The text below comes from a shooting script for the video above; it may not perfectly reflect the dialogue of that video.
Intro
This summer’s M2 MacBook Air is looking like a Donna Summer—as in hot hot hot. We didn’t expect to find active cooling in this base model M2 Air, but we didn’t find much of a passive cooling system either—not even a heat spreader? But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Exterior and Ports
Even without the slimming wedge shape, the flashy new M2 Air is not only thinner than its predecessor, but also manages to pack in more ports—the glorious return of MagSafe, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, and a headphone jack.
It’s also got a clever trick up its sleeve … or, spine. Speaker grilles! No more perforated top case—the sound is pumped out between case and display. And while they’re not the best speakers ever, Apple’s obsession with sound still comes through, and they sound great.
X-rays

Speaking of speakers, Creative Electron gives us our first look at their new placement, and they look—small? We also get a glimpse at the keyboard—not super serviceable, but at least it’s not as fragile as keyboards from the Butterfly era.
Opening
It’s been, oh, 14 years since a joke like pulling a MacBook Air from an envelope was relevant, but this machine has come a long way in that time. Let’s open it up.

Just four screws guard the entry, and after the same mildly terrifying tugging as in the 14” MacBook Pro, the lower case is free. Cue mild panic—where’s the battery connector? Hopefully not under the logic board … Time to go digging for likely targets. Some pint-sized screws and brackets later—hey, that’s a neat little trap door. Turns out the battery socket was right here all along, using a tiny iPhone-like connector.
Logic Board
Battery safely disconnected, we start excavating the logic board, dispatching more brackets, more screws—some of them hidden—and yeah a couple more fiddly bits, and the logic board is free. But it’s not much to look at ‘til we take the clip-on shield off.
Heat Management—Or Lack Thereof?

Under the lid we find: an impressive amount of empty space! The empty pad makes sense—it’s for the extra SSD chip we didn’t pay for—but, where’s the heat spreader? What’s with this big gap? How does this thing cool down? Sure it had a lot of thermal paste and graphite tape, and yeah the M2 is efficient, but this shield is super thin, so it’s not helping much—and the case is lighter than last year, so? Maybe the M2 Air is secretly an iPad … or maybe Apple is just letting it run hot.
Chip Identification


On this densely packed board, we find a wealth of chips. Highlights include:
- The soldered-down octa-core M2 + unified memory package, with integrated GPU
- A single soldered 256 GB NAND flash memory chip (instead of two 128’s)
- A seemingly Apple-made Thunderbolt 3 driver, instead of the Intel chips we’re familiar with
- A USI chip that is likely just Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
- And, a little birdy pointed out an accelerometer, slightly unusual in a laptop—the Studio Display has one too. If you’ve got ideas why Apple might put an accelerometer in their new laptop, let us know.
Can’t get enough M2 Air silicon? The iFixit community has your back—check out the full M2 MacBook Air Chip ID teardown for a detailed breakdown of all the chips on this board.
Trackpad
Before my brain overheats, let’s get to some hardware that makes sense: a few screws, and some escape-artist washers, and the trackpad is free. (And I’m free, from its annoying cable.)
Speakers
I’m sure you want to hear about these two, sorry four, speakers, but it’s gonna take a lot of digging to get there. There’s some obvious screws—like the ones that secure them to the case—and some that are buried under these annoying hinge covers. (They help reinforce the hinge, which is a good thing, but wow they are no fun to remove.)
Audio Board and Ports
While we’re up here, let’s grab that super thin audio board. It’s adhered, but comes right up. Even better, every single port—the endangered headphone jack, prodigal MagSafe charger, and both USB-C ports—are modular, and not glued down. We love to see it! Finally, the TouchID button comes out through the top case with ease.
Battery
On to the battery! With no markings it’s hard to tell, but this almost looks smaller than last year? The four cells are held into the case with a combination of a metal tray with repair-friendly screws, and stretch-release adhesive. Not to brag, but I got every strip out intact—granted these are a very slick horseshoe-shaped adhesives, which means if one tab breaks, the other tab will extract all the remaining adhesive! Stretch-release honestly just can’t be beat—except by these screws. Ah, reusable fasteners my old friends …


Like with iPhones these days, the specs are on the back, giving us a rated capacity of 52.6 Wh. And while it has four cells, it wires the top two in parallel and the bottom two in series, making it operate like a 3-cell battery. Maybe don’t think too hard about why; it doesn’t make sense to us either.
Display
Once those finicky hinge covers are removed, twist out some screws, and the display pulls right off.
Conclusion

