Apple introduced the new MacBook Air with the brand new M2 chipset and an all-new design last month. Ever since the launch, Apple enthusiasts have been wondering how the new MacBook Air looks on the inside. And now, popular YouTuber Max Tech has released a teardown video of the new MacBook Air showcasing the M2 chipset, and all the other components of the new laptop, in all its glory.
Opening up the metal backplate, Max Tech says that the new MacBook Air looks quite similar to the older-gen model. There’s one significant difference, though. Since the new MacBook Air ditches the old wedged design in favor of the flat-edge design, Apple didn’t have to use the stack of batteries that it had to use before.
Instead, the new MacBook Air comes with perfectly flat batteries that are, in fact, slightly larger in comparison to the previous model (52.6-watt-hour on the new model vs. 49.9-watt-hour on the older one). Despite the battery size increase, though, the M2 MacBook Air comes with the same 18 hours of battery life per charge as the older generation model.
Dismantling the MacBook Air further reveals the all-new M2 chip soldered on the motherboard. In addition to the M2 chip, the teardown also reveals that the MacBook Air comes with only a single NAND storage chip. This is one of the reasons why the SSD of the 256GB model of the new MacBook Air is slower than the higher-capacity models and even the previous-generation models in benchmark tests. The rest of the components, such as the RAM and Wi-Fi chip, can be found soldered on the motherboard as well.
What’s interesting is that the YouTuber found a new type of chip soldered on the motherboard. The video shows a new “USI” chip soldered on the motherboard of the M2 MacBook Air. This chip hasn’t been seen before on a MacBook model before. While the YouTuber claims it is Apple’s proprietary Ultra-Wide-Band chip, which would enable it to stream lossless audio once AirPods Pro 2 are revealed, it could also be the newer Wi-Fi chip. iFixit’s M2 MacBook Air teardown will reveal more information about this mystery chip.
Other than the new USI chip, Max Tech also says that the new MacBook Air is relatively easier to repair as all the external peripherals, such as the USB-C port, headphone jack, and even the trackpad, are attached as separate modules. This would allow for easier repairs as the individual component can be swapped easily. While we wait for iFixit to reveal more information about the new MacBook Air, you can catch Max’s full teardown video right here:
