I would of ordered today but wanted to see usual reviews first! Nothing at all! Is that normal or is it a little fishy........

Philllllip said:

I would of ordered today but wanted to see usual reviews first! Nothing at all! Is that normal or is it a little fishy........

It's normal. The review embargo will probably lift next Thursday.

We will probably see them early next week. You'd be better to order it now and to cancel it if the reviews are not convincing for you

today is pre-order day 1. no one has the M2 air yet. nothing 'fishy' about it; youtubers can't review something they don't yet have (not that that has stopped some lol)...

fwmireault said:

We will probably see them early next week. You'd be better to order it now and to cancel it if the reviews are not convincing for you

I think that's about right. A good plan IMHO.

Ordering just started today. How do you review something that no one has yet?

I think they will be released next Wednesday or Thursday

fisherking said:

today is pre-order day 1. no one has the M2 air yet. nothing 'fishy' about it; youtubers can't review something they don't yet have (not that that has stopped some lol)...

That's not totally correct. Big youtubers like MKHB and other tech reviewers usually get devices shipped to them early for reviewing. They're just not allowed to talk about the product or show it to anyone before the embargo is lifted, which might be early next week in this case.

Apple is not just some greedy outfit. They are a very special greedy outfit.

They have standards

Unless it is from a reviewer I trust, I would be skeptical of any YouTuber that gets early access to devices to review. Companies tend to send their products to "friendly" reviewers, so you may not get an honest review.

I would order, with the intentions of potentially cancelling the order or returning the MBA, or just wait until it has been out for a while to see what the final verdict is.

Juicy Box said:

Unless it is from a reviewer I trust, I would be skeptical of any YouTuber that gets early access to devices to review. Companies tend to send their products to "friendly" reviewers, so you may not get an honest review.

I would order, with the intentions of potentially cancelling the order or returning the MBA, or just wait until it has been out for a while to see what the final verdict is.

The most important issue that many people might care about this time is whether Apple is giving us a slower SSD this round. I'd imagine even biased reviewers cannot outright lie about the numbers. So it would be useful to hear from those who have early access if they would test the SSD.

iJustine, of course, would love these MBA.

Would it be a better value to get a Refurbished M1 Air 16Gb 256 at $921 direct from Apple with a 10% military discount versus a base M2 8G/256 for $1079? Looking to keep the machine at least 3-4 years.

Juicy Box said:

Unless it is from a reviewer I trust, I would be skeptical of any YouTuber that gets early access to devices to review. Companies tend to send their products to "friendly" reviewers, so you may not get an honest review.

This is astute but often overlooked... on a general assumption that reviewers are objective. Those who get early access will get to post the FIRST "reviews." Since lots of people are interested in new products, large numbers of eyeballs watch those videos. The "reviewer" makes their money from the advertising. A mostly-to-completely favorable review will please the company/marketing team and thus keep that person on the "early reviewer" list.

Thus, there is a strong motivation to keep the money "gravy" train coming, which is why the early reviews tend to be as company-friendly, gushing-positive as possible (even some flaw/issue is quickly dismissed as generally nothing). Should one of them "go rogue" and offer a critical review, expect to see the wrath of the company fall upon them... and no more advance access to products (thus costing them advertising revenue forever after).

It's the real reviews that come AFTER the public launch done by people who had to buy one themselves that tend to be more objective. So if reviews drive purchase decisions, one should wait for those and/or time your orders so you have time to return if objective reviewers notice something that makes you want to do so.

I see the pre-release "reviews" as simply an extension of marketing... biased by ad revenue to entirely-to-nearly-entirely focus on the positives.

norcalsurfer925 said:

Would it be a better value to get a Refurbished M1 Air 16Gb 256 at $921 direct from Apple with a 10% military discount versus a base M2 8G/256 for $1079? Looking to keep the machine at least 3-4 years.

There's no hard answer to this question. Only you can decide... and you can't even fully compare the two until the new one is out and you can learn about it through objective reviews. Head to head (objective) reviews will be interesting.

