MacBook Air

Long-term owners

It's basically the idea of the pro of 10 years ago but realised flawlessly, and improved upon actually in most ways, for significantly cheaper.

Jun 2026 · comment

An M2 air from 2022 is still fine today and will likely continue to be fine for at least another 3 years or more.

Jun 2026 · comment

What hackers pick instead

• Apple MacBook ProApple Silicon models stay fast for years, have long battery life, practical ports and enough memory to run local AI models; some dislike macOS and find the 16-inch heavy.928recommend
• Apple MacBook NeoAn affordable Mac with snappy performance and better build, display and trackpad than similarly priced Windows laptops, though many say its 8GB of RAM is limiting.707recommend
• Apple MacBookRecommended for long battery life, excellent trackpad, screen and build quality, and fast, quiet Apple Silicon performance; critics cite soldered, hard-to-repair parts and past keyboard problems.499recommend
• Framework Laptop 12Repairable, upgradeable, Linux-friendly convertible that people choose over Apple laptops for repairability and openness. Critics say the price is hard to justify.83recommend
• Lenovo ThinkPad X1 CarbonOwners praise its light body, comfortable keyboard, trackpoint and strong Linux support; critics say battery life and heat are weak points.77recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 1168 comments. Each links to the original.

1. Can't complain at all in the past year, I do feel throttling at times when running longer tasks, but for 99% of the time I don't feel I need anything better.

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Apple introduces the new MacBook Air with M5”

2. The smaller 13” Air also gets similar numbers despite its smaller battery, which is a big deal for people who don’t want to lug around a 15/16” laptop.

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Big Data on the Cheapest MacBook”

3. The mind blowing thing is the macbook air that has weighs very little, doesn't have a fan, and feels competitive with top of the line desktop pcs.

   Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Why E cores make Apple Silicon fast”

4. It's basically the idea of the pro of 10 years ago but realised flawlessly, and improved upon actually in most ways, for significantly cheaper.

   Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “MacBook Neo Is So Popular That Apple Doubled Production”

5. For browsing the web, listening to music, watching TV and movies, using Gmail, Google Sheets, Google Docs, etc., it's still perfectly fine.

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “MacBook Neo Is a 'Shock' to the PC Industry: Asus Co-CEO”

6. the only way a Macbook Air feels competitive with a top-of-the-line desktop is if you're not actually utilizing the full sustained power

   Mixed · Feb 2026 · in “Why E cores make Apple Silicon fast”

7. I have yet to read about someone who priced out something 'as good' as the MacBook Air in terms of component quality and efficiency.

   Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “MacBook Neo Is So Popular That Apple Doubled Production”

8. Just get the Air. Moore's law peaked a long time ago and the differences between the M-generations are too small to be meaningful.

   Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “New 14‑inch MacBook Pro with M6”

9. where hibernate works properly, wakes instantly, last 12-18 hours on one charge, runs quiet and I can actually use it on my lap

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Ask HN: Quality of recent gens of Dell/Lenovo laptops worse than 10 years ago?”

10. It’s fine. Has a few scratches and a small dent. The predecessor is a 2013 Air which has had a hard life. It’s going great.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Asahi Linux with Sway on the MacBook Air M2”

11. On a 24GB MacBook Air, I can have a VMWare VM, Lima and an IDE and a bunch of Chrome tabs loaded and the system is fluid.

    Mixed · Aug 2026 · in “Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM”

12. the screen is very good, the trackpad is very good, the screen does not wobble or bend - it is sturdy. and it is quiet!

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Asahi Linux with Sway on the MacBook Air M2”

13. It's a great computer, but even on days where I'm doing fuck all but using the web I can pressure that memory easily.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “MacBook Neo Is a 'Shock' to the PC Industry: Asus Co-CEO”

14. at least the lack of fans and the fact that I can now use a decent usbc charger means they don't wake me up any more

    Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “The Windows 95 User Interface: A Case Study in Usability Engineering”

15. The Apple Silicon fanless MBAs are great until you end up in a workload that causes the machine to thermal throttle.

    Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “Apple introduces the new MacBook Air with M5”

16. that thing is a great computer. I bought one for work and it served me better than any other $999 computer ever did.

    Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Cheaper MacBook powered by iPhone chip coming in 2026, per new report”

17. The memory limit is probably in my head now, it does pretty well as long as I'm not obsessing over activity monitor.

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble”

18. Having 24 hours of battery life in a thin and light package was simply better than the other options on the market.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “2026 Apple introducing more ads to increase opportunity in search results”

19. My M1 8GB Air did great before Tahoe; even medium complexity Xcode projects ran fine on it with other apps running.

    Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “Apple Introduces MacBook Neo”

20. the hardware is better than everything else on the market by far, and I don't have to mess around with my computer

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Microsoft kills official way to activate Windows 11/10 without internet”

21. Apple really broke away hard. Windows laptops, especially of the thin-and-light variety, are so bad by comparison.

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Microsoft Account bugs locked me out of Notepad – are Thin Clients ruining PCs?”

22. An M2 air from 2022 is still fine today and will likely continue to be fine for at least another 3 years or more.

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Apple announces significant price increases for MacBooks, iPads, more”

23. The predecessor is a 2013 Air which has had a hard life. It’s going great.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Asahi Linux with Sway on the MacBook Air M2”

24. I could never go Macbook Air again because I've been to hotter climates and do things beyond just using a browser and invariably the keyboard gets too warm for my fingertips.

    Criticizes · Nov 2025

25. 256GB is unreasonably small. Which is true, Apple wants to up-charge hundreds of dollars just to get to the otherwise standard 1TB drive.

    Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “Asahi Linux with Sway on the MacBook Air M2”

26. The feeling is exactly like the way it was with Windows circa 2005 when you expected your machine to go bad like cheese in a few months.

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “Apple introduces the new MacBook Air with M5”

27. 11.2 update made charging with any dock, USB-C or Thunderbolt, not work, i.e. everything was working, but the laptop was not charging.

    Criticizes · Apr 2026 · in “Tim Cook Is Leaving. Good”

28. How much storage space does your last gen M4 Macbook Air come with? 256GB would be irrelevant for most anyone, as you cannot upgrade

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “My MacBook Keyboard Is Broken and It's Insanely Expensive to Fix”

29. My wife's 8GB MacBook Air crashed yesterday with Firefox and Find My open and nothing else because of running out of RAM

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “Apple Introduces MacBook Pro with All‑New M5 Pro and M5 Max”

30. I am arguing that the Macs now run slower for the same things than they used to with the prominent change being macOS.

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “Apple Introduces MacBook Neo”

31. I love Apple platforms as an approachable way to run local models with a lot of RAM, but their relatively slow prompt processing speed is often overlooked.

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “RTX 5090 and M4 MacBook Air: Can It Game?”

32. When Apple came out with the real Macbook Air in 2010/2011 (not the silly 2008 one), nobody could compete with it with those specs at that price

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Apple to Skip High-End M6 Mac Chips in Favor of AI-Focused M7 Line”

33. With this hardware at these prices, if they offered BootCamp again for Linux and Windows, they'd basically own the market almost overnight.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Apple introduces the new MacBook Air with M5”

34. I have the same model and have been using it as my personal laptop all along just fine. Doing my day job on it is a bit of a headache

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble”

35. it turns out that the package offered by that M4 Air is what you want, but it is likely that a gamer would want a different package

    Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “I also filed the corners off my MacBook”

36. Apple has an incredible strength in distilling what a product or series of products should be down to its essence and selling it.

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “MacBook Neo Is So Popular That Apple Doubled Production”

37. What I actually like about Apple products is the heft. They feel premium and the heaviness contributes a lot to the premium feel.

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Apple introduces the new MacBook Air with M5”

38. I still think Air 15 is better (and cheaper), but the software compatibility and not needing to switch platforms outweighs that.

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “MacBook Neo Is So Popular That Apple Doubled Production”

39. With the MagSafe charging port I never worry about it - if the cord runs behind the laptop and I kick it, nothing bad happens.

    Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “Apple introduces the new MacBook Air with M5”

40. a new entry level M5 Air gives you double the RAM, double the storage, and double the CPU and GPU performance of an M1 Air

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble”