If I put a MacBook Air M2 next to the new Macbook Air with chip M3 that has just been launched, there is no way to differentiate them. The exterior design is exactly the same. There is no variation in its components, keyboard, size, weight, material, screen quality, ports. Nothing. They are exactly the same. Its only significant change—since there are other minor ones—is inside.
It is a trend that we have observed with Apple equipment in recent years. Now that the company is back in control of the chips in its Macs, they are able to iterate and improve more frequently, without the need to change the external design of the device. For example, the Mac Studio M1 Max/Ultra is the same as the Mac Studio M2 Max/Ultra. The same with the MacBook Pro M1 Pro/Max, M2 Pro/Max or M3 Pro/Max. The latter with the subtle difference of a new color.
If it works, why change it, right? In general I agree with the premise. Although I would love to see some changes in the Macbook Air, especially with the screen and its brightness. But it is an appreciation that I also have with previous models. Although it is not the same to make this observation in 2022 as in 2024, right?
But regardless of the exterior design, the MacBook Air is still the best laptop, in my opinion, for most people. It is light, powerful, has a lot of autonomy, a good enough screen and great durability. Furthermore, when using macOS We get rid of hundreds of common Windows problems, especially among people who are not experts. It offers a lot of security, is focused on privacy, and many guaranteed years of operating system updates.
Apple is focusing this update on MacBook Air users with Intel processors, or those who have a PC. If you have a MacBook Air M2 I don't think it makes much sense to change, but in any other case, if you are looking for a new laptop, this is quite possibly the one you are looking for. However, there is much more to comment on this renewal.
Many similar things, and many differences
But, although they are not visible on the outside, there are some differences inside. The change to the M3 chip offers some new features, the most significant – in addition to performance – being the ability to connect two external monitors and close the laptop lid. A very welcome improvement for those who use the MacBook Air as their main computer, but prefer to have a desktop setup, for example in the office.
In addition to that, the M3 offers Wi-Fi 6E – a newer, faster version – hardware acceleration of ray tracing and video decoding in AV1 format. The first allows certain types of apps, especially 3D design and modeling, to work much faster. The second allows you to watch video on the Internet, saving energy, and allowing the autonomy of the MacBook Air to be much greater. The AV1 format is used by platforms such as YouTube, Netflix, Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, among many others.
Therefore, a single internal change allows better performance in certain apps, faster connection speed in certain conditions and consuming video content on platforms for longer. It's not bad at all.
continuous exterior
The exterior of the MacBook Air M3 is continuous but works well. Apple has found a sweet spot between very low weight, an ultra-thin design, without losing keyboard comfort, screen size, autonomy and power. That's why I'm not surprised that they keep their exterior design.
Everything we have discussed about the 13-inch or 15-inch MacBook Air with M2 chip is repeated in the models with M3. It is comfortable to carry in your backpack, just as comfortable to work with, with a good keyboard, a good retina quality screen and a very good trackpad. It is no coincidence that this is one of the most successful laptops in history in all its versions.
The MacBook Air M3, like the M2 version, leaves the wedge-shaped design that characterized the laptop for so many years. In fact, with the discontinuation of the M1 model, the slightly triangular era has ended. Forever? Hopefully not, and at some point in the future it will return.
But at the same time, I would love a MacBook Air more similar to that even thinner 12-inch MacBook, with a design perfectly classifiable as delicious, worthy of a three Michelin star restaurant. A lot has happened since those days, and Apple could very well take many of today's technologies and innovations and apply them to an even thinner and smaller version of the laptop. With a better keyboard and an Apple Silicon, it would be close to perfection.
For the moment I have to “settle” – well, with quotes, because it is an exaggeration – with the 13 and 15 inch models, but it does not mean that they are not good. It is a design Extremely good, because there are not many compromises—as happened at the time with that 12-inch MacBook—. And we all know that in teams like these, it's better for form to follow function, not the other way around.
