The reveal of the 15-inch MacBook Air (2023) was easily one of the most exciting announcements of WWDC 2023, confirming months of rumors from reputable sources. It's also an exciting prospect due to the larger screen size, which offers a completely new experience for MacBook fans.
But what else have we learned about the Apple 15-inch MacBook Air during the Apple event? There are several important reveals that give us a better picture of what this refresh has to offer us, and we've summarized at least five of the biggest ones that you should pay attention to.
1. It's still using the Apple M2 chip
There were plenty of rumors suggesting that the new MacBook Air would use the M3 chip, as the main chatter has been that a new Mac machine would release later in 2023 equipped with one.
Of course, the former has been dashed with the reveal that the 15-inch model will still use the M2 silicon instead. And the vanilla M2 is an impressive chip, with incredibly fast speeds that make quick work of productivity and even some creative projects. Though it's a little disappointing that a new version of the Air couldn't come with an updated silicon, at least the pricing isn't bad.
2. It's super thin and light
One of the 15-inch MacBook Air's biggest flexes is that, according to Apple, it's both the "world’s best" and the "world's thinnest" 15-inch laptop. And while claims like that should be generally taken with a pinch of salt, the specs we do know about this new Air are pretty impressive.
It's only 11.5mm thick, comes with an ultra-thin 3.5mm bezel, and weighs only three pounds. Considering that the 2022 MacBook Air is a smaller 13-inch that weighs 2.7 pounds is 11.3mm thick, that's some incredible measurements for a laptop with two inches more screen real estate.
3. It has a massive battery life
During the WWDC event, Apple revealed that the upcoming 15-inch model would have an impressive battery life: an absolutely massive 18 hours (depending on how you use it). Of course, this is a claim that Apple is making and hasn't been verified through testing just yet.
The 2022 13-inch MacBook Air featured an incredible battery life of 16 hours once we tested the laptop out for ourselves, so we'd expect the new model to achieve the same 16 hours. A little less than Apple's claims, but far beyond almost everything else on the market.
4. Even faster than the Intel MacBook Air
In what seems to be yet another pot shot at the pre-Apple silicon powered MacBook Airs, the tech giant revealed that the 15-inch MacBook Air will be 12x faster than the last Intel-powered MacBook Air. And while that's certainly a great stat, it hardly comes as a surprise to those who are already aware of how superior Apple's chips are compared to Intel's.
Its other specs are quite good as well, with an 8-core CPU with four performance cores and four efficiency cores, a 10-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine. The M2 chip that powers this laptop also delivers 100GB/s of memory bandwidth and supports up to 24GB of unified memory.
5. The price is affordable
One of the major concerns for the 15-inch MacBook Air was that it would be priced at a premium, pulling it from its affordable laptop niche that very few Apple products tend to be at. However, it seems that Apple knows its audience well enough to keep the price down, as the 15-inch model is only $100 more than the 13-inch model at $1,299 / £1,399 / AU$2,199.
This was most likely the reason for keeping this refresh equipped with the M2 chip, as any major upgrades to the silicon – even to the M2 Pro or Max chips, let alone the rumored M3 – would not only undermine the MacBook Pro series but also cause the price to skyrocket.
Of course, we'll be testing the 15-inch MacBook Air soon to see how it measures up to Apple's promises, so stay tuned for our review. And don't forget to check out what's coming in macOS Sonoma!