People seem VERY HAPPY with M1 Air. Others are very excited to embrace M2 Air. The latter is a little faster than the former and offers the option to exceed the 16GB RAM limit. If anything you do begs for more RAM, that could be very important to this decision. If you need a little more speed because computing things you do are more intensive, that might sway the decision too.

On the flip side, obviously there is dollar savings in refurb M1 Air. Is the dollar savings really important to you? If you keep a laptop in use for 3 to 4+ years, the dollar difference doesn't look so great when you spread it out over useful lifetime.

macOS updates will probably support both over 4 years, so M1 will probably not be obsoleted by macOS in that window of time. But obviously M1 will be retired before M2, so if "4" (years) actually becomes 5 or 6, that might be worth a bit of consideration.

Lastly, if Studio can land in the refurb store in only 5 months, perhaps M2 Air does too? If so and you aren't burning to buy now, maybe aim for approx. Christmas and possibly get it at refurb pricing + military discount. If not approx. December, it should not be too much longer thereafter.

The early reviews are nothing more than adverts for Apple.

It is always this way.

Pre-orders begin on a Friday. Orders begin arriving + in-store availability begins the following Friday. Embargoed reviews are published on the Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday in between.

M2 MacBook Air reviews are expected on Thursday, July 14.

Philllllip said:

I would of ordered today but wanted to see usual reviews first! Nothing at all! Is that normal or is it a little fishy........

Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=m2+macbook+air

I went ahead and ordered it at 5am. Reviews tend to spoil the fun for me.

HobeSoundDarryl said:

This is astute but often overlooked... on a general assumption that reviewers are objective. Those who get early access will get to post the FIRST "reviews." Since lots of people are interested in new products, large numbers of eyeballs watch those videos. The "reviewer" makes their money from the advertising. A mostly-to-completely favorable review will please the company/marketing team and thus keep that person on the "early reviewer" list.

Thus, there is a strong motivation to keep the money "gravy" train coming, which is why the early reviews tend to be as company-friendly, gushing-positive as possible (even some flaw/issue is quickly dismissed as generally nothing). Should one of them "go rogue" and offer a critical review, expect to see the wrath of the company fall upon them... and no more advance access to products (thus costing them advertising revenue forever after).

It's the real reviews that come AFTER the public launch done by people who had to buy one themselves that tend to be more objective. So if reviews drive purchase decisions, one should wait for those and/or time your orders so you have time to return if objective reviewers notice something that makes you want to do so.

I see the pre-release "reviews" as simply an extension of marketing... biased by ad revenue to entirely-to-nearly-entirely focus on the positives.

Click to expand...

While I mostly agree with what you've written I would hope that Apple wouldn't hold it against a reviewer for pointing out a flaw(s) or a dislike with a product. People will learn of the former and the latter could be nothing more than that reviewers opinion.

I'm waiting for Rene Richie's review to drop. If he recommends it, then you should definitely buy.

Don't worry, the usual "-So, I've been using this *brand new product that's basically not even possible too buy yet* for a couple of months now.."-videos will probably come en masse next week or so

dumastudetto said:

I'm waiting for Rene Richie's review to drop. If he recommends it, then you should definitely buy.

In my opinion, the best review is done by the average consumer who buys the product, uses it for 2 weeks under normal day to day usage and then make an educated decision whether or not said machine meets the need. I don't see how Rene would be able to add anything of real merit past what someone else not on YouTube can do on his or her own.

Maybe I am the exception around here but, I don't need to base my buying decision on Rene or any other YouTube personality or tech site.

It has always bugged me that they don't lift the product review embargos before they become available for order and get sold ~two months out. We'll probably see the YouTube reviews go live somewhere between Tuesday and Thursday of next week.

It’s all a conspiracy. The YouTube reviewers can’t say anything negative about Apple. That’s why no one will review because they’ll lose their Apple Pass and never attend WWDC again.

reviews come out when it's too late to cancel