13” M3 MacBook Air: Mini But Mighty! 💪 1-Month Review
Is the new M3 MacBook Air just another laptop? Well, I’ve been using it for the whole month and if you want to see a synthetic benchmark test or a thermal throttling test this is NOT the video for you to watch because I’m not going to be doing that
Yeap… because I’ll be talking about a real user experience and trust me, it is better than you think So the experience all starts from the outside Apple has decided to keep things looking the same as before because this classic design is hard to beat So much so that
other laptops are slowly following or have been following the same exact design *coughs* Huawei… And you know what? I’m with them because this particular design has stood the test of time and has been very premium and has a very beautiful slim package But the big news here is
the Midnight finish because the new anodization seal is a significant improvement in reducing fingerprints compared to the previous Midnight finish on the M2 MacBook Air But remember, the keyword here is REDUCE R-E-D-U-C-E so don’t expect it to be totally fingerprint-free as darker colors tend to attract fingerprints in
laptops in general Then, of course, this 13-inch model is incredibly portable and easy to carry around So much so that I’ve been using this laptop on my lap the
smaller screen shy you away because coming from a frequent user of the 15-inch MacBook Air my initial prediction was I was not going to be used to the size of the screen since it’s 15-inch to 13-inch, so that was quite a difference But the good news is that
the moment you carry around this laptop your brain already sends you a signal that you would expect a smaller size screen And because of how thin the screen is with the viewing area almost edge-to-edge I felt as though I was using an iPad with macOS on it which
is still my wish list on an iPad But it has a similar great brightness as the 15-inch variant at 500 nits and the color accuracy for video consumption video editing and some photo editing was really good However, you will feel the difference when it comes to spreadsheets as
you will notice the smaller screen real estate compared to the 15-inch variant But then again, if you need an additional screen you can always use the iPad as a Sidecar display or connect it up to two external displays using the laptop closed This is because if you want
to use the laptop screen and then use another external display you can only connect up to a single external display, so keep that in mind So one area that you would definitely tell a difference is the speakers on this 13-inch variant as it comes with a four-speaker system
instead of six on the 15-inch variant And the largest sibling of the 15-inch also has force-cancelling woofers as well So if sound quality is your utmost importance then you should go with the 15-inch variant instead But the good news is that the support for Spatial Audio and Dolby
Atmos is present on this 13-inch and the quality of the microphone is also the same So here’s an audio test between the 13-inch and the 15-inch recorded using by binaural microphone So put on your best headphones to get the best experience followed by a webcam quality test and
a mic quality test on this 13-inch variant All right, so this is a video quality test and also the microphone test Now one of the great things that I can see is that even though the lights are pretty overexposed you can see that in this camera So this
is a video quality and also a microphone test Test one two As for the laptop’s performance, just for context I’ll put the exact specs variant that I have for you to get an idea of which configuration that I’m using And since I’ve already spoken about how fast the
M3 chip is in my review of the M3 iMac it was the same over here like how my experience was on Final Cut Pro editing on 6K resolution files opening multiple browser tabs, and more So do watch that if you haven’t done so because this is probably the
only time that I go into the numbers in this video In a nutshell, this new 3nm chipset or 3-nanometer chipset on the M3 chips has a 35% faster CPU than the previous M1 MacBook Air and whopping 65% faster graphic performance than the M1 chip So if you’re coming
from the previous M1 chip to this M3 chip, it is a huge yes But if you’re using the M2 Chip, it’s probably best for you to wait for a while But you know what, one thing that I was eager to test out is the gaming performance of this
laptop since Honkai Impact 3rd Part 2 is coming on the Mac and I’ve got a beta version of that, which we will dive into next But before that, if you guys are enjoying this video do give this video one of these… that would be very much appreciated and
a subscription will be lovely too Thank you very much in advance So let’s go into the gaming performance Starting off with Honkai Impact 3rd Part 2 the experience was super smooth at the highest settings and 60fps Despite being fast-paced and having more flashy animations compared to Genshin Impact
the performance was super smooth without any lag or stuttering even when I was playing without the charger being plugged in And it’s lovely to know that the game is finally coming soon to the Mac and hopefully Genshin Impact will be coming soon too to test the Mac’s potential
even further Next, I was playing Hades, where it worked extremely well with the default resolution and there were no battery drain issues But it did get a tiny bit warm about 15 minutes in There were no lags at all and the game worked well without plugging in the
charger as well. Then the third game that I tried was Baldur’s Gate 3 and it was truly amazing to know that it ran superbly with a resolution of 1710 x 1068 with a depth of field of Gaussian and bloom turned on However, there were times when it was
a little slower than usual, especially on heavy battles But when I lowered the resolution just a notch, it was smooth sailing all the way So this was also a little warm after 15 minutes and it is to be expected since this is a AAA game but it’s great
to know that you can have a casual gaming break while working probably like a side quest during your lunch break So yeah, who would have thought that you could game so much on a MacBook Air right? Now, if you’re lost in all of the features and the things
mentioned in this video don’t worry because there’s a written version of this whole video and other tech news too at our website at www.adamlobo.tv Links will be down below Battery life is still a standout feature over here because it’s one of the reasons why this is the world’s
best-selling laptop Now, before I go into the battery test on this laptop I have to give HUGE credit to the idle time on this MacBook Air because it’s been a crazy busy month with us moving studios and all so after I unbox this laptop, I used it for
a bit and I left it untouched on my table for three whole days and it didn’t lose a single percentage of battery! Now, what’s interesting is that even though it has a smaller watt-hour battery the battery life was extremely close to the average that I was getting on
the 15-inch version where it was averaging close to 11 to 13 hours and sometimes even more of watching videos and doing some regular social media, spreadsheet, or script work So yes, the battery life on this? Cantik! (Nice) And this is surely one of the main reasons why you
should consider getting this laptop So after using the laptop for a month, I am very impressed because it’s not about the big changes but refining what is already working and making everything very well balanced The performance is definitely better battery life is amazing, portability is second to none
and it is the most affordable way for you to get the Mac And speaking of experience, if you want to know which variant that you should get check out my video review of the 15-inch M2 MacBook Air over here
