We’re seeing a growing number of reports about the upcoming 15-inch MacBook Air. Display analyst Ross Young yesterday said that panel manufacturing is already underway, but a new report goes further and says that mass production of the new machine began in the Lunar New Year.
The Lunar New Year began on January 22 …
We yesterday rounded up everything we know so far about the 15-inch MacBook Air, including the key issues of timing and processor.
Current rumors are that the 15.5-inch MacBook Air will be released sometime this spring. Reliable analyst Ross Young has reported that Apple suppliers have started panel production for the 15.5-inch display. Based on this, Young estimates a release sometime in “early April” […]
In terms of processing power, Ming-Chi Kuo reports that the new 15.5-inch will be available with M2 and M2 Pro chip options inside. The current MacBook Air is only available in an M2 chip configuration.
The paywalled Digitimes report doesn’t get more specific on the processor than M2 (with no reference to a possible M2 Pro variant), and on timing says nothing more than “second quarter.”
However, it did say that mass production of the 15-inch MacBook Air has been underway since the Lunar New Year, aka late January. Apple will need to stockpile the new machine to meet what seems sure to be high initial demand, so this would be consistent with an April launch.
Spec-wise, it’s likely that the 15-inch model will be very similar to the 13-inch M2 one, screen size aside. This would suggest a base spec along the lines of:
Apple M2 chip
- 8-core CPU with 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores
- 8-core GPU
- 16-core Neural Engine
- 100GB/s memory bandwidth
Media engine
- Hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW
- Video decode engine
- Video encode engine
- ProRes encode and decode engine
Configurable to: M2 with 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU
The 13-inch model comes with 8GB unified memory and 256GB SSD, so it’ll be interesting whether the 15-inch one matches or exceeds this.
The display quality is certain to at least match that of the existing model, with a P3 wide color gamut and True Tone. Brightness will be at least 500 nits, but we may see an improvement here.
Top comment by BarelyLucid
M2 Pro with no fan? Timing wise (late in the processor cycle) it makes sense to introduce more than just a base M2 device, but nothing else does. This would be a device that likely costs more than a 14" MBP but underperforms it in sustained workloads. While Apple does some weird things, I don't see a reason for an M2 Pro MBA to exist. Maybe if this accompanied a 3nm M2 announcement (with better thermals), but even then I don't think they'd want another 13" MBP vs 13" MBA type situation. The lineup with 13"/15" MBA and 14"/16" MBP would work great without a M2 Pro variant in the Air.
Edit: Wait. The linked Ming-Chi Kuo report was from June 15 and 9t05 mac misquoted it to boot? This was the actual statement from June 15, 2022 (emphasis mine):
"Prediction updates:
1. New 15" MacBook would go to mass production in mid-1H23, and launch date may be 2Q23 or later.
2. New 15" MacBook may offer two CPU options, M2 (with 35W adapter) & M2 Pro (with 67W adapter).
3. I haven't heard of any plans for rumored 12" MacBook yet."
Kou said "may" have M2 Pro. 9to5 Mac is saying that Kou said that it "will" have an M2 Pro. Hugely misleading to put this in an article about the rumored recent start of production without providing the proper context.
With room for a bigger battery, then even allowing for the need to power a larger screen, we’d hope for an improvement on the 15-hour wireless web battery life.
We noted yesterday that we can expect an M3 version further ahead, but the timing of this is uncertain given a Q2 launch of the M2 model.
The 15-inch MacBook Air is likely to be a smart move for Apple, further increasing the average selling price of the MacBook lineup.
Via iMore
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