2022 - The new Mac : M2 MacBook Air

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This is the point where I should confess that I'm about to lead you all on a little with my review with a little creative licence:

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Those of you with eagle eyes and who could claim connoisseur status will have spotted that the '2022' M2 Macbook Air in the photographs accompanying this review is actually an M1 model, and from 2020. In my defence though, this particular laptop was bought new in 2022, and the differences between the M1 and M2 are so slight as to make this oversight immaterial (OK – go on, you can complain in the comments all you like, but I’m not going to buy the new M2 MacBook Air just for this review)!

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If you want to read a review from someone who has actually bought and used a brand-new M2 MacBook Air then you won't find a shortage of tech journalists or influencers who will click-bait you for their own particular take on the device. I doubt my own review of it will be much different to what I'm about to write here, but I do think what you'll read from me will be vastly different to a 'professional' review as you shall soon see. What did ease my conscience though about hood-winking you into believing that I had an actual M2 Macbook Air in front of me was the fact that I'm fairly confident that even professional laptop reviewers use creative licence in this regard. Knowing something as I do for the publishing deadlines for getting content to printers in time for release, I think it's doubtful that all journalists had actual devices in their hands for review this summer - it having come out only on July 16th 2022 and that being unlikely sufficient time to get their reviews out into magazines that went on sale in the launch month. Apple aren't in the habit of giving out pre-release device to journalists in the same way that other hardware companies do, and while that amplifies the hype and suspense about the great 'reveal' of their new machines, it likely infuriates those whose job it is to test and write about these units to help guide the discerning public. In some cases there was not just rather generic descriptions of road-testing the new models but even also photographs of the previous model, as is the case here.

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One such review spoke about how "browsing the web in both Safari and Chrome was fast and responsive, even with dozens of tabs open". Heck, this was true of my 2007-era MacBook when it was new, and is still true of my 2012-era Macbook Pro today! The challenge for computer magazines is to write objective accounts of the latest innovations, but at the same time they are part of the problem where it comes to tech begetting tech - the truth is, unless you are a truly a pro user, there is no reason at all to buy an M2 MacBook Air, unless:

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a)????the second hand supply of laptops on eBay has run out, or

b)???you absolutely need to have a laptop literally today, and you will pick one up from an Apple store.

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So beware of the tech influencer world who are guilty of pretending that there is something virtuous about the latest tech gadgets, whereas I feel quite the opposite is the case.

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With all this in mind, let's make-believe that the laptop in front of us now is in fact the M2 MacBook Air that's just been released, but I should also confess that just like the 2017-era machine I wrote about yesterday, it's also not mine. It's not even my wife's either - but it is the one she uses every day: it's the work device she was given on joining her company. As it's her company laptop, I've never actually used it, but she tells me that it "browses the web in both Safari and Chrome very fast and responsively, even with lots of tabs open"!

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Only teasing - but yes, seemingly it does.

?It also apparently has a stupendously-long battery life, routinely going uncharged for two-working days at a time (which is handy given her habit of forgetting her charger). She, like me, also has an Anker battery for emergency charging - and that seems to have gotten her out of trouble on the odd occasion that it's run out of juice. It's also a passively cooled device, just like my vintage PowerBooks and so that means there is no noise from any hard drives (it's of course all solid-state soldered on the motherboard these days) but also no fans to irritate your colleagues when you're pushing the machine hard and it sounds like it's about to take off like a quad-copter drone. In today's world, rather than spinning a fan harder to cool an overworked laptop, we simply do the sensible thing and slow the laptop down until it gets cool again. Not only is the M1 (whoops, I meant the M2) CPU super-efficient, but it's also so super-smart that it'll always stay under a maximum temperature when you're pushing it hard.

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Except that apparently it doesn't. Not that I'd know, as I've never used it - but reports online from people who are doing 'everyday tasks' like doing after-effects on live 4K video-streams while sequencing the human genome (and no doubt having lots of tabs open in Chrome and Safari) have reported that it gets a little hot to handle, particularly in one particular spot in the middle of the base. I'm sure Apple will in time fix this, it'll just need a software update and the device will simply be throttled back somewhat a little, and all will be happy again. But all this begs the question, what on earth are these people doing with a consumer-grade laptop that should better be done back in the studio with a proper workstation?

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This takes me down another little rabbit hole.

