MacBook Air 15-inch Secrets | Tom's Guide - video Dailymotion

Tom's Guide

Apple shares how it made the world's thinnest 15-inch laptop and what went into making the biggest MacBook ever. We also find out what makes it different versus the 13-inch Air, how Apple chose that Pro-like price and why we didn't get more ports.

Transcript

00:00 (upbeat music)

00:02 Yes, the MacBook Air 15-inch is a supersized version

00:05 of the 13-inch, but Apple is adamant that making this thing

00:08 wasn't as easy as simply stretching the screen

00:10 a couple of inches.

00:11 You also get a bigger touch pad, more speakers,

00:14 and based on our testing, even longer battery life.

00:17 I had a chance to sit down with Apple

00:19 and ask two of their execs, Kate Bergeron,

00:21 Apple's Vice President of Hardware Engineering,

00:23 and Laura Metz of Apple's Mac product marketing team,

00:26 what went into making the thinnest 15-inch laptop ever.

00:30 The MacBook Air 15-inch measures just 0.45 inches thick,

00:33 which is just a hair thicker

00:35 than the 13-inch Air's 0.44 inches,

00:37 and this was by design.

00:38 Kate on Apple's engineering team says that Apple

00:41 set the 13-inch Air as the target,

00:43 and the team really had to focus on reliability

00:45 and durability to the larger screen size.

00:47 Apple used a structural adhesive to attach the panel

00:50 to the chassis to make sure the LCD is really sound.

00:53 I was also curious why Apple chose 15.3 inches

00:56 as opposed to 15.1 or 15.4,

00:59 and the answer is not that Apple

01:01 just wanted to think different.

01:02 It's that the engineering team worked with the display team

01:05 to see how many panels Apple could fit

01:07 on a large set of motherboard glass,

01:09 and since they had the opportunity

01:10 to push out to 15.3 inches and cut the glass to that size,

01:14 they decided to go a tad bigger than 15 inches

01:17 and give users a bit more real estate.

01:19 In addition to a 25% larger display,

01:22 the MacBook Air 15-inch sounds better than the 13-inch

01:24 because it adds two more woofers.

01:26 That's one of the ways Apple wanted to take advantage

01:29 of the larger footprint,

01:30 but Apple also wanted to deliver a larger trackpad

01:33 than the 13-inch because you have that extra real estate.

01:36 Apple also shared with us that it needed to grow the battery

01:39 in order to reach that super high 18-hour battery life claim.

01:43 The efficiency of Apple Silicon plays a big role

01:45 in how long the Air lasts on a charge.

01:47 We saw 14 hours and 59 minutes in our battery testing,

01:50 which is even longer than the 13-inch Air's runtime of 1406.

01:54 But Apple shares there's more to it than just the M.2 chip.

01:58 Kate on the engineering team says that Apple

02:00 can take advantage of gaps in your workload

02:02 to draw down the power to a minimal level,

02:05 and the Air is smart enough to know

02:07 when you're watching video and can optimize the Silicon

02:09 for encoding and decoding video streams.

02:12 It can be a bit confusing for someone

02:13 walking into an Apple store

02:15 and they see a 15-inch MacBook Air

02:17 and 13-inch MacBook Pro at the same $1299 price,

02:20 but Apple says there's room for both machines

02:22 and they're for different target audiences.

02:24 Apple's Laura Metz says that they stay true

02:27 to the Air's value proposition despite the premium

02:30 and that because of the leap in M.2 performance

02:32 versus premium Intel machines in a fanless design,

02:35 that shoppers will respond favorably.

02:38 And even though the Pro is more advanced,

02:40 content creators can still do casual photo

02:42 and video editing on the Air.

02:44 The 15-inch Air has the same port selection

02:46 as the MacBook Air 13-inch,

02:47 which means two USB-C ports, a headphone jack,

02:50 and a MagSafe connector.

02:51 That's nice, but it seems like there's enough room

02:54 for at least one more USB-C port.

02:57 Apple told us that it was about keeping things consistent

02:59 across the MacBook Air family,

03:02 which I get, but it's still a bummer.

03:04 At least Apple includes a dual-port adapter standard

03:07 so you can charge your iPhone and MacBook Air

03:09 at the same time.

03:11 I asked Apple what the biggest challenge was overall

03:13 with the 15-inch Air,

03:14 and Kate on the engineering team had an interesting answer.

03:17 It all comes down to quality and feel,

03:19 and she gave me the example of picking up the system

03:22 by a single corner and making sure it feels durable

03:25 without any creaking,

03:26 which I've experienced on other machines.

03:28 It's something that Apple doesn't even want you

03:30 to think about, which I can appreciate.

03:33 That's just a quick overview

03:34 of how Apple made the 15-inch MacBook Air.

03:36 Check out our full MacBook Air 15-inch review

03:38 on tomsguide.com,

03:40 and stay tuned for our video review as well.

03:42 In the meantime, if you have any questions

03:43 about this laptop you want answered,

03:45 just let us know in the comments.

03:47 And be sure to follow us @tomsguide on YouTube,

03:50 TikTok, Instagram, and more.

03:52 For Tom's Guide, this is Mark Spoonhauer.

03:54 (upbeat music)

03:57 (upbeat music)

MacBook Air 15-inch Secrets | Tom's Guide

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