The MacBook Pro M2 was on par with the Air M2, reaching 1,898 and 8,911. That’s 11% faster on single core and 17% faster on mutli-core. On a slightly older 5.3 test, the MacBook Air M1 hit 1,736 on single core and 7,575 on multi-core. On Geekbench 5.4, which measures overall performance, the MacBook Air M2 hit 1,932 on the single-core CPU test and 8,919 on multi-core.

But in general I didn’t notice a step down in performance for everyday tasks versus the MacBook Pro 14-inch with M1 Pro chip, which is a pretty big compliment. I noticed only one time when the new Air showed lag, and that was when I had more than 100 tabs open in Chrome across multiple windows. And the MacBook Air M2 powered through it all with ease. I was juggling dozens of open tabs in Google Chrome, jumping between lots of Slack messages and editing photos in Photoshop all while uploading files to our CMS. The best thing I can say about the MacBook Air M2 is that it easily handled my Prime Day deals workload (which is pretty freakin’ intense) with ease. When I played both laptops side by side, the Pro had a fuller bass and was less tinny, but it’s also $800 more. The lyrics had plenty of room to breathe, and the beat was punchy enough, but the sound wasn’t as well rounded as the six-speaker sound system on the MacBook Pro 14. The MacBook Air M2’s four-speaker sound system is pretty good, delivering clear audio when I played “I Ain’t Worried” from One Republic on Spotify. However, the Air’s Delta-E accuracy score of 0.2 was the same as the XPS 13.

The XPS 13 OLED notched a higher 117% and 83%, respectively. The Air M2’s display registered 107% of the sRGB color gamut and 75.9% of the more demanding DCI-P3 color space. Things looked just as good in terms of color reproduction and accuracy. That’s slightly better than what the MacBook Pro M2 turned in (474/490 nits) in the same tests and brighter than the Dell XPS 13 OLED’s 357-nit average. It averaged 489 nits of brightness and peaked at 495 nits with HDR content. The MacBook Air M2’s panel impressed in our lab tests as well. Plus, the picture was bright enough that I could enjoy the action from wide viewing angles. While watching the trailer for Minions: The Rise of Gru, I was captivated by the level of detail in little Gru’s eyes, hair and scarf as he exploded down the road on a jet-powered bike. (Image credit: Tom's Guide) (opens in new tab)

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