Apple MacBook Air M2 from £1249
Apple’s latest laptop is the company’s lightest and sleekest. It’s also quiet, and could be the music production laptop we’ve all been waiting for
Apple’s MacBook Air M2 2022 is a machine that delivers the battery life, speakers, power and, importantly, the silence you need for both music production and listening. You’ll be paying for it, of course, but the Air M2 is also one of the most elegant and refined pieces of Apple technology ever created. Quiet, powerful and so sleek, it’ll handle your music production needs with no fuss or bother. And it looks amazing.
To Logic in no time
We admit it, hands down, unboxing an Apple product is one of the most joyous experiences in life. It is such an ‘event’, though, that the initial unveiling almost always outshines the end result where you end up using your brand new and much costlier Apple (iPhone/iPad/laptop/ desktop) in the same way you used your old one – inefficiently, with all the baggage and the same old apps. But that’s perhaps not the case with the new MacBook Air M2 2022. Right from transferring your old data to it (a less than 50minute task by Bluetooth) to making music and listening to the results, this feels – finally – like a new chapter of Apple use, and one that will drag your laptop music making to another level.
After a migration from our old M1 Mac Mini, we have Logic and Ableton Live up and running and playing old songs in no time. One or two downloads and a restart later and all of our plugins are there. And they are there fast. Sure, this isn’t so much to do with the MacBook Air, per se – more an easy path created by Apple – but we feel it should be more hassle… just because it usually is.
Real-world use
At just 1.24kg, this is Apple’s lightest machine and also their thinnest, just 11.3mm deep. You
The sound from the four speaker system is so much better than a device this size should be capable of
can hold it with two fingers and the all-new colours will have you showing off even more (we opted for the light gold Starlight, although the Midnight finish was also a tempter).
The sound emanating from its four speakers (which also support Spatial Audio) is so much better than a small form device like this should be capable of. You’re not going to be using it for detailed mastering, granted, but it’s almost good enough to mix with and very decent just for music listening. And for more detailed mixing and mastering, just plug in some decent headphones and you have the perfect lightweight mobile studio.
A pro price
The M2 MacBook Air is undoubtedly expensive, so much so that you have to compare it to Apple’s latest 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro. Our test model Air M2 (24GB RAM and 1TB drive) costs £2149 – exactly the same as the same-spec’ed M2 MacBook Pro.
And if you go down the MacBook Pro route you also get some performance advantages, although these are not perhaps as big as you might expect. Our sister site Tom’s Guide tested the M2 MacBook Air directly with the equivalent M2 MacBook Pro and found quite similar results with the Pro just nudging ahead on some tests. However, it’s also a slightly thicker and weightier laptop with a tad smaller screen, not to mention an old design compared to the new, slicker Air. The Air also has a better 1080p FaceTime HD camera and screen resolution. All things considered, then, we’d rather opt for an M2 MacBook Air over a 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro.
So can we conclude that we’d choose the new M2 Air over any other laptop out there? Almost. There is just one other option to consider and that’s the older M1 MacBook Air. It still packs a great punch and will give you almost as much power for quite a bit less cash. Ultimately, though, we think the M2 MacBook Air is beautiful, powerful and just about the best silent laptop you can buy for music production. After making music on laptops for more than 20 years, the Air M2 is finally the music production laptop we’ve been waiting for. Pricey, yes, but it’s a powerful and very cool machine.