'm not used to carrying around such a lightweight machine. (It's thinner and lighter than the 2020 MacBook Air too!)

It might share a similar look, but sadly, you won't get the same connectivity upgrade. The new MacBook Air only has two USB-C ports, a 3.5-mm headphone jack, and—thankfully—a MagSafe port for charging. (No HDMI or SD card slot.) As someone who mainly uses a MacBook for writing, emails, video calls, and Netflix, the lack of ports didn't bother me, but it would have been nice.

If you're coming from an older Air or 13-inch MacBook Pro, you'll likely most appreciate the new display. Sort of. It's still an LCD panel stuck at 60 Hz, but Apple has bumped the brightness a smidge, and I had zero trouble reading the screen when I worked outside in my backyard. The screen size also goes from 13.3 to 13.6 inches, thanks to slimmer borders around the display. It sounds like a small boost, but I noticed (and appreciated) the larger real estate. Annoyingly, this MacBook can still only connect to one external monitor (a limitation on the M1 MacBook Air as well). Not great if you want to reap the benefits of a multiscreen setup.

Photograph: Apple

Just like on the 14-inch MacBook Pro, there's a notch carved into the center top of the screen, which houses the 1080p webcam, but it doesn't bother me. You can use a dark background to hide it, and it also vanishes when you have an app in full-screen mode. If the notch is what enabled Apple to finally upgrade the webcam, I'm all for it. It's finally 1080p, so I look sharper in my video calls, though I have noticed Apple adds a skin-smoothing effect.

The Magic Keyboard feels just as good to type on as Apple's other recent laptops (no need to worry about a broken keyboard anymore), but take a closer look and you might notice that the speakers have been removed from each side of the keyboard. Instead, the quad-speaker sound system and three-microphone array are integrated between the keyboard and display. The audio is pretty solid for a laptop, but it can sound muffled at times.

Courtesy of Apple

This MacBook is powered by Apple's new M2 chip, which packs an 8-core CPU and up to a 10-core GPU, which is two more than its predecessor for an edge in graphics performance. (The base model comes with an 8-core GPU.) I tested the model with an 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and 8 gigabytes of unified memory, which you can also upgrade to 24 gigabytes.

The M2 is great for most day-to-day tasks, but this isn't the machine to buy if you're frequently editing multiple streams of 4K video or rendering 3D content—stick with the MacBook Pro and the M1 Pro chips instead. On a standard workday, I'd have a few apps open simultaneously, including Slack, Spotify, Messages, and Telegram, plus I'd also have about 15 tabs open on Google Chrome. The MacBook Air ran smoothly.

But it was during hectic days, like covering Prime Day, that I noticed its limitations. Run all of those aforementioned apps and bump the Chrome tab count to 30, and the Air struggles. Scrolling, switching tabs, minimizing and expanding windows—it all felt sluggish. I even saw the dreaded rainbow wheel a few times, which made me conscious about how much I was doing at once. I closed any tabs or apps I didn't need. This experience felt different from the 2020 M1 MacBook Air, which, unless I'm looking through rose-colored glasses, never once presented me with the rainbow wheel.

Photograph: Apple

Battery life can vary with this new MacBook Air. On days when I'd work indoors (with a lower brightness), I'd usually have to plug it in after about eight hours. Outside, at full brightness, the battery fully depleted after roughly six hours. It's good enough, but not all that special. I do recommend you add the 67-watt USB-C power adapter at checkout as it can fast-charge the MacBook Air up to 50 percent in 30 minutes. The base model just comes with a slower 30-watt adapter.

The Air comes in two new colors: Midnight and Starlight. Apple sent me the latter, which has a really beautiful gold tint to it. Don't worry, you can still choose Space Gray or Silver. But colors aside, I don't think it's worthwhile paying almost $2,500 for a maxed-out Air—a base model 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro chip starts at $2,000. Get that instead and you'll get longer battery life, a 120-Hz refresh rate, and more ports, not to mention more power.

If your budget is tight, the M1 MacBook Air is still an excellent option, especially since it's often on sale for $900. But the new Air, with its largely cosmetic upgrades, is still nice for anyone chasing after a lightweight machine. If you can, it's smart to upgrade the unified memory to 24 gigs for more breathing room.

It just feels like Apple has finally given the Air that extra TLC it's always deserved—making it easier than ever for normies to choose it without feeling any sense of FOMO.