2022 MacBook Air review: Apple’s clean slate

Enlarge / The 2022 MacBook Air. (credit: Samuel Axon)

The new MacBook Air is a remix—a bundle of ideas already seen in other Apple laptops, whether we’re talking about the previous MacBook Air, the 13-inch MacBook Pro, or the 14-inch MacBook Pro.

In that sense, it’s not too exciting since we’ve seen most of its individual features before. But it is interesting in another sense: It’s the first major redesign in years to Apple’s most popular laptop, what we’ve previously called the best Mac laptop for most types of users.

This flat, plain, slate-like machine is also a clean slate for the storied MacBook Air, and it’s the first time the Air has been redesigned around the company’s own silicon. Apple has improved on the previous design in almost every way, even though the laptop loses a bit of its unique identity in the transition. It’s still the best MacBook for folks who are OK with paying its relatively high purchase price, but it's not a mandatory upgrade over its M1 predecessor.