July, 2022 - Organizer

11:12 am | July 26, 2022

Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: PDF | Comments: Off

Bundled with every modern Mac, the Apple Preview app may be software you use often, yet you might not think too much about its capabilities. After all, it’s just a quick and easy image viewer and PDF reader for Mac, there when you need it. But did you know it contains some tools that could help you fill in a PDF form, and even sign it digitally?

That’s right, Apple Preview is much more than just one of the best free PDF reader. There’s potentially no need for expensive online tools like eSign software services - your (albeit not cheap) Mac can do that from the moment you take it out of the box. Let’s take a closer look.

Apple Preview: Interface

Apple Preview during our eSign software tests — Apple Preview’s interface is clean and simple, yet offering you all the tools you need to read through a document and search for specific sections (Image credit: Apple)

The interface has that classic Apple minimalism, but all the options you need to look through and search a document are there

Software gets updated all the time, so for the purposes of this review, we’ll be taking a look at Preview version 11, running on Ventura, ie, MacOS 13. However, you’ll find the interface hasn’t changed in a good long while, making this review potentially relevant should you own an older copy.

Apple being Apple, the interface is as bare and streamlined as can be, with only a few icons present at the top of the window. If you’re browsing through a PDF, scrolling down will take you to the following page by default in a continuous scroll. You also have the option to see the document page per page, or have two pages displayed on the screen at the same time. There’s also the possibility of displaying thumbnails of each page in a sidebar to the left, helping you find the one you’re looking for more quickly. There’s also a search field top right, which will work as long as your PDF is properly formatted (most are, but some contain only images of text which negates that option, as it would for any other similar software).

All very simple and straightforward, but we’re not here to just browse through documents. We need to manipulate it in various ways.

Interface: 4.5/5

Apple Preview: Getting started

Apple Preview's clean interface in action on display — Apple Preview's interface is pretty bare, leaving the focus on the document you’re perusing (Image credit: Apple)

So just how good is Preview? At first glance, it looks like you can do pretty much everything Adobe Acrobat Reader DC does (without being bombarded with adverts to upgrade, of course).

Double-click on a PDF (or image - but we’ll take those as a given and focus on the documents in question for this review), and it opens up, just as you’d expect. You can scroll through the document, zoom in or out of it, and even print it if you like.

There’s a thumbnail sidebar you can trigger on the left that allows you to scroll through a multi-page document with ease, by displaying a tiny version of all available pages, one above the other. Dragging the border between it and the main preview section lets you increase or decrease the size of those thumbnails.

Scrolling can be set on a page by page basis, or as a continuous scroll, and if your screen is large enough to see them without squinting too much, you can also set Preview to show you two pages side by side if you prefer.

You’ll find a large search field top right of the interface, which you can use to find specific words within the document (as long as the PDF is properly formatted of course, and not just a JPEG of a page formatted as a PDF, but this is a problem for every PDF reader).

Getting started: 5/5

Apple Preview: Tools

Highlighting text in free PDF reader Apple Preview — Highlight your text with multi-coloured digital highlighters (Image credit: Apple)

Lots of tools to cover broad plenty of use-cases

If that’s all you need, fantastic! Preview can cater to all your needs. But there’s more. What if you need to make notes, for instance? You’ll find a wealth of tools to help you achieve this.

There’s a highlighter pen for instance, which comes with a choice of five colors, and even offers you the possibility of underlining or striking through text (only in red for those two options, mind).

But if you need more than that, say hello to the Markup Toolbar. It isn’t activated by default, but a simple click of an icon will reveal numerous other features.

With it, you can add text boxes to any page, should you need to add a comment. The editing flexibility of these boxes is as extensive as you’d expect from a basic word processor: you can change the font, alignment, style, color, add a background fill, or an outline color - there’s a lot of flexibility there. Preview will remember those settings and apply them to the next text box you create - but you’re of course free to alter it should you so wish.

Use Apple Preview's text tools to do more — Add notes, objects, freehand drawings, and more to your documents (Image credit: Apple)

But that’s not all: you have freehand tools to create editable shapes. If you prefer more defined ones, you have a handful of pre-made templates, like a line with an arrow, a speech bubble, a circle, a square, another with rounded edges, that sort of thing. These shapes are fully customizable too.

If post-it notes (or equivalent) are more your thing, you can add those as well, and place them wherever you like (only when they’re minimized). And if you’re bored of those yellow notes, that’s just the default color - the highlighters’ five colors are also available for your notes.