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Why is it that we all are using laptops all the time anyway? Well, I accept that not all of us have the space for a dedicated home-office, and many of us might well prefer to use a single device for work on-the-go and work on-the-desk, but there are two very good reasons why this is not a good idea:

The first is that laptops are really, really bad for you. Even my whopping 17" MacBook Pro is miniscule compared to the 49" screen that I have in front of me on my desktop (and, as you know I have three such ultra-wide screens)! If you're reading this on a laptop, the chances are your screen will be ~14" and that's simply too small to do a day's work. I've already described the limitations that these new USB-C MacBooks have in terms of multiple screens, so you're already on to a e-GPU plus screens, and so halfway already to a full desktop setup. I've also highlighted previously how bad the keyboards are on modern MacBooks, but the truth is, even the best keyboard of the 2012-era Pro is a far cry from a proper ergonomic keyboard. Apple only once made such a unit, back in the days of the Quadra with its 'split' mechanical keyboard. Even though I do in fact use one, I'd avoid the Apple keyboards altogether as I think Microsoft or Logitech have this market sewn up. And then there are trackpads. They are better than the trackballs on the Duo (the trackball is awful, truly awful), but they are poor relations to the mouse or the touchscreen. I actually have a touchscreen on my stand-up desk, but rarely use it (the touch capability that is, not the desk). If you're doing more than 10- or 20- minutes of work at a time you absolutely must plug in a mouse.

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And when I say plug in, I mean plug in. Wireless keyboards and mice are fine for travelling as cables are unwieldy, but if you are working from a fixed workstation then you absolutely have no excuse not to plug in. Even if your mouse uses AA or AAA batteries to recharge you're still wasting energy by having a radio transmitter do what a cable can do better, and that's quite aside from the cyber-risk of having all your computer inputs travelling freely through the air for anyone to syphon away...

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... and that's all before I mention that batteries carry a ~15% overhead just by virtue of the inefficiencies of being charged. This is not just a good reason not to use a wireless keyboard and mouse, but is an even better reason not to use a portable computer at all - unless that portable computer also has the facility to have its battery removed, as was the case in the pre-2012 era machines reviewed earlier in this series. Sitting all day at a desk and using a laptop ought to be as socially unacceptable as sitting in your car with the engine running just to keep the air-con on, yet somehow it's become the norm. What I'm not saying is that we should all be lugging desktop computers in our bags and setting up a PC workstation in our shared offices each day, but what I am saying that responsible employers should be issuing desktops to their staff rather than laptops if their work has more than a ? day per week desk component to it. It's good for people and it's good for planet, there is simply no other way.

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But before you all rush out and buy new workstations on your expense account, I hope this guide has helped you consider that buying new is not the only way. Our own team at EthicsGrade operates under a 'bring your own device' policy - but we've also provided machines to those who need them, and of course, we've given second-hand desktop computers when we do. While cyber-risks could scupper a small-business, anyone I've ever met from the hacking community have always been mortified at being blamed for e-waste and actively target vulnerabilities only in new devices and don't look at older machines other than for pure research and for 'fun'. While computer companies can't be held to account for the devices they've made in perpetuity, I do think that dropping support due to cyber-risks is a bit of a smoke-screen to alleviate the accusation of sloppy engineering. The truth is that a well-designed device or system should have zero-cyber risks, and while we don't live in a perfect world - older devices should actually be safer from a cyber-risk perspective given how much time has been available for researchers and engineers to spot and close down security threats.

?When buying machines for company use there are therefore many factors to consider - not least of which are the cybersecurity credentials of the device - but if you are going to buy Apple, then buying a machine that's been on the vintage list for about 4-5 years is probably the most sustainable option. It should be supported for at least another three years and unless your company is a 3D animation studio or has similar high-demands for the computers you use, then it's likely to stand up well against any amount of Safari or Chrome usage that your teams will throw at it. It amazes me how self-declaring 'sustainability-centric' companies will dole out brand new laptops and phones to their new employees as perks of the job, yet helping them make do with what they've got and filling-in the gaps with second-hand is by far the more sustainable choice.

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So, the verdict on the 2022 laptop? Well, I wouldn't buy one - at least not today – but ask me again in five years, and I might reconsider this. After all, judging by the demands that I've had over the last five years of computer usage in terms of processor, memory and storage - the 2 TB model with 16 GB RAM should still be enough for me even 10 (or maybe 20) years from now. And even if Apple drop support for the 2022 M2 MacBook Air sometime in 2031 as their current schedule would indicate - it'll likely still be good enough to use until the hard-drive or keyboard eventually fails.

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Were Apple to modularise their future machines, like Framework have achieved (thanks Ed for that tip), and were to dedicate some of their software research teams to digital longevity such as the result of the MorphOS project - then there is no reason why a 2022 M2 MacBook Air that's well looked after wouldn’t last you a lifetime. I'll unlikely still be working as hard as I do now in 35 years' time, but if I were to revisit this guide in the future with the present-day marking the half-way point then I sincerely hope that by that future point the devices that Apple then develops are simply upgrades to existing hardware platforms that have become standards, and most of their revenue aside from repairs and upgrades comes from new, innovative, and ingenious software that gives new capabilities to older machines. Apple's current approach as a hardware company simply won't project sustainably for 35 years to come. The question is, how long before they are forced to adopt a different approach?

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