CheckList | 3 obvious falsehoods Apple sneaked into its MacBook Air 15 launch video
Apple is set to start shipping the 15-inch MacBook Air to its first customers soon, on the 13th of June. It is a decent laptop for sure, and we´ll do our best to get our hands on one as soon as possible for a full review.
Much like it usually is with product launches, Apple is being a little over-enthusiastic about the laptop. In the process of drumming up expectations for the new Air, the company and its representatives got so carried away as to make a few questionable statemenents that we just could not ignore. Let´s get into it.
False statement 1
As heard at 0:40 → "And the Liquid Retina display, just look at it! That's twice the resolution of a comparable 15-inch PC laptop"
According to the specs published by Apple, the 15.3-inch display resolves at 2,880 by 1,864. Microsoft´s 15-inch Surface Laptop has a screen of nearly the same resolution and it´s a design that´s been around for more than two years now.
15-inch Windows laptops with UHD 2160p screens tend to weigh 1.8 kg or more, but they do exist in case one is hunting for the highest screen resolution possible.
| Apple MacBook Air 15 Mid 2023 | Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 15 | |
|---|---|---|
| Display | 15.3-inch IPS, 2,880 x 1,864, glossy | 15-inch IPS, 2,496 x 1,664, glossy |
| Size in mm | 11.5 x 340.4 x 237.6 | 14.7 x 340 x 244 |
| Weight | 1.51 kg | 1.58 kg |
| RAM/SSD in GB | 16/512 | 16/512 |
| Price as of June 11 | US$1,699 | US$1,499 |
False statement 2
As heard at 1:03 → "And because the speakers are located behind the keyboard, the sound reflects off the display towards the viewer, so it feels super immersive"
While Apple laptops of recent years have indeed had better-than-average speakers, it does not take an audiophile to understand that reflection of sound is not a good thing, nor does it lead to enhanced immersion. To create a proper stereo effect and thus anything that one would have a right to call immersion, two or more speakers have to be sufficiently far away from each other. One meter away, at least.
As John of Darko.audio puts it:
when I relocate the Muso to my lounge room for use as a music playback device, I get separation anxiety. S t e r e o s–e–p–a–r–a–t–i–o–n anxiety. Our brain needs physically separated left and right channels in order to triangulate the illusory location of instruments between loudspeakers playing back stereo content.
False Statement 3
As heard at 2:00 → "This is the 15-inch laptop that we´ve always wanted to create - it´s uncompromising"
To call it uncompromising would be way too rich.
Unlike Intel hardware-based Macs, this one offers no way of connecting an external docking station with a full-size graphics card via Thunderbolt meaning the user is stuck with the integrated GPU.
Unlike many other laptops, this one comes with both soldered RAM and soldered SSD, shortening its useful life.
There is no 360-degree opening angle, no touchscreen and no compatibility with active pens, rendering the device useless to a sizeable portion of creators.
There is no Wi-Fi 6E support that would allow for compatibility with 6 GHz networks. Neither is there a built-in 5G modem.
There is no splash resistance of any kind.
There is no high refresh rate, just the usual 60 Hz affair.
Sure, we are nitpicking at this point. But we would do this all day long as long as it meant protecting unsuspecting customers from companies stretching the truth to their benefit.