With eSign software growing in popularity, you have the ability to add a digital signature and use that toolbar to insert it wherever you like on the document. You'll find our thoughts on this tool.

This should cover most people’s needs. But Apple went further still…

Tools: 5/5

Apple Preview: PDF editor

Reordering pages in Apple Preview, the free PDF reader for Mac — Apple Preview allows you to reorder pages, rotate them, delete them, or copy them to another document (Image credit: Apple)

Not a true editor, but useful and easy to customize and reorder documents

Now this title could be a little misleading as you can’t actually edit the content of an existing file using Preview. This isn't a full PDF editor with all the tools that brings. Technically, it's almost a free PDF editor, since you can delete unwanted pages, reorder them, change their orientation, and essentially customize a document to focus on just what you need.

Even better, you can copy one or more pages from one document, and paste them into an entirely new one. Or, if you have two documents open side by side with the thumbnail sidebar switched on, just drag a page from one sidebar to the other to duplicate it in that second document.

This kind of flexibility is most welcome, and although you can’t create a PDF document from scratch - an alternative would be to use Pages and save it as a PDF. You can just save the sections you’re most interested in to create a custom PDF perfect for your needs.

When it’s time to save this new document, click on the ‘Permissions’ button to be offered a wealth of options: you can choose to password protect it, and even allow the reader certain abilities, even if they don’t know the password, such as printing, inserting pages, or filling form fields, for instance.

PDF editor: 4/5

Apple Preview: Annotations

Drawing, adding shapes, and even notes to a document can all be done via Preview’s Annotate tools

Preview lets you make notes on any document you can open with it. This is done thanks to its annotation tools, which you can access either via the MenuBar (Tools > Annotate), or by clicking on the relevant icon in the toolbar (the circle with the tip of a pen inside it).

This reveals a new Toolbar, directly beneath the main one. With it, you can draw directly on the page, or add various shapes, even manipulate each point of the curve you’ve created (you’re essentially working with bezier handles and vector images).

You’ll also find ways to add notes to a document (think of them as digital post-it notes), and perhaps more relevant to this review, add text boxes, or even your signature, both of which will prove invaluable when filling in a digital document.

Annotations: 4/5

Apple Preview: Forms

The Text tool is very versatile although control of your chosen font cannot be done from the Form Filling toolbar

The text tool is the best - and only - way to add text boxes to a document, and reposition them so they’re over the sections that need your input. It’s worth noting that the main Toolbar has a Form Filling Toolbar icon, to the right of the Markup Toolbar we explored. However, it’s best to stick with Markup when filling in forms for one simple reason: Markup contains tools to edit your text box, altering the font, size, colour and alignment, whereas the Form Filling Toolbar, puzzlingly, doesn’t.

Those text boxes can be resized left and right, but not up or down, but it’s not really an issue. The box extends down the page automatically the more you write in it. Changing the style is a simple matter of clicking on the right icon to reveal an expanded menu, where you get to choose from any of the fonts installed on your Mac, along with your preferred colour, size, format and alignment.

One thing we appreciated during our testing is the next text box you add will bear those choices. So, if you want a consistent look for your text boxes going forward, you only need to set your preference once. It's also possible to copy and paste a text box. The position of it will be close to the existing one. Should you move to another page and hit paste, the new box’s position will be identical to the original, but on the different page. Repositioning them is but a matter of clicking and dragging.

The text box allows you to fill in any form you can open in Preview, but what about signing a document?

Forms: 3.5/5

Apple Preview: Signatures

Creating a signature has got that Apple panache to it

If you’re aware of online digital signature services, you’ll know that they all offer various ways for you to import your signature into the system. They allow you to choose a cursive font to write your name, sign using a mouse or trackpad, or import a photo of your signature. Apple’s approach is similar yet different. They offer different options, although the option to use a cursive font is conspicuous by its absence.

You’ll have three choices available to you, the first one being Trackpad, which is greyed out if your computer doesn’t have one. Maybe it’s because Apple controls the software and the hardware, but we found tracing our signature on a trackpad to be the finest we’ve experienced to date. It had just the right amount of smoothness and precision to get a pretty decent approximation of our trademark squiggle.

