After a ton of of rumors and predictions, it looks like Apple was planning an actual product release for the first week of March, although it’s not exactly what some people might have been expecting – with that being said, the Cupertino tech giant announced (sans big event) the debut of its newest MacBook Air models, which now come equipped with the M3 chip, one of Apple’s most powerful computer processors to date.
As such, Apple also offers the M3 MacBook Air in two variants, with a more compact 13-inch display model, and a larger 15-inch variant for users who’d like a bit more screen real estate. Aside from upgrades in processing power though, what can we expect with the new MacBook models?
Display and External Design
Despite coming in two different screen sizes, Apple states that both models come with the same specs in terms of display hardware. The M3 Air features Apple’s trademarked Liquid Retina Display with up to 500 nits of brightness, encased in aluminium shells which come in several colour variants including midnight, starlight, silver and space grey.
For physical connectivity, the M3 Air packs MagSafe charging and two USB-C ports for connecting accessories, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack. Interestingly, there’s now added support for two external displays (with the laptop closed), although it does retain a lot of the usual hardware components that Apple includes with its laptops, such as a Touch ID button, FaceTime camera, and spatial audio support.
Performance with M3
Apple M-series chips have always been some of the most impressive processors in the industry, and the company boasts that the new MacBook Air comes with significant strides in overall performance. Apple says that this is due to the M3’s 3nm structure, which packs an 8-core CPU, up to a 10-core GPU, and support for up to 24GB of unified memory. Interestingly though, Apple’s promotional product listing compares the M3’s performance to that of the M1 from a few years ago, instead of the more recent M2-family processors.
The M3 Air also comes with a 16-core Neural Engine, which Apple says is an ideal setup for AI-integrated tasks, including support for AI models, large language models (LLMs) and diffusion models for image generation locally with great performance.
For software, the M3 Air ships with macOS Sonoma, which is the current iteration of Apple’s desktop operating system. Of course, this means that you get all the core Apple desktop programs, as well as apps that are designed to sync with the rest of Apple’s extensive hardware ecosystem, including iPhones, iPads, and Watches.
Pricing and Availability
If you’re interested in grabbing the new MacBook Air M3, you can order Apple’s latest laptop starting Monday, March 4 via Apple’s online store as well as its physical retail stores, authorized resellers and such. The 13-inch MacBook Air with M3 starts at £1,099 and £999 for education, while the 15‑inch model starts at a slightly more expensive £1,299 price tag, and £1,199 for education. As mentioned earlier, both models are available in midnight, starlight, silver, and space grey.
The MacBook Air M3 starts shipping on March 8.
