The MacBook Air as a CAD workstation? A Real-World Test. [Part IV: Hardware & Final Verdict]

Two architecture students set themselves the task of replacing their old MacBook Pro with the MacBook Air (M2) for a month. In our practical test series, you can find out how the Air performs in performance-hungry applications such as CAD and rendering in day-to-day use at university. In Part I, we introduced the students and their hardware. In Part II, we looked at the software performance of the Air in various application areas, and in Part III, we looked at the render test. In the last part of our series, both students evaluate the hardware of the Air and answer the question in their conclusion of whether a MacBook Air with the M2 chips is suitable for studying architecture.

Reminder: These are the specs of the devices

Specs Andreas	MacBook Pro (Intel, Late 2019)	MacBook Air (M2, 2022)
CPU	2,3 GHz 8‑Core Intel Core i9 (Turbo Boost bis zu 4,8 GHz)	Apple M2 Chip (8-Core)
GPU	AMD Radeon Pro 5500M (4 GB GDDR6)	Apple M2 (10 Core GPU)
RAM	16 GB	24 GB
SSD	1 TB	512 GB

Specs Roman	MacBook Pro (Intel, Late 2019)	MacBook Air (M2, 2022)
CPU	2,3 GHz 8‑Core Intel Core i9 (Turbo Boost bis zu 4,8 GHz)	Apple M2 Chip (8-Core)
GPU	AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 (4 GB HBM2)	Apple M2 (10 Core GPU)
RAM	32 GB	24 GB
SSD	512 GB	512 GB

Hardware experience

Our first tester, Andreas, was impressed by the battery life. Even with high screen brightness and video consumption, the Air's battery lasted quite a while. He was very satisfied with the screen quality. He found the 13.6'' Liquid Retina display pleasant to look at thanks to its brightness of 500 nits and high contrast due to the large color space (P3). The cooling of the Air is purely passive. This made the case noticeably warm for Andreas during demanding workloads. He fears that the passive cooling system could become a problem, especially in the hot summertime.

The build quality of the Air, which has received a redesign with the M2 processor, was well-designed and detailed for Andreas. Thanks to the compact size, which is about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, and the noticeably low weight of 1.24 kg, he could easily take the Air with him everywhere. When it comes to connectivity, Andreas likes the fact that in addition to the two Thunderbolt 4 ports, Magsafe port also serves as a charging connector again. This allowed him, for example, to connect an external monitor and a hard drive at the same time and charge the device via Magsafe.

Andreas is not a fan of the touch bar on his 2019 MBP and is happy to find physical buttons on the M2 Air. He likes the keyboard and trackpad on the Air, but they are noticeably narrower than on the big 16'' Pro. The Air's 1080p camera is much sharper than that on the old Pro, which only resolves at 720p. Andreas found the image quality satisfactory even in dark environments. However, he was disappointed by the audio quality of the Air's speakers. For him, the speakers on the Air sounded "extremely flat" because there is practically no bass. That's why he preferred to use external headphones via jack or Bluetooth.

Andreas' conclusion: "The MBA has a very good performance with the new chip and 24 GB RAM, and the battery, camera, design, weight, and screen are also convincing. However, due to the minimal design, the keyboard and trackpad are about too close together for me. The audio quality is miserable, as it would take quite some space for good speakers with bass."

For our second tester, Roman, many points were similar. He was also impressed by the battery life made possible by the M2 chip and the true-color Liquid Retina display. The purely passive cooling was again perceived as a minus point, as in Roman's eyes this could be a problem during longer workloads.

On the other hand, he found the build quality, size, and weight of the Air to be a plus. He was also very satisfied with the keyboard and trackpad. The audio quality didn't bother him as much as Andreas, but he found the Air's camera insufficient.

Roman's verdict: "1A notebook. Useful for simple CAD work, image editing, and graphics."

