Apple's 2022 MacBook Air expected to ship with M2 chip

[Shawn Knight]

Forward-looking: Apple analyst and iOS developer @dylandkt said in a recent Twitter post that the next Air will be released in the middle of 2022 and ship with MagSafe technology, a 1080p webcam, USB-C ports and a 30-watt power adapter. The slim laptop won’t have any active cooling, the leaker said, adding that there will be color options similar to the 24-inch iMac.

With a new batch of MacBook Pros now official, the rumor mill has turned its attention to the next iteration of Apple’s MacBook Air.

The upcoming MacBook (Air) will release in the middle of 2022. It will have MagSafe, a 1080p webcam, USB C ports, a 30W power adapter, and no fans. There will be color options similar to the iMac 24. The bezels and keyboard will be an off white with full sized function keys.

— Dylan (@dylandkt) October 21, 2021

Aesthetically speaking, Dylan believes the design will be similar to the new MacBook Pro, albeit thinner and lighter. Furthermore, the bezels and keyboard area will be an off-white color, and there will be a full complement of Function keys.

Dylan further notes that there will be a binned option when purchasing, much like what we see with the current gen MacBook Air where Apple sells a model with an eight-core GPU and one with a seven-core GPU for a bit less coin.

Dylan believes the new MacBook Air, which could emerge simply as the MacBook, will ship with Apple’s own M2 processor and a Mini LED-equipped display. Face ID isn’t expected, nor is an SD card slot or HDMI port. Support for at least two external displays is also expected, and the starting price is expected to go up slightly.

The Twitter leaker has a solid track record as of late, accurately sharing details about the M1 iPad Pro and the 24-inch iMac before Apple officially announced them.

Image credit Julian Steenbergen

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https://www.techspot.com/news/91896-apple-2022-macbook-air-expected-ship-m2-chip.html

 

[Rayneofpayne]

Meh it's Apple the M1 isn't impressive and neither is the M2 as you cannot gain a proper performance metric because of it's locked down nature not allowing for a proper independent study to be performed.

Either way it's great for the Apple community in performance per watt metrics, but outside of that little Apple PC bubble it means entirely nothing.

 

[VitalyT]

The slim laptop won’t have any active cooling

Meaning, you're gonna have to do it yourself, like hanging wet socks on the screen.

 

[DZillaXx]

Meh it's Apple the M1 isn't impressive and neither is the M2 as you cannot gain a proper performance metric because of it's locked down nature not allowing for a proper independent study to be performed.

Either way it's great for the Apple community in performance per watt metrics, but outside of that little Apple PC bubble it means entirely nothing.

As a owner of a M1 Macbook Air, saying the M1 isn't impressive is like saying Boston Dynamics Robot Videos are unimpressive. As in reality the M1 is a damn impressive chip for what it is, and really nothing is able to compete in the Sub 15watt range in the same way. Intel or AMD both focus mainly on Data Center Sales, this is where the RNA is and has been. When was the last time we saw a high end mobile first design from AMD or Intel.

My M1 Macbook Air battery just keeps going, rarely needing a charge. It is a down right quick machine with plenty of CPU and GPU power for a device its size. But it was never designed to compete with a true workstation level laptop. I have a Dell Precision as a work laptop, i7 9750H, Quardo RTX3000, 64GB RAM, & 3 NVME drives with space for one more if I needed. It is a huge 17" laptop and even with its massive battery the battery life is not great. It is a heavy massive machine, not great for home use. But for my workload it is the machine that fits what I do, granted the GPU didn't need to be as strong but the price difference from a lower option at the time didn't warrant not getting the better unit. The M1 is no where close to being able to compete with such a laptop, nor should it. The M1 Max would be the chip to compete, and Compete it will. The i7 9750H has been the weakest link about my machine. I fully expect the M1 Max/Pro to compete with any 8 core intel mobile chip.

My Issue with the Macbook Pro is not processing power, its user expandability. Something like the M1 Max should have access to 64GB of RAM, should have the option for 2 or more NVME drives that are user replaceable. Not having these options are a major blow for a workstation.

 

[Guberian]

I have never ever heard my m1 mac's fan turn on except for me running csgo on it.

Meh it's Apple the M1 isn't impressive and neither is the M2 as you cannot gain a proper performance metric because of it's locked down nature not allowing for a proper independent study to be performed.

Either way it's great for the Apple community in performance per watt metrics, but outside of that little Apple PC bubble it means entirely nothing.

The fact I have never heard my m1 mac fan ever turn on outside of when I tried to run csgo on it is impressive.

 

[Rayneofpayne]

I have never ever heard my m1 mac's fan turn on except for me running csgo on it.

The fact I have never heard my m1 mac fan ever turn on outside of when I tried to run csgo on it is impressive.

It doesn't really need a fan considering it's an ARM based risc processor, it's not powerful enough, you already have 100x the amount of metal heatsink attached to it that would normally exist.

 

[Rayneofpayne]

As a owner of a M1 Macbook Air, saying the M1 isn't impressive is like saying Boston Dynamics Robot Videos are unimpressive. As in reality the M1 is a damn impressive chip for what it is, and really nothing is able to compete in the Sub 15watt range in the same way. Intel or AMD both focus mainly on Data Center Sales, this is where the RNA is and has been. When was the last time we saw a high end mobile first design from AMD or Intel.

