“M2 MacBook Air,” the dark horse in the dark horse in the laptop market
Apple’s new laptop, MacBook Air, which emphasizes portability, will start making reservations at 9 p.m. on the 8th and be released worldwide from the 15th.
It has been a year and seven months since the launch of MacBook Air with M1 chips in November 2020.
The price of M2 chip MacBook Air was set at $1,199 based on 8-core CPU, GPU, 8GB memory, and 256GB SSD.
PC manufacturers that sell laptops based on Intel AMD processors and Windows operating systems are concerned about a decline in laptop sales in the same price range.
■ M2 chip with additional Maxafe terminals for greater scalability
MacBook Air, which will be released this year, is equipped with an M2 chip that improves CPU performance by up to 18% compared to M1, and replaced its display with liquid Retina displays such as iPad Pro.
The resolution of the webcam has been improved to 1080p (1920×1080 pixels).
It is similar to the previous MacBook Pro 14 and 16 models, such as MacSafe, a magnetic charging cable, and a FaceTime camera at the top of the screen where the menu bar is placed.
The design is also out of the existing wedge shape.
The previous product was equipped with only two USB-C (Thunderbolt 3) terminals on the left, limiting the number of terminals that can connect external displays or storage devices by connecting charging cables.
However, scalability has also improved this year by adding MacSafe terminals for charging products.
■ 1 month delay in actual sales due to supply chain impact
Apple has received reservations since the week it announced its PC products and has been shipping them since next week.
However, this year’s MacBook Air took more than a month to actually sell the product after its announcement on June 7.
The biggest reason for the delay in release seems to be that companies such as Foxconn and Qanta, which commission Apple PCs, failed to operate normally due to the Chinese government’s blockade to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“If Qanta’s Shanghai production facility, which commissions Apple’s PC products, recovers, up to 7 million units will be produced in the second half of this year,” said Kuo Ming-chi, an analyst at Hong Kong’s Tenfeng Securities, who is familiar with Apple’s production and supply chain.
■ Graphics performance, outperforming AMD Risen 76800U
Apple explained that the CPU performance of the M2 chip installed in the new MacBook Air has improved by up to 18% and GPU performance by 35%.
The results of the YouTube channel “Hardware Unboxed” measuring its performance with a 13-type MacBook Pro with the same M2 chip as MacBook Air are also almost consistent with Apple’s explanation.
As a result of measuring single-threaded (1 core) performance on the “Cinebench R23”, the M2 chip (CPU 8+GPU 10 core) performed better than the M1 Pro or the Intel 11th generation core processor, but it performed lower than the Intel 12th generation core i7-1260P processor.
On the other hand, the benchmark of the PC game “Shadow of Tomorrow” drew an average of 33 frames per second, showing better graphics performance compared to AMD Risen 76800U processors with built-in graphics chipsets.
In the test of continuous playback of YouTube 4K videos, the MacBook Pro with M2 chips lasted 12 hours, while the Asus Genbook S13 OLED with Risen 76800U lasted 8 hours and the Dell Inspiron 165620 with Core i7-1260P lasted 5 hours. 토토추천