The testers' final conclusion

Final conclusion Andreas: "The comparison with my MacBook Pro (Late 2019, Intel i9) is somewhat unfair, as the 4 years newer technology will win in any case. Nevertheless, the tested MacBook Air performed outstandingly in all tests. This raises a question that would have been unthinkable in architecture studies a few years ago: a new MBA or MBP? Basically, the difference [to the i9 MBP] was rather small for simpler tasks. For example, with office software or image processing. For tasks that require a lot of computing power, like building 3D projects on CAD or rendering, the MBA's advantage becomes much greater and a lot of time can be saved."

Andreas recommends the MacBook Air (M2) to other architecture students only with reservations, despite his positive experiences in the practical test. For him, the big advantages of the Air are its great transportability thanks to its lightweight and compact form factor. The performance you get in this slim package is really outstanding in his opinion. However, he thinks that most students who want to upgrade from an older MacBook to a new MacBook will be happier with one of the current MacBook Pro models. In architecture studies, a larger screen and the improved rendering performance of the Pro models are an advantage. However, if you can outsource the rendering of complicated models and always work with an external monitor anyway, the Air is a good choice, according to Andreas. The device is also worthwhile for those students who travel a lot or want to work on the road.

Final conclusion Roman: "In most applications, the M2 Air is absolutely sufficient. However, there are some important programs (QGIS / Archicad) that do not work reliably enough on the small device. So it's difficult to recommend the Air."

Roman can only recommend the Air to those students who limit themselves to light 2D graphics work. In his opinion, the Air with graphics and RAM upgrade cannot compete with the new MacBook Pro 14 with the M2 Pro chip in terms of its price-performance ratio. The lack of active cooling and a dedicated graphics card are big negative points for him. In addition, the current stability problems in Archicad 26 (native) and the geography software QGIS (Rosetta 2), which runs via Rosetta, make the Air too unreliable for Roman to recommend the Air to other architecture students.

Conclusion: The MacBook Air (M2) for studying architecture?

In our blog series, two architecture students from ETH Zurich have replaced their old MacBook Pros (Late 2019, Intel i9) with a new MacBook Air with Apple's M2 processor. In the previous parts, they tested the software performance and rendering performance of the Air and compared it with their Pro. In the fourth and final part, Andreas and Roman put the hardware under the microscope and gave their final verdict on the Air.

The testers were impressed with the Air's battery life, screen quality, and build quality, but both criticised the purely passive cooling. Andreas recommends the device with reservations to those students who want maximum portability and can outsource particularly complicated renders. Roman, on the other hand, can't really recommend the Air for architecture studies. In terms of price-performance-ratio, he says, one would be better off with an entry-level MacBook Pro 14 Chip. At the same time, the stability problems in certain applications (QGIS / Archicad) were too great for him to really recommend a device with an Apple silicon chip.

We at Projekt Neptun were definitely surprised by the performance of the M2-Air. While there are several generations between the MBP 16 with i9 chip and the Air, it is still impressive that the Air with today's "entry-level" Apple processor was vastly superior to Apple's best laptop processor from 4 years ago. And, as both students also noted, the Air did so with much less battery consumption! That said, we also understand the negatives raised by both testers. The Air with our upgrade specs is priced very close to the current MacBook Pro 14. The latter offers a good deal more power, more ports, a larger screen, and active cooling for a comparatively similar price. Therefore, the Air can only be recommended to those architecture students who need maximum portability from their device. Because the Air's screen is only 13'', it is advisable to use an external monitor for larger CAD work.

The fact that one of the two testers had stability problems with the Apple Silicon Chip also shows how important it is to be informed about the software you need for your studies. We hope that the problems Roman observed will be addressed in future updates.

That was our practical test of the MacBook Air with an M2 chip in architecture studies! We would like to thank our two testers, Andreas and Roman, for their work. Hopefully, you were able to take something away from this series for yourselves!

Follow us on social media (IG, FB, Twitter) to make sure you don't miss our exciting tech content and our next Studi offers.

Disclaimer: This test was made possible through the support of our distribution partner DQ Solutions.