Apple claims that the midnight blue color of the MacBook Air M3 attracts fingerprints less than before. To achieve this, they have applied a color process similar to the space black of the new MacBook Pro M3. In practice it is true, and there is a difference, but the hand marks are still visible on the laptop chassis. It's less noticeable, but they are still there.
And nothing better than a laptop where form follows function, but with a design that, although continuous, is round. I finish as I started: why change something that works so well?
MacBook Air M3 performance
Apple is targeting the MacBook Air M3 for people looking to upgrade from an older Intel-based Air model or PC. If you have the M2 version, this version does not make any sense. If you have a 13-inch M1 MacBook Air, I'd say the same thing. It doesn't make sense at the moment. But if you are looking for a slightly larger screen, 15 inches, maybe yes.
Still, if you're coming from a MacBook Air with Intel, this version is up to thirteen times faster than the model with the fastest Intel processor they ever sold. If you come from a PC, I assure you, they are all advantages.
Focusing on its M3 chip, it includes 8 CPU cores, up to 10 GPU cores and 16 cores in its neural engine. It can also be configured with up to 24 GB of unified memory. For most, you can be sure, 8 GB is more than enough, even if some specialized analyst says no. First, 8 GB of RAM on a Mac is not the same as on a PC and second, it is more than enough for the vast majority of activities that a person who buys a laptop like this will do.
Mac CPUs and more GPUs equals more performance. The laptop is faster and more efficient. If you compare it to a MacBook Air M2, it is 15% faster. If you compare it with an Intel MacBook Air, the difference is huge. Apple has very well resolved the performance that they can squeeze out of each watt of the processor, and that makes them very efficient and silent, because remember, they do not have a fan.
That is why these laptops are so popular among people who are not looking for a professional computer. Since they incorporate chips designed by Apple, they offer much higher performance than any device with similar characteristics from the competition.
In terms of performance, the synthetic tests confirm that the improvement between the M2 and the M3 is iterative. Geekbench, in multi-core, gives a value of 9,650 to the 2022 model, while this new laptop obtains 9,744.
In single-core, the M3 scores 2,595, while the MacBook Air M2 scores 2,577. Thus we confirm that, if we have one of these laptops launched in 2022, it does not make sense to upgrade to the one from 2023. Macs have enough power to be used for between 4 and 6 years without having to change the equipment.
In fact, with the price drop of the MacBook Air M2, it becomes one of the best quality/price ratio laptops today.
Apple is also emphasizing, in its communication, the artificial intelligence capabilities of the M3 chip. The 16 neural engine cores enable much faster artificial learning calculations that are leveraged in existing or future apps that use these capabilities. But it is no coincidence that Apple is starting to talk more and more about artificial intelligence, because it will be one of the new features of its most recent equipment – like this one – and future ones throughout 2024.
We will hear much more about artificial intelligence during WWDC 2024, when new operating systems are announced, including macOS for this laptop, and surely at the launch of the next iPhone in September. With those 16 cores of the M3's neural engine, the MacBook Air will surely acquire new functions related to machine learning with Apple's next operating system.
Should you buy the MacBook Air M3?
He Macbook Air It is, in my opinion, the best laptop for most people. It is light, very quiet, with very good features and a very attractive price. If you have a version with an Intel processor and are looking for something new, this is your device. And if you have a Windows computer and are looking for something fast that will always work well, with a lot of autonomy, without a doubt this is an option that you should consider.
Unfortunately, Windows remains an enigma when it causes problems for people who are not tech savvy, have no idea what it means to open a terminal window or edit the Registry. None of those problems occur with macOSyou forget about malware problems and thanks to free operating system updates, you will have a computer that works very well for many years.
But if you have a MacBook Air M2, as we mentioned before, there is simply no need to update. You already have a very high-performance team.
Some people with Intel-based MacBook Pros have asked me if the MacBook Air—especially the 15-inch—with M2 or M3 is a good upgrade. I would say yes, although it is not a professional device, the increase in performance between an Intel laptop processor and an Apple Silicon is already worth it.