Apple M2 MacBook Air iFixit Teardown Reveals Absence of Cooling Fan And Heat Spreader

The M2 MacBook Air went on sale last week, and now, iFixit has graced us with a teardown of the device. Earlier this month, we already had a look at the inside of the M2 MacBook Pro. The latest teardown video gives us a peek at the innards of the M2 MacBook Air.

An X-ray of the Apple M2 MacBook Air shows that the speakers are positioned above the keyboard, tucked away between the case and display. Unscrewing the bottom cover reveals a logic board that’s so compact that iFixit comments that it’s almost as if there were an iPad inside the device. Additionally, the components are soldered to the logic board, which means that replacing them will be a tough task.

Further digging shows that the entry-level M2 MacBook Air is equipped with a single 256GB NAND chip. This means slower SSD performance when compared to models with two NAND chips. The video shows that the device comes with Apple’s own Thunderbolt 3 driver, a USI Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, and strangely—an accelerometer. It’s still not clear why an accelerometer has been included in the laptop.

Coming to the thermal management, iFixit discovers that the latest M2 MacBook Air has neither a cooling fan nor a heat spreader. The device appears to depend on graphite tape and thermal paste to cool down the internal components. iFixit voices its concern, “How does this thing cool down? Sure, it has 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. Maybe the M2 Air is secretly an iPad, or maybe Apple is just letting it run hot.”

Additionally, the M2 MacBook Air has a 52.6Wh battery which is secured to the laptop by adhesive pull tabs. This makes it easy to remove the component. While the M2 chip and SSD are soldered to the M2 Air, the ports are modular.

You can check out iFixit’s detailed M2 MacBook Air teardown video below: