The M3 MacBook Air is official, and with it come a couple of big changes that users have been requesting. Let’s dive into everything that is new on the updated M3 MacBook Air, how this is going to impact the MacBook lineup, and when you can get your hands on them. We don’t need to spend a lot of time on design, because basically nothing has changed.
This is purely a spec update focusing on the internals. The M3 MacBook Air comes in both a 13.6 and a 15.3 inch flavor, depending on your needs. They have the same ports as the last generation, including a MagSafe 3 port alongside two Thunderbolt ports on the left and a headphone jack there on the right. These machines come in four different colorways, but with a big tweak. So you can get it in silver, starlight, space gray, or midnight.
Each M3 comes with an 8-core CPU, as well as an 8- or a 10-core GPU. The CPU is still split into four high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores. The 13-inch version is the one that makes you choose between either that 8- or that 10-core GPU, but if you opt for the 15-inch version, you’re immediately upgraded to that 10-core GPU across the board.
We compared M3 version of the 14 inch MacBook Pro with the M2 version, we were seeing about a 20% boost there in performance. Those benchmarks should be fairly accurate. The biggest difference between the MacBook Air and the 14 inch MacBook Pro is going to be active cooling. So sustained performance is definitely better on the MacBook Pro line. But for quick benchmarks like Geekbench, especially on the single core front, they’re pretty emblematic of what we’re actually going to see here. So I would expect that we’re going to get a 20% improvement on performance on the M3 version of the MacBook Air.
The M3 line brings plenty of other changes to it too, besides just better performance for the CPU and the GPU. There’s hardware accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading, AV1 decoding, and a faster neural engine, which leads to more expeditious on-device machine learning.
Apple’s really leaning into the AI angle here, saying this is the best consumer device for AI processing. you know, we’ll see how that actually plays out. Paired with the new M3s is up to 24 gigs of unified memory, and yes, before you ask, it still starts at 8 gigs. The M3 isn’t the only internal change here, though. We also have a new Wi-Fi chip, upgrading from Wi-Fi 6 to Wi-Fi 6E. Wi-Fi 6E adopts the 6 gigahertz band of spectrum alongside 2.4 and 5.
Apple says that should yield up to 20%. twice as fast Wi-Fi performance, but that means two things. A, you have a router that supports Wi-Fi 6E, and B, we usually only see those really big gains in terms of performance in areas that are kind of congested with Wi-Fi bans, like apartment buildings and in cities. So if you’re outside of that area, you may not see as much of an improvement in terms of Wi-Fi. I think Wi-Fi 7 coming down the line is going to be a much bigger jump.
We can have two large displays going at the same time, be more productive, it’s really useful, but if you were planning on using the display on your MacBook Air, you’re only able to use one external display, so it’s definitely still limiting. When your MacBook Air is open, you can support one external display at 6K resolution, but when you have it closed, the second display will be up to 5K in resolution. It will not support two 6K external displays at the same time. That gives us a few different options in the MacBook Air lineup.
Price:
The 13-inch MacBook Air with M3 starts at INR 114,900 and INR 104,900 for education, and the 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 starts at INR 134,900 and INR 124,900 for education. Both are available in midnight, starlight, silver, and space grey. The 13-inch MacBook Air with M2, available in midnight, starlight, silver, and space grey, now starts at INR 99,900 and INR 89,900 for education.
For More Detail: apple.com/in/store and https://www.apple.com/in/newsroom/2024/03/apple-unveils-the-new-13-and-15-inch-macbook-air-with-the-powerful-m3-chip/
But I wanna know, what new model are you picking up? Are you going for the 13 or the 15 inch version? And do you wanna go for the midnight color without these fingerprints on it? Or do you like one of the other colors? Let me know in the comments.
