My new MacBook Air doesn't have a "notch"

If it's truly a new 15" MacBook Air, it has a notch at the middle top of the screen. This is where the camera is located, FYI.

The 13" MacBook Air with the M1 processor does not have a notch.

Both the 13" MacBook Air M2 and 15" MacBook Air M2 models do have the notch.

Here you can see all three MacBook Airs: MacBook Air - Apple

Note this is not a notch in the laptop itself...it's simply a portion of the upper middle part of the screen where the camera is.

jwmurrayjr wrote:

Apple engineers tell me that there are some versions without the "notch" and I have one. Sounds fishy to me but that's the story. Thanks for your interest.

The footer here shows a MacBook Air M2 2022, and the 2022 model lacks a notch, and lack MagSafe.

MacBook Air M2 2023 models have a notch, and have MagSafe.

PS: I'm not entirely certain a screenshot will show the notch.

There is a hidden resolution setting on the new-style MacBooks that ignores the notch area of the screen altogether. It results in displaying the menubar below the notch. If you turn your brightness up all the way on your MacBook Air, you'll see that the area around the notch will be more visible and lit up. It's there, but it's just showing black pixels, since it is not an OLED screen.

There are a small number of apps that can enable (and therefore disable) this hidden resolution. However, I imagine that if you go into your Display settings and change the resolution to the standard resolution of 1710x1107, the issue will be corrected.

Jim...while it's true there are MacBook Airs out there without the notch, there are no 15" MacBook Airs without the notch. Apple doesn't make devices that are different in different parts of the world (aside from software differences from time to time).

But, if the lack of a notch doesn't bother you, then happy Mac-ing to you, sir.

MrHoffman wrote:

jwmurrayjr wrote:

Apple engineers tell me that there are some versions without the "notch" and I have one. Sounds fishy to me but that's the story. Thanks for your interest.

The footer here shows a MacBook Air M2 2022, and the 2022 model lacks a notch, and lack MagSafe.

MacBook Air M2 2023 models have a notch, and have MagSafe.

PS: I'm not entirely certain a screenshot will show the notch.

Mr Hoffman, what you're saying is all true.

But if you look at one of the earlier posts, jwmurrayjr provided a screenshot of the About This Mac screen, which clearly says it's a 15" MacBook Air.

Many of the screenshots in this thread are photos, because, as you've noted, screenshots won't display the notch. And there are NO 15" MacBook Airs out there that don't have a notch (unless, of course, somehow one of the pre-release engineering prototypes made it into the wild).

Can you click on the Apple menu--> About This Mac

Then post a screen shot of the resulting About This Mac window?

Yes...the notch is at the same height as the menu bar. So, something is reducing your screen size to just below the notch. What that something is, though, is a mystery to me. You're actually losing a tiny bit of display size since everything is below the notch on your MBA.

jwmurrayjr wrote:

Yeah I don't buy it either Mike. But it really seems odd that Apple would try to blow me off with "just tell the guy that there are a few without the Notch. He'll never know the difference". 😬

I suspect that someday after an update the Notch will appear. Very odd.

If it were me, and an Apple Store was within a reasonable distance, I'd make an appointment for the Genius Bar to have my MBA examined. I doubt that what the Apple rep told you is accurate.

Given that your MacBook Air is most likely less than a month old, and doesn't ship from the factory "sans notch", what we're seeing has to be the result of an application you've installed on it.

Please share with the rest of us which application it is, please. :)

This is what the display on this MacBook Air should look like:

Very strange, indeed! Seeing the TinkerTool app on your desktop, I am wondering if it has something to do with what I'm seeing. I know the app changes system settings (and some of those changes probably aren't sanctioned by Apple, explaining why they aren't on the App Store)...so I can only speculate it has something to do with this?

Maybe someone else will jump in here and shed more light on this.

See if a newly-created user has the same misbehavior, when you log into that.

...This tends to isolate user-local settings and apps.

See if booting into Safe Mode shows the same misbehavior.

...This tends to isolate (most) system-wide settings and apps.