The M1 MacBook Air is without a doubt the best laptop for most people... and you shouldn't buy it. Or, at least, you shouldn't buy it right now. Why? Because 6 June is when Apple's WWDC 2022 showcase kicks off, which is Apple's annual developer conference. At that we're expecting Apple to announce the M2 MacBook Air (possibly to just be called 'MacBook').
At the risk of sounding like Deep Thought from the Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, the M1 MacBook Air is now probably the second best Apple laptop for most people; the best one is the one we think Apple will announce at WWDC. So if you've been eyeing-up the best MacBook deals then hold tight for now!
- When is the next Apple Event? What to expect from WWDC 2022
- Is the Mac mini M2 going to be announced at WWDC 2022?
Why the M2 MacBook Air is worth waiting for
My current Mac is the M1 MacBook Pro – and if I weren't using it for heavyweight projects in Logic Pro then I'd have bought the Air instead. The only real difference in power is that the Air doesn't have a fan and has one less GPU core. Oh, and I love the colour options.
But from what we're hearing about the M2 MacBook Air it's about to get a significant upgrade. So if you want the most powerful MacBook Air then it's worth waiting just a few days to hear what's said. If you still then want the current one then you should hang on till the new one ships and get the M1 for less money via one of the best MacBook Air deals post-launch.
Rumours suggest that the M2 MacBook Air will have a significantly different design: now that Apple has changed the insides it's had time to think about the outside. Given that we're talking about Apple here, that's likely to mean it's thinner and lighter than the current model. Maybe there'll be a notched display this time too.
But smaller won't mean less powerful: the M2 is expected to have improved graphics capabilities and possibly more performance CPU cores too. So it'll be significantly faster. My M1 MacBook is the first Mac I've ever had where I haven't had any complaints about the performance: even in really demanding tasks it's a flying machine. So the prospect of an Air that's even faster than my current Mac for less money than a MacBook Pro is really intriguing. For the sake of my bank balance I should probably stay off the internet until WWDC is over.
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Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).