15-inch vs. 13-inch MacBook Air: What to buy in 2024? 

Apple is known to unveil its most significant projects at WWDC every year. This year has been no different, as the tech giant has announced a slew of products and software updates for its ecosystem. Of all the announcements, the 15-inch MacBook Air is something that stood out alongside Apple Vision Pro.

While size is a plus point for the newly-launched 15-inch MBA, its features mirror the 13-inch MBA. The former just has a few upgrades here and there. So, which MacBook Air should you buy? If you need clarification about this, do give this article a read.

13-Inch vs 15-Inch M2 MacBook Air – Specs comparison

Physical Dimensions

The new 15-inch MacBook Air is special for many reasons, obviously the good ones. First, it is the first Mac launched by Apple in the 15-inch category. Secondly, it comes with a powerful M2 chip.

Regarding physical dimensions, the 15″ MacBook Air is 13.4″ in width, 0.45″ in height, and 9.35″ in depth. Its 11.5mm thickness makes it the thinnest 15-inch laptop in the world. Moreover, despite its bigger size, the Apple 15″ MacBook Air weighs only 3.3 pounds. So, carrying it for work or fun will always be easy.   

On the other hand, the 13-inch MacBook Air is 11.97″ wide, 0.44″ high, 8.46″ deep, and 0.44″ thick. With the 2022 MacBook Air, Apple ditched the signature wedge and adopted a flatter appearance for the laptop suite. This change brought the device in line with the look of the MacBook Pro series.   

Display  

Let’s be honest; the display is one of the main criteria to base your purchase decision here. The new MBA sports a stunning 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display paired with an IPS LED-backlit panel and Touch ID. Other display specs include 2,880 x 1,864 resolution, 500 nits brightness, 1 billion colors, and 224ppi. All this promises a rich, vibrant, and sharp content display.   

A thin 5mm bezel strip surrounds the screen. In addition, the laptop has a 1080p camera fixed in a notch. Other important display components include support for Wide Color and True Tone.   

Conversely, you get a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display in the 2022 MacBook Air. It supports a 2,560 x 1,664 resolution, pixel density of 225ppi, 500 bits brightness, Touch ID, and a backlit Magic Keyboard. The device has a middle notch carrying the selfie camera and support for Wide Color (P3) and True Tone.   

Processor

The 15-inch MacBook Air is powered with Apple’s M2 chipset, which promises power-packed performance. In addition, it packs an 8-core CPU with a pairing of four performance cores and four efficiency cores. In addition, the newly launched device offers detailed graphics with its 10-core GPU support.  

With its 16-core Neural Engine, the Mac processes up to 15.8 trillion operations per second and speeds up machine learning tasks like voice recognition. It has 8GB of Unified Memory, which is expandable up to 24GB of fast unified memory. Moreover, this chipset has Media Engines, which provide hardware-accelerated encoding and decoding of video.

The 100GB/s of memory bandwidth will help you manage multiple strenuous tasks easily. All these elements make the 15-inch MacBook Air 12x more quickly than the fastest MacBook Air powered by Intel.   

The 13-inch Mac Air has a similar processor configuration to the 15-inch Mac Air. The only difference is that the older device has two GPU variants- 8-core and 10-core, while the new Mac comes with only 10-core GPU support.   

Camera  

Apple is known for offering one of the best camera setups in its products, including the MacBook Air. For instance, in the MacBook Air M2 15-inch, you get a 1080p HD camera! The company claimed the camera could deliver twice the smooth performance of its earlier 720p version.   

Apple improved its camera performance with the M2 chipset integrated with an image signal processor. Further, essential improvements in Apple’s core video and photography infrastructure also helped Apple amp up its camera game.   

Please note that the camera outlay for the 13-inch MacBook Air M2 is similar to the 15-inch MacBook Air M2.   

Audio Support

Over the years, Apple has made strategic improvements in the audio layout of the MacBook Air series. In the 15-inch MacBook Air M2, Apple has offered a robust setup, including six speakers and 3 microphones. As expected, the new M2 MacBook Air delivers Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos for ear-pleasing audio deliveries.

A perfect combination that delivers a crisp and clear audio experience on Mac Air M2. Further, the 3.5mm headphone jack facilitates versatile connectivity on the 15-inch MacBook Air M2. 

Apple upscaled its audio support with the 13-inch MacBook Air by offering four speakers instead of the two available in the previous Macs. The other features are similar in the two Mac versions.  

13-Inch vs. 15-Inch M2 MacBook Air – Battery and charging 

The 15-inch MacBook Air M2 has a 66.5-watt battery support with up to 15 hours of uptime for web access and 18 hours of video streams. Oh, you get this without compromising on display and performance. In addition, this bigger MacBook version has MagSafe 3 support for a hassle-free charging experience. Apple includes a 35W USB-C power adapter, which is upgradable to the 70W variant.   

Contrarily, the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air has a 52.6-watt lithium polymer battery. The uptime range is the same as the 15-inch M2 Mac Air. It also supports MagSafe charging and comes with a 30W USB-C power adapter for the 8-core GPU model. For the 10-core GPU version, you can use the 35W Dual USB-C Port Compact Power Adapter. A 70W charger upgrade is also possible.   

Both the M2 MacBook Air versions support fast charging. FYI, with fast charging, you get an instant power boost of up to 50% in 30 minutes.   

Connectivity and storage

Connectivity specifications are identical for the MacBook Air M2 13-inch and 15-inch models.    

The 15-inch M2 Mac Air has two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports for connectivity. Feel free to connect your accessories or external displays of up to 6K resolution with these ports on your new 15-inch Mac. Furthermore, the laptop supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 for wireless connectivity.   

Apple offers M2 MacBook Air (13-inch) and M2 MacBook Air (15-inch) in different storage variations, including 256GB SSD, 512GB SSD, 1TB SSD, and 2TB SSD. You can pick any Mac with a storage capacity that fits your work requirements.

Pricing and availability  

You will be able to purchase an M2 MacBook Air 15-inch at a starting price of $1299. However, for 16GB and 24GB versions, you will have to spend an additional $200 and $400, respectively. The device will be available for sale from June 13, 2023, on Apple Store and Amazon.   

The M2 MacBook Air (13-inch) for 8-core GPU version is available for purchase at a starting price of $1099. The price for a 10-core GPU model starts at $1,399.   

13-Inch vs. 15-Inch M2 MacBook Air: Which one should you buy? 

It was unlikely to expect some significant differences between M2 MacBook Air (13-inch) and M2 MacBook Air (15-inch). This comes from the fact that both laptops belong to the same Apple suite. By the end of this article, you must have derived this conclusion. Congrats!  

The only edge MacBook Air M2 (15-inch) has over its predecessor is its bigger size. Anyone who enjoys working on a bigger screen is likelier to go for the 15-inch M2 laptop. In addition, you get a chip upgrade to the 10-core GPU version and an improved 35W adapter in place of a 30W charger.   

The difference between the two models is negligible if we sideline the size parameter. While purchasing, you must weigh in all the pointers-monetary or non-monetary, elaborated in this article. However, whether you are buying the 13-inch model or the 15-inch model, you will enjoy Apple’s best-in-class performance.   

Read more:

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