Camera is the second method. Hold up a signed piece of paper to your webcam, and Preview will cleanly extract it. It works best if it’s taken from a blank sheet of paper, as there are no photo editor options. But more often than not, you do end up with a signature on a transparent background.

iPhone is the final choice. Ideal for those who have no trackpad, no available piece of paper, but have their phone handy. The concept is very similar to Trackpad, with a very cool ‘it just works’ moment, as Apple Preview seamlessly connects to your mobile device to perform the task. Annoyingly, if you need to use your phone in landscape mode to sign, you’ll have to rotate it manually each time you add it to a document. You’d think Apple’s programmers would’ve thought of that, as signing holding your phone vertically seriously reduces your canvas size.

Once Preview has your signature, you can name it, and keep as many different signatures as you need. It can then be added, moved, and resized in any document, just like any other object.

What Preview doesn’t offer, which online services do, is a means of sending documents to others, and tracking their progress. However, it’s an ideal solution should you need to fill in and sign forms digitally for yourself, without having to log in to an online service or pay monthly for the privilege.

Signatures: 4/5

Apple Preview: Final verdict

For a free PDF reader that comes pre-installed with every Mac, Apple Preview is a remarkably powerful tool, offering you the basics, while also allowing you to perform what could be considered pretty powerful editing and note taking functions. You'll even find a PDF merging tool and a seamless way to combine PDFs.

Unless you need a fully-fledged PDF editor (or even the best free PDF editor) to actually modify the content of a PDF, Preview should be able to cater to all of your needs. It’s just a shame it’s only available on Macs.

Apple Preview scorecard

Should I try?

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Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022) review

4:00 pm | July 14, 2022

Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: CPU, RAM | Comments: Off

Two-minute review

Spec Sheet

Here is the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) configuration sent to TechRadar for review:

CPU: Apple M2 (8-core)
Graphics: Integrated 10-core GPU
RAM: 16GB Unified LPDDR5
Screen: 13.6-inch, 2,560 x 1,664 Liquid Retina display (backlit LED, IPS, 500 nits brightness, wide color P3 gamut)
Storage: 1TB SSD
Ports: 2x Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C), 3.5mm headphone jack, MagSafe 3 charging port
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0
Camera: 1080p FaceTime HD webcam
Weight: 2.7 pounds (1.24kg)
Size: 11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches (30.41 x 21.5 x 1.13cm; W x D x H)

While writing this MacBook Air (M2, 2022) review, I was struck by a thought: what if Apple had actually originally planned for this to have been a redesigned MacBook Pro 13-inch with an M2 chip?

It sort of makes sense, as the new MacBook Air has a larger screen, better speakers and a 1080p webcam, compared to the MacBook Pro 13-inch (M2, 2022) that we actually got.

The M2 chip in both laptops offer very similar performance, and unlike what many people had hoped for, the new MacBook Air doesn’t come in a range of pastel colors, like the 24-inch iMac, but instead a limited amount of rather professional-looking hues.

Finally, the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) launched with a much higher price tag of $1,199 (£1,249 / AU$1,899), which is a price we’d expect with a MacBook Pro, rather than the entry-level MacBook Air.

However, at WWDC 2023, Apple announced the new 15-inch MacBook Air with the Apple M2 while simultaneously cutting the price of the MacBook Air by $100, bringing the price to $1,099 (£1,149) and making it much better value.

Screenshot from WWDC 2023 livestream showing MacBook Air pricing. — (Image credit: Apple)

Having a redesigned MacBook Pro, alongside a MacBook Air with the same old design (but new M2 chip and cheaper price), would have made a lot of sense – but Apple did the opposite.

So, we have a redesigned MacBook Air that’s now more expensive, and a MacBook Pro 13-inch with the same old design. I can’t help but think this was a bit of a missed opportunity.

That’s because the Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022) has big shoes to fill. Its predecessor, the MacBook Air (M1, 2020), has been our pick as the best laptop you can buy since its launch two years ago.

Does the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) finally knock its predecessor from the top? There’s plenty going for it, including a new eye-catching design that increases the screen size while making the entire laptop smaller and lighter, while also upping the webcam resolution to 1080p, as well as some other goodies.

Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022) on a white desk in a studio — (Image credit: Future)

The new look follows Apple’s reinvention of many of its other iconic products, including the iMac 24-inch and MacBook Pro 16-inch. In fact, the only MacBook to not get a redesign now is the new MacBook Pro 13-inch (M2, 2022), as mentioned earlier, which despite having the same new M2 chip, keeps its old look, and therefore feels like a bit of an afterthought.

