Summary
M3 MacBook Air looks .. The Apple MacBook Air M3s in both 13- and 15-inch sizes are now available. I also own one of each. One under the stars, the other around midnight.
M3 MacBook Air looks
The starlight is clear and untarnished by visible finger oils, while the midnight one is already smeared. I can distinguish between these two, however.
The 13-inch and 15-inch Air M3s have the same wedgeless design, weight, and dimensions of their M2 predecessors, as well as the same colorway possibilities. You most likely couldn’t identify which one has an M2 chip and which one has an M3 chip if the two were side by side.
Is MacBook Air M1 thinner than M2?
To distinguish them from the M2 models, you would need to boot them up and perform some benchmarks. After using the MacBook Pro 14 M3, I anticipate that the Air M3s will perform similarly, if not better, than the M2 Airs, with a performance boost of around 10 to 15 percent. The 13-inch and 15-inch Air M3 review devices that I was provided with boast an eight-core CPU, a 10-core GPU, and sixteenGB of RAM; however, the SSD is only 512GB in size rather than 1TB.
Let’s take a minute to concentrate on the 13-inch MacBook Air. The M3 model has three key improvements from the M2 version: hardware-accelerated ray tracing, the AV1 decoding engine (a newer video codec that uses less data while streaming), and Wi-Fi 6E. Not much has changed in terms of configuration choices or battery life, with the exception of the M3 models’ ability to power two external monitors when the laptop is closed. There was only one that the M1 and M2 Airs could use, and it had to be open. (A software upgrade will enable the 14-inch MacBook Pro M3 basic model to operate two external monitors as well; the M1 and M2 Airs are not yet mentioned.)
How do I know if my MacBook Air is M1 or M2?
The 15-inch MacBook Air has six speakers instead than the 13-inch’s four, but yet, the 15-inch’s sound system is substantially superior. I played some of my all-time favorite low-end bass-heavy tracks (anyone here love Combichrist?), and the 15-inch generated bass lines that were notably boomier than the 13-inch, which had the bass of a vintage record player spinning vinyl.
However, the MacBook Pro 14’s speakers sound just as good—if not better—than the 15-inch MacBook Air M3’s! The most recent MacBook Airs further confuse Apple’s portfolio, so unless you want something with a better display or a few extra ports, there aren’t many reasons to choose the Pro model if you’re thinking about the 14-inch MacBook Pro M3.
Because the Pro and Air versions are so similar in size and weight, I’m not even sure what the MacBook Air implies in this day and age, when all laptop manufacturers produce thin, light notebooks. Since Apple debuted the first MacBook Air in 2008, the industry norm for thickness and weight has decreased yearly. The MacBook Pro 14 M3 is remarkably more compact than the original Air!.
How do I turn off my M3 MacBook Air?
And what distinguishes an Air from a Pro now that its wedge form has been discontinued? I’m a Windows girl, although throughout the years, I’ve had a couple business MacBooks. My current MacBook Air is a MacBook Air M1, and because the wedge shape was and remains iconic, at least I can place it next to a MacBook Pro and point to it and say, “That’s a MacBook Air.”
I haven’t finished evaluating the new MacBook Air M3s or coming to any conclusions regarding the Air’s identity dilemma. Furthermore, I haven’t finished researching performance and all the other features available for these laptops. Pay attention.