Apple’s new 15” MacBook Air caused some reshuffling in the Air line-up, which may spell the end for the original M1 model. That’s because the 13” M2 laptop was reduced to $1,100 (down from its original price of $1,200), so now there is only $100 separating the M1 and M2 versions of the MacBook Air 13”.
In the UK the difference is more pronounced (£150), less so in mainland Europe (€100). Check out the table below for a quick breakdown:
| 13.3″ MacBook Air M1 | 13.6″ MacBook Air M2 | 15.3″ MacBook Air M2 | |
| US | $1,000 | $1,100 | $1,300 |
| Canada | C$1,300 | C$1,450 | C$1,750 |
| UK | £1,000 | £1,150 | £1,400 |
| Germany | €1,200 | €1,300 | €1,600 |
| India | ₹100,000 | ₹115,000 | ₹135,000 |
A quick comparison between the M1 and M2 versions shows that the newer model is 1.4x faster and has the same 18 hour battery life (according to Apple’s numbers). The M2 has the same 4+4 CPU configuration as the M1, but with newer cores. It also has a 10-core GPU, up from 7-core. There is a new 24GB RAM configuration, but storage still starts at 256GB (and goes all the way up to 2TB).
There are other differences, the display is slightly taller and has a notch, it is brighter too (500nits vs. 400nits). That notch houses a 1080p FaceTime camera (up from 720p), the laptop also boast a quad speaker setup (up from dual) with spatial audio support. All this and yet the M2 Air is slightly thinner and lighter.
Note that the M1 MacBook Air can often be found with a nice discount – it can go as low as $800 – so it will stick around for a while. Also note that all three Air models are $100 less for students.