Not so the new MacBook Air (M2, 2022), however. Along with a new look, it also gets the aforementioned M2 chip. This is the follow-up to the impressive M1 found in the previous MacBook Air. After ditching Intel, Apple now creates its own processor and graphics to power its Macs and MacBooks, and the results have already been spectacular, with excellent performance and industry-leading battery life.

As we saw with the new MacBook Pro 13-inch, the M2 chip continues this, with boosted performance and once again long battery life. The good news for the MacBook Air is that it gets the same M2 chip as the more expensive MacBook Pro 13-inch, which allows it to offer almost identical performance.

Throw in the new design (which offers a larger and brighter screen than the MacBook Pro 13-inch) and lower price tag, and there’s a strong case to make for the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) making the 13-inch MacBook Pro obsolete.

It’s not all good news, however, as the new MacBook Air launched with a higher price tag. Starting at $1,199 (£1,249), this is a large increase over the MacBook Air (M1, 2020), which launched at $999 / £999. This, sadly, means that it lacks the pure value for money that the M1 MacBook Air offered. It seems Apple is aware of that, as unlike other models, which get discontinued once a new version is out, Apple will continue to sell the older MacBook Air, marketing it at people who want a more affordable MacBook.

It means that the new MacBook Air isn’t such an easy recommendation as the older model, as that’s a high price tag for pretty much anybody.

So, while we’d recommend anyone who was thinking of buying the MacBook Pro 13-inch to actually get the MacBook Air (M2, 2022), we can’t recommend it to everyone, which is what we did with the previous MacBook Air. That’s a bit of a shame.

MacBook Air (M2, 2022) review: Price and availability

Launched at $1,199 / £1,249 / AU$1,899
More expensive than previous model
Now $100 less

The new MacBook Air was announced at Apple’s WWDC 2022 developer conference. While the MacBook Pro 13-inch (M2, 2022) was the first M2-powered Mac to come out, we’ve had to wait until July to get a solid launch date for the new MacBook Air, possibly due to Apple’s uncertainty about component and material availability. The new MacBook Air (M2, 2022) eventually went on sale on July 8 for order, with deliveries starting on July 15.

However, we expect this to be a very popular product, and with current stock issues, delivery dates may be delayed, though hopefully not by too much.

This MacBook Air starts at $1,199 (£1,249/AU$1,899). The M1-based Air will continue to be available for $999, though education users can grab one for a little less at $899.

This leap in price is understandable, but it means it feels like poorer value than the older MacBook Air, which is a shame, as one of the best things about the 2020 MacBook Air was its low price and excellent performance.

The base model of the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) comes with an 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 8GB of memory and 256GB SSD storage.

Meanwhile, the new M2 MacBook Pro 13-inch starts at $1,299 / £1,299 / AU$1,999, which puts Apple in an odd place, as it now means the price of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13-inch aren’t that different.

While both base models come with the new M2 chip, the cheapest MacBook Air comes with an 8-core GPU, while the MacBook Pro 13-inch’s base model comes with an M2 chip with a 10-core GPU, which means the more expensive MacBook has the edge when it comes to graphical performance, but the MacBook Air isn’t that far off, as we discuss later.

However, at WWDC 2023, Apple announced that it is knocking $100 off the MacBook Air (M2, 2022). This means this laptop is now a lot better value, and isn't quite as expensive at the M1 MacBook Air.

Price score: 3.5/5

MacBook Air (M2, 2022) review: Design

Brand-new design
Bigger screen, lighter body
New color choices

One of the most radical design overhauls we’ve seen Apple make to an iconic product has reinvigorated the new MacBook Air, and, while you may mourn the loss of the Air's iconic wedge, it looks far more modern and elegant than previous models.

As the name suggests, the MacBook Air is the thinnest and lightest MacBook Apple produces, and with the new MacBook Air 2022 model, Apple has made further improvements, shrinking the overall size and weight of the unibody design, while actually increasing the screen size.

The company's engineers have managed this in part by slimming down the bezels that surround the screen by as much as 30% on the top and bottom, while it’s 20% thinner on the sides. The chunky borders of previous MacBook Air screens were beginning to look rather outdated, especially when compared to high-end Windows rivals like the Dell XPS 13, so the thin bezels in the new model make this MacBook Air look much more contemporary.