When it’s all said and done, the Air still fits in a simple envelope. The Mac has been headed in a positive direction these days—more and better ports, a better keyboard, and a return to some more repairable ideas.
I don’t know if I trust a fanless, heatspreader-less, non-upgradable laptop—especially at this base model spec. But at least the shadow of the original Retina era seems to be passing. Plus, Apple tells us we’ll get parts for this one, so check back in a few months, and maybe we’ll do a repair together! Until next time, keep on fixing!
Did we miss anything? Should we debunk some more weird internet claims? Let us know in the comments!
26 Comments
I think Luke Maini sorta fixed that,
But still, it seems they should have still had some kind of heat sink there!
Ben Capehart - Reply
Is it possible to add a diy spreader since it has so much extra space?
Daniel Torres - Reply
Yes, you can luke maini did at least!
Ben Capehart -
I was surprised about the battery!
its probably to make it easier from the self repair programme
glad to see the improvement:-)
HelloMacOS - Reply
In my opinion, If Apple had improved passive dissipation, the SoC could have "worked harder", due to a delay in throttling intervention, end this would have affected the overall autonomy of the new model ... that is it would have penalized a strength of marketing. Maybe it's behind it, but I think it's plausible (I apologize for my poor English).
Henry - Reply
The matter is that a Log, thanks to the data provided by an accelerometer, could record whether the Mac has fallen and what the intensity of the impact is.
But this would be useful in a Mac that has moving components (Eg: mechanical HDs or cooling fans) where a bump, but also a strong shaking that does not leave marks on the case, would be harmful.
On the other hand, the hypothesis of a usefulness of the accelerometer with glasses and virtual reality is plausible, since the user with VR glasses could make virtual movements holding the Mac (open or closed) in his hands.
The accelerometer, therefore, could be used to detect roll and pitch (in an airplane, boat, etc.) and could even help a blind person, if equipped with VR glasses and with a floor plan of the house inserted in the Mac, to move from one place to another in your home or garden, taking your Mac with you.
Dott. Vincenzo - Reply
Now here's something weird, The MacBook pro is $100 more than the air but they both have the same hardware,
My guess is ??? I have no idea
Ben Capehart - Reply
Some possibilities for the gyroscope+accelerometer:
- MEMS OIS
- Spatial Audio
hiperrafael - Reply
@hiperrafael Spatial audio? Doubtfully. An accelerometer in the computer cannot magically detect the movements of the user's head.
D. C. - Reply
Really concerned about heat dissipation design, hope that iFixit can examine it under load using thermographic camera.
Possibly using aftermarket dock-type active cooling solution for high load tasks is feasible.
Matti - Reply
Well, accelerometer sensor indeed can be used for navigation. It's called dead reconning.
In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating the current position of some moving object by using a previously determined position, or fix, and then incorporating estimates of speed, heading direction, and course over elapsed time. Accuracy is limited by the sensor precision, with built-in magnetometer, magnetic disturbances inside structures, and unknown variables such as carrying position and stride length. Wonder if MBA M2 has a built-in magnetometer used in mobile phones in combination with accelerometer as a form of pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR).
Networked games and simulation tools routinely use dead reckoning to predict where an actor should be right now, using its last known kinematic state (position, velocity, acceleration, orientation, and angular velocity. Then it might be preparation for Apple Augmenter Reality Device.
Matti - Reply
There is an extended discussion on the related Ars Technica story. The claim there is no heat sinking or spreading has met with sharp disagreement.
fairlingtonblade - Reply
how much clearance is between the top of the emi shield and the bottom case?
I want to put some thermal pad there, or better, get a piece of thin aluminum vapor chamber in there, and use thermal paste to sandwich it between, it would help a lot with moving the heat from center to left and right side of the bottom case.
ZarkFurza - Reply
What makes you think that the M2 MBA doesn’t have a heat spreader? That is exactly what was connnected to the SOC with thermal paste and had graphite thermal tape on it. Yes, it was thinner than the M1 MBA heat spreader but the one on the M2 has more surface area to shed heat. Seems weird to proclaim that it doesn’t have one.
Trilobite - Reply
“Fresh Apple Patent Shows New Graphene Heat Dissipator, That Could Get Rid of Potential Overheating“
https://www.gsmdome.com/fresh-apple-pate...
Trilobite - Reply