My M1 Macbook Air battery just keeps going, rarely needing a charge. It is a down right quick machine with plenty of CPU and GPU power for a device its size. But it was never designed to compete with a true workstation level laptop. I have a Dell Precision as a work laptop, i7 9750H, Quardo RTX3000, 64GB RAM, & 3 NVME drives with space for one more if I needed. It is a huge 17" laptop and even with its massive battery the battery life is not great. It is a heavy massive machine, not great for home use. But for my workload it is the machine that fits what I do, granted the GPU didn't need to be as strong but the price difference from a lower option at the time didn't warrant not getting the better unit. The M1 is no where close to being able to compete with such a laptop, nor should it. The M1 Max would be the chip to compete, and Compete it will. The i7 9750H has been the weakest link about my machine. I fully expect the M1 Max/Pro to compete with any 8 core intel mobile chip.

My Issue with the Macbook Pro is not processing power, its user expandability. Something like the M1 Max should have access to 64GB of RAM, should have the option for 2 or more NVME drives that are user replaceable. Not having these options are a major blow for a workstation.

It's not powerful enough to address 64gb of Ram, and why would you need so much storage, I mean If you want you could in theory do video editing or photo editing or Audio in raw format, I mean if you were forced to, but the reality is you my as well get a Zephyrus G14 and have real power at that point especially when you don't need to be fully mobile.
As I said, for the Mac crowd it's good, for the PC crowd it's just overblown garbage, I don't need a week's worth of battery life, 3-5hours is good enough. It's just not impressive sorry, it's just suck Apples dong for the sake of it, It's a 15watt chip, if performance per watt is the only thing important to you then it's your thing, it's not for a power user, It's RISC it's only good for a small limited potential uses, big Woop, the Raspberry Pi is more impressive and it's variants because it actually has potential uses.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

So iPad Pro with a real OS.

 

[rub900]

I have never ever heard my m1 mac's fan turn on except for me running csgo on it.

The fact I have never heard my m1 mac fan ever turn on outside of when I tried to run csgo on it is impressive.

Util you drop it and have to have it repaired. Some snot nosed ***** from the Mac store trying un-glue everything to tell you it was dropped in water and tuff luck. But you can buy another one for 11k. Oh and it comes with a gold key board for Apple fan boys to oowww and awwhhh over. Get your money gun out and maybe you can get Mac store guy to strip for you. The value would be about the same.

 

[DZillaXx]

It's not powerful enough to address 64gb of Ram, and why would you need so much storage, I mean If you want you could in theory do video editing or photo editing or Audio in raw format, I mean if you were forced to, but the reality is you my as well get a Zephyrus G14 and have real power at that point especially when you don't need to be fully mobile.
As I said, for the Mac crowd it's good, for the PC crowd it's just overblown garbage, I don't need a week's worth of battery life, 3-5hours is good enough. It's just not impressive sorry, it's just suck Apples dong for the sake of it, It's a 15watt chip, if performance per watt is the only thing important to you then it's your thing, it's not for a power user, It's RISC it's only good for a small limited potential uses, big Woop, the Raspberry Pi is more impressive and it's variants because it actually has potential uses.

The M1 Max is powerful enough. We're talking 8 high performance cores, not 2. As well as a pretty large GPU. The M1 Max is a massive chip, not a little SOC. The CPU alone is going to be targeting the 45watt+ range. Overall the entire SoC is going to be limited to probably 120watts, as apple doesn't really do a good job at building laptops that handle more heat than that. Granted that would be full load plugged in.

A Gaming laptop is the last thing I'd use for real power in the first place. They tend to be horrible devices to work with. Workstation Laptops like the Dell Precision is a more fair comparison. But the Current linup of Intel chips have been crap for a long time now.

 

[Guberian]

It doesn't really need a fan considering it's an ARM based risc processor, it's not powerful enough, you already have 100x the amount of metal heatsink attached to it that would normally exist.

So its not impressive its silent and yet so thin? The previous ones were way louder.

 

[Guberian]

It's not powerful enough to address 64gb of Ram, and why would you need so much storage, I mean If you want you could in theory do video editing or photo editing or Audio in raw format, I mean if you were forced to, but the reality is you my as well get a Zephyrus G14 and have real power at that point especially when you don't need to be fully mobile.
As I said, for the Mac crowd it's good, for the PC crowd it's just overblown garbage, I don't need a week's worth of battery life, 3-5hours is good enough. It's just not impressive sorry, it's just suck Apples dong for the sake of it, It's a 15watt chip, if performance per watt is the only thing important to you then it's your thing, it's not for a power user, It's RISC it's only good for a small limited potential uses, big Woop, the Raspberry Pi is more impressive and it's variants because it actually has potential uses.

Have you lost your mind? I am literally doing everything I could ever want on it for productivity. Are you gonna carry a raspberry pi around and clunkily attach and external monitor?

 

[Rayneofpayne]

The M1 Max is powerful enough. We're talking 8 high performance cores, not 2. As well as a pretty large GPU. The M1 Max is a massive chip, not a little SOC. The CPU alone is going to be targeting the 45watt+ range. Overall the entire SoC is going to be limited to probably 120watts, as apple doesn't really do a good job at building laptops that handle more heat than that. Granted that would be full load plugged in.

A Gaming laptop is the last thing I'd use for real power in the first place. They tend to be horrible devices to work with. Workstation Laptops like the Dell Precision is a more fair comparison. But the Current linup of Intel chips have been crap for a long time now.

There is more to processor engineering than Ghz and core counts. You have bandwidth issues to contend with, also no If you are talking an IBM power6 sure but not for a mobile product it defeats the purpose as the wattage requirements would tick you up.