Close up of Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022) webcam and notch — (Image credit: Future)

The MacBook Air's webcam has been upped to 1080p, to match those found in the MacBook Pros from late 2021, and this boost in resolution (alongside improved image and low-light handling with the new M2 chip), will be welcome for anyone who relies on video conferencing or making video calls to friends and family. And in this age of hybrid working, that’s most of us.

Less welcome will be the news that the combination of a bigger webcam and thinner bezels means there’s a visible "notch" that surrounds the webcam and drops down into the menu bar. This is the same as the notch found in the MacBook Pro 14-inch (2021) and MacBook Pro 16-inch (2021), and when it debuted with those MacBooks, it proved divisive.

We didn't mind the notch on those other systems, as Apple expanded the screen upwards, actually giving you more screen real estate, which made the trade-off worth it.

The same is true with the MacBook Air (M2, 2022), which comes with a 13.6-inch screen, compared with the 13.3-inch of the previous model. The resolution has also been upped from 2,560 x 1,600 to 2,560 x 1,664. This means the larger screen doesn't lose sharpness, and once again we think the trade-off with the notch for a larger screen is the right way to go, and you’ll hardly notice it’s there, while still benefiting from the extra screen space and better webcam.

The new Liquid Retina screen is also brighter by 100nits, so it's now 500nits, and also now supports one billion colors. There's no ProMotion support, however. Despite that, it means that we have a remarkable situation where the cheaper MacBook Air (M2, 2022) comes with a larger and brighter screen compared to the new MacBook Pro 13-inch. For people relying on visual quality, especially photographers, the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) looks a much better buy.

Another big design change is, as we noted earlier, that the MacBook Air is no longer a "wedge" shape with a thinner front and thicker back. Instead, it's uniform, bringing it into alignment with virtually every other portable design Apple now produces. It also avoids the awkward issue where the previous MacBook Air was actually a little thicker than the MacBook Pro at one end. Now, there’s no doubt that this is by far the thinnest MacBook you can buy.

There's also new colors. People hoping for vibrant, pastel-like colors like the iMac 24-inch will be disappointed by the relatively low-key Space Gray, Silver, Starlight, and Midnight Blue colors. They do, though, look very good in person. We saw all of them at Apple's WWDC event, and our favorite by far was Midnight Blue, which is the color of the review unit Apple sent to us, and it looks just as gorgeous as we remember. Each color comes with matching power cables - a supremely Apple touch.

Outside of the different shades available, the laptop features MagSafe (yes, it's back) charging as well as two Thunderbolt ports and even a 3.5mm headphone jack, which will be welcome for people who use non-Bluetooth headphones and headsets. The MacBook Air (M2) is also as slim and lightweight as we hoped for: just 11mm thick and weighing in at 2.7 pounds.

The standard base model MacBook Air ships with a 30W charger, but you can opt to upgrade this to a 67W adapter for $59, which can get you to 80% battery capacity in just 20 minutes, and comes with two ports, so you can also charge up your iPhone, iPad or other devices at the same time, though this does impact charging times slightly, as the 67W is split between devices.

Overall, the redesign is, in our view, a triumph. It’s made the MacBook Air feel more modern, increasing the screen size and quality, and making it thinner and lighter. It’s pretty much everything you’d want from a visual overhaul, and while anyone hoping for vibrant, multi-colored, pastel shades will be disappointed, the new colors are nevertheless stylish and attractive.

Design score: 5/5

MacBook Air (M2, 2022) review: Performance

Excellent performance
On par with MacBook Pro 13-inch (M2, 2022)

Benchmarks

Here’s how the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

Cinebench R23 CPU: Single-Core: 1,597; Multi-core: 8,098
Geekbench 5 Single-Core: 1,936; Multi-Core: 8,917
Battery Life (TechRadar movie test): 16 hours and 6 minutes

The new MacBook Air (M2, 2022) comes with the M2 System on Chip (SoC), Apple’s second-generation, 5-nanometer chip that the company claims will offer an 18% faster CPU, 35% faster GPU (now 10 cores), and a 40% faster neural engine than its predecessor. It’s worth noting that the base system of the MacBook Air ships with an 8-core GPU, but you can upgrade to a 10-core GPU.

Meanwhile, the MacBook Pro 13-inch base model comes with an M2 chip and 10-core GPU as standard for not much more.

During our time with the MacBook Air, the laptop performed incredibly well. The pre-installed macOS Monterey boots quickly and runs well, while also looking fantastic on the new screen. As usual, we used the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) for day-to-day use.

