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Apple MacBook Air 15 (M2, 2023)
Best for screen spaceThe MacBook Air 15-inch is a truly superb everyday laptop, with a solid and premium build quality, a stunning big display, excellent performance and a great battery life. There's nothing not to love here. It's the everyday laptop dreams were made of.
Pros- Solid and premium design
- Excellent large display
- Superb performance
Cons- No Face ID
- Bezels could be slimmer
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Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022)
Best for batteryThe 2022 MacBook is simply one of the finest laptops money can buy. Powerful, portable and pretty with very little to complain about like the larger model. It has a smaller screen but a better battery life than than 15-inch.
Pros- Premium design
- Great performance
- Excellent battery
Cons- No Face ID
- Speakers could be better
Apple introduced the 15-inch MacBook Air in June 2023, bringing a new larger form factor to the popular ultra-portable MacBook Air portfolio. If you're in the market for a MacBook, whether for work or if you're heading back to school, and you're not sure which one you should buy, we have a best MacBook feature that compares all the models offered by Apple.
Here though, we are comparing the smaller MacBook Air that launched in 2022 against the new larger MacBook Air to help you work out the differences and decide which one is right for you.
Price, availability and specs
The Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022) brought in a redesign when it was introduced last year, ditching the signature wedge design and offering a flatter look. This redesign came at a price though, with the 13.6-inch base model starting at £1249 in the UK and $1249 in the US. Since the announcement of the MacBook Air 15-inch though, the 13-inch model has seen a price drop to $1099 in the US and £1149 in the UK.
The Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M2, 2023) offers a larger display than the 2022 model and with that naturally comes with a price increase too, though it's not as much as you might think. The base model of the larger model starts at £1399 in the UK and $1299 in the US.
Both the MacBook Air 13.6-inch and the MacBook Air 15-inch come in the same four colour options comprising Silver, Starlight, Space Grey and Midnight. You can see a quick run down of their specs in the table below, but if you want a more detailed analysis of how the two models compare aside from their physical size, keep reading.
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Apple MacBook Air 15 (M2, 2023) Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022) Storage 512GB, 1TB, 2TB 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, 2TB CPU Apple M2 chip Apple M2 chip Memory 8GB, 16GB, 24GB 8GB, 16GB, 24GB Battery 66.5Wh, 18 hours use, 70W charging supported 52.6Wh, 18 hours use, up to 70W charging Ports 2x Thunderbolt, 3.5mm 2x Thunderbolt, 3.5mm Camera 1080p 1080p Display (Size, Resolution) 15.3in LED, 2880 x 1864, 224ppi, 500 nits 13.6in LED, 2560 x 1664, 224ppi, 500 nits
Design and build
The Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022) and the MacBook Air (M2, 2023) share an identical design, which is great because it's a fabulous design in our opinion. Both have a uniformed aluminium body with a flat lid, flat sides and a design very similar - though slimmer - to the MacBook Pro models.
As we mentioned, there are colour options available for both models, and both come with the same Magic Keyboard that has a Touch ID fingerprint sensor in the top right corner, as well as a trackpad below. There's a little more space either side of the keyboard on the 15-inch model, as you would expect, though both models have their speaker positioned at the top of the keyboard next to the hinge of the lid.
In terms of ports, the MacBook Air 13.6-inch and the MacBook Air 15-inch offer the same with a MagSafe 3 port at the top of the left edge, alongside two Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, while a 3.5mm headphone jack is present on the right edge. Neither model has an HDMI port or SDXC card slot like the MacBook Pro models. The MacBook Air 15-inch is larger and heavier of these two laptops, as you would expect, but it's within proportion for the extra display area and it's still exceptionally light and portable.
Display
Speaking of the display, this is where you'll find the biggest differences between the MacBook Air 13.6-inch and the MacBook Air 15.3-inch, aside from the physical size. The MacBook Air that launched in 2022 has a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display. It offers pixel resolution of 2560 x 1664, which delivers a pixel density of 264ppi.
By comparison, the MacBook Air that arrived in 2023 offers a 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display with a 2880 x 1864 pixel resolution. This delivers a pixel density of 224ppi, which although is slightly lower than the smaller model, there isn't a noticeable difference in the detail offered by the two models.
Both models also offer Apple's True Tone technology, a P3 wide colour gamut, support for one billion colours and there's 500 nits of brightness on both models too. Both also have a notch at the top of their displays, which offers a 1080p FaceTime camera, though sadly no Face ID like the iPhone and iPad Pro models. The notch is the same size on both models, which means it appears slightly smaller on the MacBook Air 15-inch, and the bezels surrounding the displays are the same too at 5mm, which means the 15-inch model has a slightly better screen to body ratio.
Power and memory
Both the MacBook Air models being compared here run on the M2 chip, which offers an 8-core CPU with 4-performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, up to a 10-core GPU, a 16-core Neural Engine and 100GB/s of memory bandwidth. The two models also come with a media engine so there are no differences in how they are able to handle tasks. It's worth mentioning here that the 15-inch model comes with a 10-core GPU as standard with no 8-core GPU as an option.
When it comes to memory, both MacBook Air models come with a base of 8GB, though this is configurable on both up to 24GB, In terms of storage options, the base model of both has 256GB, configurable up to 2TB.
Elsewhere on the hardware front, the MacBook Air 13-inch model has a four-speaker system, while the MacBook Air 15-inch has a six speaker system. The MacBook Air 13-inch isn't the strongest performer in terms of audio output so the extra couple of speakers on the 15-inch mean the larger model performs better in this department, though the 13-inch model is still good enough for what many will need it for.
Overall performance from the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) and MacBook Air 15-inch are both excellent. They handle tasks with ease and they are an exceptional laptop for the everyday user.
Battery
Despite the Apple MacBook Air models running the same chipset, they do differ in terms of battery size offerings, though this translates to the same number of promised hours. Both MacBook Air models promise up to 15 hours of web browsing, so the larger battery in the 15-inch MacBook Air accounts for powering the bigger display.
The smaller MacBook Air is an excellent performer in terms of battery, and so is the MacBook Air 15-inch, though the latter isn't quite as good as the smaller model in our experience. You still get great performance from both but the 13.6-inch model is better. Both the MacBook Air models are charged via the MagSafe 3 charger, though they can also be charged via the Thunderbolt 3 port (USB-C) port. The smaller MacBook Air comes with a 30W charger in the box if you opt for the 8-core GPU model, though if you get the 10-core GPU model, you get a 35W Dual USB-C power plug, which is great. As the larger model only offers the 10-core GPU, you get the 35W charger as standard.
Conclusion
There are very few differences between the Apple MacBook Air models, with physical size and display size being the most obvious. There's also the extra GPU cores as standard in the larger model though, as well as the extra speakers.
Which model is right for you will very much depend on what you predominantly use your laptop for. We used the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) for over a year and we love it and still do For us, switching to the larger model made perfect sense as we get everything we love about the 13.6-inch model, including the design, performance and battery life, but on a larger scale.
For others, the smaller model will be more than adequate, and it’s of course cheaper too, which is of course a key purchasing decision. Whatever MacBook Air model you choose though, you are very unlikely to be disappointed with either.
