Apple 2023 MacBook Air Laptop with M2 chip: 15.3-inch Liquid Retina Display, 8GB Unified Memory, 256GB SSD Storage, 1080p FaceTime HD Camera, Touch ID. Works with iPhone/iPad; Midnight

I bought this a week ago and finally accepted Amazon's offer for their own credit card, something I had stupidly ignored for years. My big point about Apple prices is that they are surprisingly "bouncy" at Amazon and everywhere. Today's price is very competitive with the market, still $50 less than pricing being advertised by another widely respected vendor. But a week ago, it was $250 less than today's price, which I combined with the $150 gift card promotion and so paid $400 less than today's fair and competitive price. Most notably, there was no particular promotion from Apple or Amazon and this was a couple of weeks outside Amazon's recent Prime Days. I often look at Apple prices on Amazon, and I am sure I checked them during Prime Days, although I don't remember exactly what that price was. It may have been as low, but temptation is a combination of price and my mood on any given day. Lucky for me that my endorphins were high a week ago, and I went for it!About M1 and M2: I have both models of the Mini. When the M2 was new, amazingly, it was available here and elsewhere at about a 10% discount on the M1 price. (Yes, the newer model was cheaper!). Meanwhile, reviewers where saying that the M2 advantage was minimal for ordinary users. Be careful what garbage you trust! It seemed solid, careful reviewers on Youtube NOT pushing the latest and greatest. But they were so wrong! The M2 is strikingly snappier than the M1, at least with 8 MB of memory. (Time was when I wouldn't think of less than 16 GB of memory, a habit born on Windows PCs when we were were talking ~mega~ instead of ~giga~ bytes. I am a "power user" but not a user of "power apps," i.e., no games, no video editing, etc. But I run a lot of simultaneous apps and keep a LOT of browser tabs open. On the modern Mac, I don't notice any performance difference between 8 and 16 GB. This is huge on the Mac given Apple's memory pricing and inability to upgrade.)Back to M1 v. M2, I notice that this listing from Amazon includes the claim (with Apple logo) that the M2 is 1.4x faster than the M1. Believe it! 1.4x is a huge performance boost and sure feels snappier to me (although the M1 is no slouch).Although this is my first M-series Macbook, I have owned several other Macbooks, all 13". Obviously, smaller is a bit more convenient, especially for students and other who lug them around a lot. And I have always felt that lighter laptops were more durable, because heavier ones tend to get banged around a lot more in daily use even if you don't drop them. But I had not realized how light this 15" Macbook is! A total joy that handles very easily. And, oh yea, obviously that bigger screen is great.One new feature that I considered trivial is the magic key that reads your fingerprint. It's not trivial! It is super convenient in an era when (Apple and Google) are constantly pestering you for passwords. Just love this new wrinkle.Mostly, I have written toward the Apple user, which I certainly am. But back in the day, I was in the Microsoft boat to the extent of having my ticket as a Microsoft Systems Engineer. I made the break strictly for the light and elegant Macbook and gradually got sucked into the AppleVerse. It is certainly not the cheapest way to go with laptops although the Mac minis are, imo, far the best value in desktops. As I mentioned above, you help yourself a lot on price if you are realistic about your memory needs. And external storage is so cheap and convenient that you should never consider upsizing your SSD spec on a new Macbook. Like I said, Apple prices are pretty bouncy, but it's not a day to day thing. And, to me, it seems rather unpredictable. Patience can definitely save you some money.Oh, and I am thrilled with this new Macbook! Did I say that?

I love my Mac Air laptop. It’s smooth sailing. I love the Pages as I used to use Microsoft Word and find it much easier. I love how it is set up with the home page and the icons. The only issues I’ve had was at times if I have a lot of tabs in Google Chrome and I’m doing a lot of back and forth typing, going from website to website, the cursor will not hover over with that white hand and I have to restart the browser to get it back. Not sure why that happens but when it does, that little rainbow twirl shows up to tell me it’s overworked. Also I cannot print out many recipes unless it’s on Google Chrome. Safari is iffy on it connecting to my printer.Another issue I had only once was the laptop started overheating at the top of the keyboard area. I researched and it said if you have a cover on your laptop it could cause the overheating. But then I also found out that this particular laptop model does not come with an internal fan. What? Found that was kinda strange, but apparently they didn’t think these smaller laptops needed one? I don’t know. But ever since I removed that plastic cover from the laptop I haven’t had any overheating issues. I bought the extra care and have utilized it a couple times. I do a lot of transcribing in Pages and it’s so easy to type on and store my documents on the computer. Another thing I have a peeve about that others may not, is that I do a lot screenshots. You have to press the 3 and the command and shift buttons simultaneously and that’s a hit or miss. It’s not easy to do it in sync and many times when it’s not just right, it will jump the screen to another part of the video I’m transcribing from. I just wish they had made that function with less keys and easier to access because I do a lot of screenshotting. Other than that, I just love my Mac laptop. I’ll never go back to Dell again. I’ve always had and loved the Apple iPhones and now for the same reason an Apple computer!