United States
United Kingdom
India
Deutschland
France
Canada
España
Belgium
Netherlands
Poland
Sweden
България
Australia
Italia
中国
日本Apple MacBook Air 15 (Mid-2023) review – the new 15-inch MacBook Air is all you expect it to be
Verdict
At the end of the day, the MacBook Air 15 (Mid-2023) is exactly what you expect it to be – an enlarged version of the OG MacBook Air. Yes, there are a few benefits, in addition to the larger display. One of them is the speaker setup. Instead of four, now you get six speakers – two tweeters, and two pairs of force-cancelling woofers.
If anyone can pull out a fire speaker setup in an 11.5mm chassis – that’s Apple. It really makes a night and day difference, compared to other laptops in its class. Not to mention the fact that there is nothing this thin on the market. Period.
Unfortunately, this comes with a small drawback – the rigidity of the base structure. Yes, the likelihood of anything happening to your MacBook in this aspect is very small. However, this is the first MacBook we test that bends when twisted.
As we said, this won’t be a problem in our view. Especially since the small thickness of the device inspires a careful approach by the user. It’s one of these moments, where you would prefer to break your wrist, than your device.
Anyways, let’s pay some attention to the new weird 15.3-inch display. Apple MacBook Air 15 (Mid-2023)’s IPS panel has a high resolution, comfortable viewing angles, and a good contrast ratio. It covers almost 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, thus offering a super vibrant and attractive image. Its preloaded profiles give you the option to narrow down the color reproduction to the sRGB gamut if you need to work with Web-based color-sensitive content.
Everything is bells and whistles until we get to the elephant in the room – the big, weirdly-shaped, obnoxiously useless notch on the display. Why? Because Apple! It is the third year now that it is present on a MacBook and serves absolutely no purpose, whatsoever. The 1080p web camera and all of its funky pairings could have been fitted in the top bezel without an issue.
By the way, there is something that tries to escape the matrix, by blending in – the rounded corners up top. Why is it unusual? Well, because the bottom ones are squared.
So far, one would think that we have covered anything there is to be said about this device. But no, that’s not in line with the truth. Because there are a couple of things that we really don’t like about the MacBook Air 15 (Mid-2023). And no, this is not an isolated “issue” for this model – it is inherent to the architecture of the SoC and Apple itself.
We are talking about the lack of memory and storage upgradeability and the fact that the price can creep up quite dramatically when you go for the top configurations. In addition, the port selection is absolutely abysmal. We have reached the point where we feel grateful that Apple put in a MagSafe charging port, so both Thunderbolt ports are free at all times. Yes, you read this right, there are only two ports on this machine… well, in addition to the Audio jack.
Let’s not forget that Fujitsu is able to put almost every port possible in the similarly thin LifeBook U9311X. How bizarre.
Earlier, we said that it is good that Apple discloses the size of its battery on its official page. However, the screen-on times don’t really match what is stated by the company. We got about 11 hours and 30 minutes of Web browsing, or 10 hours of video playback – respectively 3 hours and a half, and 8 hours less than what they stated.
Nevertheless, as one of the least expensive MacBooks, the Air 15 (Mid-2023) can be your entry point to the Apple world. Although it is pretty affordable (by Mac standards), you can expect everything to be on point in terms of user experience.
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/apple-macbook-air-15-mid-2023/
Pros
- Completely silent during any workload
- The Touch ID is quick and accurate
- Full sRGB and DCI-P3 coverage
- Supports Wi-Fi 6 and features two Thunderbolt ports
- Doesn’t use PWM
- Only 11.5mm thick
- Decent battery life
- Loud and dynamic speakers
- Mag Safe charging port
Cons
- I/O is limited to two Thunderbolt ports
- Soldered RAM and storage
- High temperatures due to the poor passive cooling