Isn’t the accelerator for the so called “spatial Audio” speakers?
Abdallah azazy - Reply
The accelerometer is likely to detect drops or hard knocks etc...
Ghozer - Reply
You didn't design the %#*@ laprop, you didn't build the device, you didn't evolved the product. You just.. opened it. But, hey, you don't trust a fanless (Apple) device. What exactly that means?!? Without fans the laptop doesn't work, what are you exactly impling? I can't believe it. But that's not all, you don't trust a non-upgradable laptop, what does that mean? It should be quite simple: You buy the thing, you can't upgrade. Most of the people doesn't even know what a cpu is, what the fsck do they know about upgrading? If you want to upgrade something, buy a desktop! I'm a big fan of Apple's technology, not a fanatic. I believe, even after all these years, this is M2 device is a marvel, a mixture of very high-tuned hardware and very elegant software. But you stop at the blue outside. You want to upgrade, just go and use windoze..
fabrizio bordacchini - Reply
Apple likely didn't add a heat sink as they thermally/freq limit M2. You don't need perf like that in an Air, and instead they can push for it on the Macbook Pro.
M E - Reply
Where is the bluetooth located? I store my MacBook Air behind my Studio Display, and the antenna isn't nearly as strong for my AirPods Pro to stay connected when leaving the room, like the one in my old iMac was.
If I know where the antenna is, then I'm thinking I can move my MacBook Air's placement on my desk. Thanks!
Ryan Armstrong - Reply
Hi Ryan!
Based on the x-ray, it looks like the antennas are along the back edge where the display hinges are located. If you look at the speaker modules in this photo, you'll see the antennas integrated into them, with antenna connectors sticking out. If you want the strongest signal, make sure nothing blocks the back edge of your MacBook Air—especially anything made of metal.
Arthur Shi -
This isn't much help in taking it apart. I'd prefer a video of someone taking it apart.
lf - Reply
Where is the microphone?
Stephen Lemp - Reply
It does indeed have a heat spreader, that's not an EMI shield atop the logic board, it's full of vapour chambers it's entire length to spread heat. You can't tell unless you're holding one, but looking closely at the heatsink I can see raised sections which have thickness to them that I am quite certain are vapour chambers. The heat is spread out and sunk to the entire bottom case and there are also ties into the topcase to assist in sinking heat there also.
With a TDP of only 20w the M2 chip in the Air should have more than enough aluminium to dissipate the heat it creates, especially if it averages much less.
NB. EXTREME CARE should be used if ever removing the heatsink, as due to its very thin and flexible nature it's ability to make proper thermal contact again once removed is questionable. Avoid removal if possible.
Garns - Reply
Just bought a used 2022 M2 MacBook Air with every upgrade ie 10core, 2tb ssd, 24gb ram, AppleCare plus until 9/25. Midnight black and exceptionally stunning looking. Stands out from the entire world of previously beautiful Apple devices.
This heat thing is totally overblown. Testing I’ve read, says it takes about an hour of intensive work like video editing to heat up this Mac to the onset of throttling. No one buys an Air to be a Pro or studio with active cooling! At least no one with any sense of computer tech.
The screen is gorgeous, seemingly bigger than the tiny size increase. My cost, $1700, not a scratch, 27 battery cycles. Better than new or refurbished considering the money savings. Been fixing Apple since 1980 and buying used for at least 30 years. Never went wrong with a Mac. Soon, I’ll retire our two 2013 15" MacBook Pro’s which still work like the day I bought them!
Have an interim M1 Air with 8gb ram, 512gb ssd thats going to my wife for a significant upgrade over her 2013 Pro.
Ross Elkins - Reply
Why does ifixit mix up heat sink and heat spreader?
A heat sink is a mass of thermally conductive material that absorbs heat until it is saturated and it radiates that heat out. It works best with a fan to carry the heat away. It depends on the thermal mass of the material.
A heat spreader is a component to conduct heat away from a chip. It doesn't have the mass to absorb and hold heat but it is designed to transfer the heat away. A heat spreader works better when it has a large surface area to radiate heat away. Thickness is not a particular benefit to a heat spreader.
The M1/M2 13" Air and the M2 15" Air all thread have heat spreaders that transfer the heat from the SOC to the inside of the case where it can dissipate. Those heat spreaders are mounted to the SOC with thermal paste which you can see early in the video before someone wiped it off in later shots. These heat spreaders also are coated in a thermal transfer graphite coating to enhance the thermal conductivity.
Yes, the MBAs do have a heat spreader.
Trilobite - Reply