Anker 551 USB-C Hub (8-in-1, Tablet Stand) | Turn your M1 iPad into a workstation
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Anker 541 USB-C Hub (6-in-1, for iPad) | Compact and multifunctional USB-C hub for M1 iPad
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Amazon Affiliate Links to Gear I use:
Sony A7S III: amzn.to/3jD0fxC
Vanguard Alta Pro 263AB Tripod: amzn.to/2O7V8Yn
13in Macbook Pro non-touchbar: amzn.to/2F4uz27
Philips Hue Light Strip: amzn.to/2VZq2EV
Godox SL-60W: amzn.to/37LsdT0
Rode VideoMic NTG: amzn.to/2RKHVrL
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
1:55 Physical Features
4:06 User Experience
6:55 M2 MacBook Air Alternatives
8:25 Conclusion
This is the 2022 M2 MacBook air. Apple’s latest Macbook air line of laptops. It’s gotten a massive design overhaul and now takes on a design more similar to the MacBook Pros, is no longer shaped like a doorstop, but now shaped like a notebook. I’ve had this laptop for 2 weeks now and got to really know it. Is this thing worth considering? Is it a better value than Apple’s older M1 MacBook airs that are still on sale on their site? Well, let’s get started with a little review.
The M2 Macbook air is flat and overall feels different than the previous macbook air. The M2 comes in 4 different colors now, Silver, Space Gray, Starlight, and midnight. The midnight color is a massive fingerprint magnet and the finish on the Midnight model does appear to wear down worse than the other colors. The MacBook air also has a headphone jack, 2 USB 4 ports and a magsafe 3 port. Any of the 3 ports can be used to charge the laptop with the right cable. The laptop comes with a magafe 3 charging cable that matches the color of the laptop you purchase, and a 30w charger. The display is now 2560 by 1664 thanks to the new notch. And the speaker grilles are no longer on the side of the laptop, and are now integrated with where the air vents of the machine are. The speakers sound pretty good for such a thin laptop, but you probably shouldn’t use this laptop at its highest volume because it can begin to make weird noises due to the speakers rattling in the chassis.
The laptop is fast in your standard tasks like web-browsing, watching videos, answering emails, writing word documents, etc. When it comes to video editing, it handled editing the vast majority of my last video, full of 4k content, color grading, and multiple layers, just fine. This is a fanless laptop but despite that this laptop usually does get really hot unless you really strain it continuously for prolonged periods. The inclusion of the Magsafe connector frees up the other two ports to be used for other usb-c devices and hubs you wanted to plug in. The M2 chips still only support 1 external monitor beyond the one built into the laptop. Apple utilizes memory swapping on these machines, meaning in situations where you run out of usable ram, the laptop will switch to using part of the SSD to make up for it. SSDs are much slower than RAM, but one downgrade this laptop got is a slower SSD than the previous M1 macbook air, but in day to day usage, you’ll most likely never notice. But it is good to point out, because as your computing demands grow year after year, this can quickly add up to having negative effects on the M2 MacBook air’s performance for ram-intensive tasks.
I want to talk about alternatives for this macbook air. If you’re looking at this laptop you’ve probably also looked at other apple macbooks like the M1 macbook air, and M1 Pro MacBook pro. And I’ll try to break down why you might or might not want to choose this laptop over those other two. The M1 MacBook air is 90% of what this laptop is. No seriously, the performance on it is still really good, its 200$ cheaper than the M2 and because it’s older it gets discounted pretty often for a price of around $750-$900 usd. And at that price the M1 Macbook air, in terms of value per dollar cannot be beat by any other macbook. That being said, what this M2 MacBook air is, is like the nicer trim level of a car. But if you’re looking for performance. When you configure the M2 MacBook air with 16gb of ram and 512gb of storage, that’s when it’s really close to 14in MacBook pro territory, and at that point the 14in Macbook pro seems like a better value because it has a better display, more powerful chip, more ports, better speakers, multi-monitor support and because it’s been out longer, it has a higher chance it goes on sale for a good deal.