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The refreshed MacBook Air has a new 13.6-inch display, a 1080p webcam and a completely fanless body. The cheaper M1 Air stays in the lineup, too.
Joshua Goldman is a senior editor for CNET Reviews, covering laptops and the occasional action cam or drone and related accessories. He has been writing about and reviewing consumer technology and software since 2000.
This story is part of WWDC 2022 , CNET's complete coverage from and about Apple's annual developers conference.
A redesigned MacBook Air was one of the highlight announcements at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday. The light MacBook, which hadn't been updated since late 2020, now gets the second-gen Apple Silicon chip, called the M2 , a fanless body available in four colors and a new 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display.
The new 13.6-inch MacBook Air for 2022 follows the design of the current MacBook Pro 14 - and Pro 16-inch models released late last year. Like those, it has a chunkier, squared-off look that's almost retro-feeling instead of the gently curved lids tapering to a point that previously gave the Air more of a wedge shape.
The 2022 Air didn't receive all of the additional ports of the 2021 Pro models: There's no SD card slot, it doesn't get an HDMI output for an external display and it has just two USB-C Thunderbolt ports. However, the updated Air does have MagSafe charging.
The new fanless body is available in four colors: silver, space gray, starlight and midnight. The laptop is just 11.3 millimeters thick and weighs only 2.7 pounds (1.2 kilograms). The new 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display is 25% brighter than its predecessor's screen, reaching 500 nits and support for 1 billion colors.
Above the display is an updated 1080p camera joined by a three-mic array and a four-speaker sound system. This should all really improve video calls. Apple said it will also have support for Dolby Atmos spatial audio. The Magic keyboard has a full row of function keys with Touch ID as well as a large Force Touch trackpad.
Apple said with the new M2 chip , Final Cut Pro performance is nearly 40% faster than on the M1 Air and Photoshop is up to 20% faster. Battery life is up to 18 hours of video playback and with an optional 67-watt power adapter it can charge up to 50% in 30 minutes.
The redesigned M2 MacBook Air arrives in July starting at $1,199 (£1,249, AU$1,899) with the M2 with an eight-core CPU and eight-core GPU, 8GB of memory and a 256GB solid-state drive. A $1,499 version has an M2 chip with an eight-core CPU and 10-core GPU, 8GB of memory and a 512GB SSD. The M1 MacBook Air stays in the lineup as well for $999 (£999, AU$1,499).
For more, check out everything Apple announced at WWDC , from MacOS Ventura to iOS 16 . Plus, here's what you should know about the new MacBook Pro .