Apple has just refreshed its laptop lineup with the new M3-powered 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air. New chips offer better performance, faster connectivity, support for up to two external displays, and more.
Apple announced the updated MacBook Air without much fanfare in a post on its official website. According to the company, the M3-based MacBook Air offers up to 60% more performance than the original M1-powered MacBook Air while remaining a thin, light, and passively cooled laptop.
The M3 processor features 8 CPU cores, up to 10 GPU cores, up to 24GB of unified memory, and a more efficient 16-core NPU for machine learning and AI. The new MacBook Air also supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing and Apple's latest media engine with AV1 decoding. Here are the performance figures you can expect from this laptop:
- Game titles like No Man’s Sky run up to 60 percent faster than the 13-inch MacBook Air with the M1 chip.
- Enhancing an image with AI using Photomator’s Super Resolution feature is up to 40 percent faster than the 13-inch model with the M1 chip, and up to 15x faster for customers who haven’t upgraded to a Mac with Apple silicon.
- Working in Excel spreadsheets is up to 35 percent faster than the 13-inch model with the M1 chip, and up to 3x faster for customers who haven’t upgraded to a Mac with Apple silicon.
- Video editing in Final Cut Pro is up to 60 percent faster than the 13-inch model with the M1 chip, and up to 13x faster for customers who haven’t upgraded to a Mac with Apple silicon.
- Compared to a PC laptop with an Intel Core i7 processor, MacBook Air delivers up to 2x faster performance, up to 50 percent faster web browsing, and up to 40 percent longer battery life.
Besides faster performance, the M3 processor adds support for Wi-Fi 6E and the ability to output the image to two external monitors. However, there is a caveat to that: two external monitors only when the laptop lid is closed, so kiss goodbye to the built-in Retina display if you want a dual-monitor setup.
Other than that, the MacBook Air with the M3 processor is identical to its predecessor. In addition to two display sizes, you can pick four chassis colors: midnight, starlight, space gray, and silver. Preorders are open now, and shipping begins this Friday, March 8.
With the release of the M3-powered MacBook Air, Apple lowered the price of its predecessor. Now, you can get the previous generation for just $999 (13-inch variant). The original M1 MacBook Air in the old design is now discontinued.
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