Browsing the web in both Safari and Chrome was fast and responsive, even with multiple tabs open (the model we have on test comes with 16GB of unified memory, which certainly helps here), and typing up documents on the slightly redesigned keyboard (which is slightly narrower due to the redesign, but keeps the same Magic Keyboard switches) feels nice and comfortable.

Since the launch of the M1 chip, and increasing number of applications have released M1-compatible apps, which also work with the M2, and that means your favorite apps should run brilliantly, and take advantage of the M2’s capabilities. Not just Apple apps, either, but applications from the likes of Adobe and Microsoft have M1 and M2-native versions.

For those that don’t, Apple’s Rosetta 2 tool once again helps here, allowing you to run apps made for Intel-based Macs almost as if they were designed for M2, with minimum impact to performance.

We also played around with Garage Band (Apple’s music-making software that comes pre-installed) and edited 4K home movies in iMovie, and again, the improved performance of the M2 chip kept everything running extremely well. We’d even go so far as to say that we didn’t notice any perceptible difference to the M2 MacBook Pro when using it for similar tasks.

One difference Apple likes to point out is that the MacBook Air has a fanless design, while the MacBook Pro 13-inch uses fans to keep its components cool. This should mean that the MacBook Pro 13-inch is better at sustained performance – it can work at full pelt for longer without overheating.

In practice, it means the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) is thin and light, and also completely silent when in use. However, we found that the MacBook Pro 13-inch’s fans rarely – if ever – kicked in, which suggests that it’ll only make a difference for seriously heavy workloads (think Logic Pro projects with hundreds of tracks, or 8K video editing in Premiere Pro), and you wouldn’t really buy the MacBook Air – or the MacBook Pro 13-inch for that matter – for those kind of demands. You’d be better off getting the more powerful MacBook Pro 14-inch or 16-inch.

Our benchmark tests again showed how similar the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13-inch are when it comes to performance. Single-core performance in both Cinebench and Geekbench were almost identical for the two devices, which makes sense as they both use the same 8-core M2 processor.

Multi-core performance was also very similar in Geekbench, but in Cinebench, the 13-inch MacBook Pro had a slight edge. So, you may get a bit better performance when multitasking with the Pro, especially if some of those tasks are graphics-based, but otherwise performance is so similar, it’s hard to recommend the Pro over the MacBook Air, considering the Air has a new design, bigger screen and is cheaper.

So, we’re in a very odd situation. It looks like the MacBook Pro 13-inch wasn’t killed off by a competitor like Dell or HP… but by Apple’s own MacBook Air.

Performance score: 4.5/5

MacBook Air (M2, 2022) review: Battery life

Lasts over 16 hours
Charges very quickly

We had high hopes for the MacBook Air’s battery life, as the M1 chip was an extremely efficient chip that offered both high performance and long battery life, and Apple has promised the same with the M2 chip.

Our hopes weren’t dashed, with our battery life benchmark, where we run a 1080p looped video until the battery dies, lasting a huge 16 hours, which is seriously impressive, and far outstrips Windows-based laptops of around the same price tag.

It actually lasted 30 minutes longer than the MacBook Pro 13-inch, which is surprising, as the Pro has a larger battery. The Touch Bar of the Pro, and a less energy-efficient screen, may explain the faster battery drain on the Pro.

It’s also a substantial increase over the M1 MacBook Air from two years ago, which managed 11 hours in the same test.

This means you can easily use the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) throughout an entire work day, or on a long flight, and still have battery life left, which is seriously impressive stuff. We found that we were able to work easily without needing to think about where to plug the MacBook Air in to top up the battery, which gives you so much more freedom when using this laptop.

We had the more powerful charger, and it did indeed fill up the battery quickly when we did need a charge. The MagSafe port is also great, allowing you to easily plug the charger in quickly, thanks to the magnetic connection, and if it accidentally gets pulled out (which actually happened to us while we were reviewing), it disconnects easily without any danger of damaging the port.

You can also charge the MacBook Air (M2, 2022) via the USB-C port, which is handy if you need to borrow a charger when you’re out and about.

Battery life score: 5/5

Should you buy the MacBook Air (M2, 2022)?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

First reviewed July 2022

Also consider...

If our Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022) review has you considering other options, here are three more laptops to consider...

Testing scorecard

How we test

We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.