The new M2-powered MacBook Air from Apple adds a lot of new features, but it also brings back my least favorite: a starting price …
The new M2-powered MacBook Air from Apple adds a lot of new features, but it also brings back my least favorite: a starting price over $999. For much of its life, the MacBook Air has sat at a comfortable $999, but in 2018 a redesign bumped the price by $200. By 2020, the starting price was back to $999, and I felt things were as they should be. Guess what? It’s now 2022, and with another redesign, the MacBook Air now starts at $1,199… again. I harp on this just because that significant jump for a very mainstream laptop will put it out of reach of many of the students and artists who could get the most out of it. But putting the new price aside, I like just about everything else about the new version. It’s also worth noting the late-2020 M1 MacBook Air remains available, for now, at $999. After the WWDC 2022 keynote, I had a chance to get some limited hands-on time with the new MacBook Air. But it wasn’t a lot of time, so I focused mostly on the new physical design and how the system looked and felt.
