Apple's M2 MacBook Air: ZDNET Product of the Year

[RV_]

Apple's new flagship laptop has the super powers of higher-end machines. Plus, see our three honorable mentions for the best product of 2022.

Excerpt:

"Why it's the top product of 2022

One of the other common criticisms of this product when it was first released was that it's now a bit of a tweener in the Mac product line -- with the very-capable M1 MacBook Air still on sale and now serving as the entry-level, under-$1,000 Mac laptop and the robust MacBook Pro line being the go-to option for professionals and creators who need more oomph. 

But, a longer look at the M2 MacBook Air allowed me to throw a lot of power-hungry tasks at it and wait for it to buckle. I transferred monstrously large files, built multimedia-intense PowerPoints, rendered and compressed video files, and loaded up my three favorite Adobe Creative Cloud apps -- Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Lightroom.

I was very surprised to find that the machine never blinked. 

My work laptop is a 16-inch MacBook Pro (2021) running the M1 Pro chip. That machine is an absolute beast that delivers jaw-dropping desktop-class performance. In testing the M2 MacBook Air, what shocked me was how close it came to matching my MacBook Pro for most tasks.

My conclusion: The M2 MacBook Air can now handle about 75% of what you used to need a MacBook Pro to do.

That can potentially save you $500-$1,000. The M2 MacBook Air I tested included the 10-core GPU and 16 GB of RAM and retails for $1,700. But, a comparable MacBook Pro is going to run you at least $2,000-$2,500."

More here:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/m2-macbook-air-zdnets-product-of-the-year/?ftag=TRE834f6fe&bhid={%24external_id}&mid={%24MESSAGE_ID}&cid={%24contact_id}

[folivier]

And the M1 and I presume the M2 chips can also run iPhone and iPad apps. My MacBook Pro with M1 is nice as I can watch my Wyze cameras and other stuff.

[RV_]

I think so. But I would not know on Apple as I don't do Apple. But that is my conclusion without testing one. I believe this is a seminal move and would hope that Apple starts to make Touch screens available on all desktops and laptops as well as their tablets like Microsoft does with their desktop OS and hardware running Windows on Intel and AMD chipsets.

Before the Surface we had only the Galaxy Tablet and iPad as premium tablets, both running cell phone Operating Systems: Android and iOS. I had Windows desktops and a laptop and a Galaxy Tab 10. The Galaxy frustrated me because I could not use programs like Word at that time. And even today they are not as usable to me as MS Office and Libre Office programs are. Many friends of mine went full blown Android Office equivalents and are happy. I loved my Galaxy 10" Tab but back in 2010-2012 it was slow and very limited, but great for content.

I have been interested in seeing Apple do what Microsoft did way back in 2012 when they designed the first Surface Pro to run full Windows and its programs including Office. It was the first tablet that ran both desktop programs and touch Apps which the desktop programs also could run under Windows 8 which debuted October 2012.

At the time we had Apple iPhones and iPads, both running iOS, a cellphone OS and their Mac desktops and laptops all running OSX a desktop program. iPads cannot to date run their Mac desktop programs and Macs could not run iOS apps. Macs were not touch in desktop or laptop, Windows had the option in all form factors for touch screens.

I was interested since Apple as doing it backwards from what MS did. MS built tablets that were full Windows OS computers not cell phone OS'. So they only had to support Windows 8-11 on both. Apple was doing two separate OS's and hardware systems.

So Microsoft made their tablets full blown Windows computers with touch screens like were appearing on some All in One desktops and some laptops. All running the same Windows OS and programs with Apps as well for both.

Apple instead of making their iPads run the Mac OSX and subsequent versions are using hardware designed for cell phones, iOS, and have developed them to run programs and apps.

Their first attempts have been very fast and they will have control of their chipsets not Intel. And we won't be able to take old Windows systems and load Apple's OS for Macs on them making them Hackintoshes. Control issues?

When Apple drops support for all but one mobile and Mac OS their Intel hardware can still be used to run Linux or Windows.

I think theis is a great move for Apple and it is making Microsoft develop Windows for Arm architecture (Cell Phone OS and hardware) which are being tested with some Tablets that are not 100% compatible with Windows Programs in their versions of Cell phone hardware running Windows.

Competition is good for all of us.

However if Microsoft goes as a paid service and or ad-based I am opting out for Linux as Mint with Cinnamon is pretty good and Libre Office is as good as MS Office save the absence of and Outlook equivalent.

It will be fun to watch and try out.

Edited January 4, 2023 by RV_