First M2 MacBook Air benchmarks confirm expectations — it's fast!

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Macbook Air Hands On
Macbook Air Hands On (Image credit: Gerald Lynch / iMore)

What you need to know

  • Apple's new M2 MacBook Air has begun to appear in online speed tests.
  • The M2 chip packs a punch and matches the numbers posted by the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
  • The M2 MacBook Air goes on sale this coming Friday, July 15.

Apple's new M2-powered MacBook Air doesn't officially arrive until this Friday, but the first benchmarks have already begun to appear online. Those benchmarks show us what we all expected — the new machine is a fast one.

While Apple hasn't yet started to sell the new Apple M2 MacBook Air, some people around the world already have them in-hand for various reasons. Some of those people are running Geekbench benchmarks and uploading them to the web. One Twitter user spotted one such run, with the new MacBook Air scoring 1,899 in the single-core score test and 8,965 in the multi-score run.

For comparison, these match previous scores posted by the 13-inch MacBook Pro almost exactly, as you'd expect. Both machines use the M2 version of Apple silicon, although there are slight differences in the number of GPU cores available in some variants. Based on speed tests of the M1 version from 2020, the new MacBook Air is around 20% faster than its older sibling.

The new MacBook Air is undoubtedly going to be the best Mac for a whole ton of people, although its starting price of $1,199 may put some off — not that the current expected delivery times bear that out. Placing an order now could see you waiting weeks depending on the configuration you order. The new machine's improved chassis and modern looks, not to mention new colors, could help make it a popular option among those buying a new Mac notebook this year.

Those looking to pick up a new Mac could definitely do worse than checking out our list of the best Amazon Prime Mac deals before placing a purchase, though. The 2020 MacBook Air and a number of MacBook Pro models are available at low prices as part of this year's festivities.

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Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.