Apple MacBook Air M3 Review – Perfect Laptop 1 week?
Macbook air m3 review 2024 model
Hey friends Andrew here hope you’re well! So, Apple quietly launched the new M3 MacBook Air there was no big marketing campaign or fancy product video it sort of just launched in fact the local
Apple Store was pretty quiet when I picked mine up on launch day and now after a full week of using the M3 MacBook Air as my daily laptop in different situations and places the M3 a could well be the perfect everyday laptop for most people so if you’re considering a new everyday laptop or upgrading from a previous MacBook.
Here is my honest review of the M3 air I’ll compare it uh to my M2 air mac here that I love so much they look practically the same um and I’ll share my everyday experience with this laptop both the good and the bad firstly the M3 A’s performance has surprised me especially in this configuration Apple now finally offers a 16 GB Ram preconfiguration option and that’s exactly the one.
I have here it’s the 13in model with 8 core CPU 10 core GPU 512 GB SSD and 16 GB RAM and the performance leap from the M2 to the M3 chipset is bigger than I thought so on the M2 a with 8 GB of RAM it managed a gig bench six score of
I can multitask without the ram throttling the experience and I can even edit 4K video on Final Cut Pro relatively smoothly previously the M2 a was great to use but as soon as I had more than three apps open or eight chrome tabs open my M2 a with 8 GB of RAM was sluggish as heck the 16 GB configuration unlocks a lot more from the M3 chip and it absolutely flies so the MacBook Air M3 is a great performer for video editors Gamers creatives designers especially if you use GPU intensive apps like AutoCAD blender or Premier Pro.
if you use your laptop for just email browsing and social media you’re not going to see too much of a difference a big part of the killer performance is the
RAM and we need to talk about this because if you’re considering the new Macbook Air a ram upgrade is the first consideration you should probably think about it’s hard to understand why the M3 a still has a base configuration with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage in 2024 I genuinely think Apple needs to be shipping the air mac with at least 16 GB of RAM I cannot begin to tell you how much the additional RAM has helped unlock the potential of the M3 chip as someone who has used the M2 air with 8 GB for
2 years and that M2 air with 8 GB of RAM was consistently throttled because the memory is shared between the CPU and GPU so in reality there’s almost always less than 8 GB memory available to use and a lot of that memory is allocated to vram anyway used by the GPU cores I won’t dive too deep into how memory Works um I made a whole video breaking down how Ram impacts your Mac I’ll link it on the screen somewhere but the point is the 16 GB Ram paired with the M3 chip has been amazing and
the 16 GB preconfiguration option is a welcome change long overdue though I highly recommend seriously considering the ram upgrade it will help your day-to-day workflow and also help future proof your MacBook Air speaking of the future apple called the new M3 a the world’s best consumer laptop for AI and not sure exactly how they tested that claim because I mean every silicon Mac has had a 16 core neural engine ever since the M1 came out but it is interesting because the AI marketing push likely hints at Major AI features and functionality in future Apple software
and there’s a good chance we’ll see more AI related announcements at WWDC this year and I’m really excited about that the M3 a does work well with onboard AI tasks like adobe’s generative fill and it works relatively quickly on the M3 chipset 2o we’ll have to see how Apple chooses to implement AI into Mac OS there should be big things coming on the horizon because Apple apparently disbanded uh the Apple C team and they’re funneling that money and budget into AI projects Now battery life is incredible on the M3 air mac improving on an already great
M2 air mac it’s one of those rare laptops that I bring outside to work and I don’t have an anxiety with the battery I’m able to get a full day easily out of this laptop so I’m consistently getting 15 hours on a single charge with everyday use which for me is web browsing videos lots of typing and emails music and creative apps like figma Lightroom and stuff like that on the M2 air I was getting about 14 hours give or take so I’ve seen an increase in battery performance with the M3 air to give you an
example I’ve been able to go out to work at a cafe and after a few hours the M3 air had 70% of juice then I came back to the office and worked with more intensive apps like Final Cut Pro till 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. at night and I still had a little under 25% battery left all this to say the battery life is just too good on the MacBook Air there’s not many if any laptops in this size category that can compete with the M3 a it gives me lots of confidence to be able to
work wherever and whenever even if I forget to bring a charger with me and that’s really what the MacBook Air is all about maximum portability with terrific productivity and consumption use another welcome change is the new anodization seal for the midnight colored M3 air which makes it less prone to fingerprints if you have the M2 a or if you’ve watched my previous reviews you’ll know that it’s the biggest fingerprint magnet there’s almost no point wiping it down I personally didn’t mind the fingerprints but it seemed to bother many of you so Apple has given it
a new anodization seal that’s also seen on the space black MacBook M3 Pro so it definitely has reduced fingerprints on the M3 a over the week that I’ve used it but you absolutely still see them and also the keyboard gets really oily and grimy quickly what’s interesting is I’ve found the new midnight color to be more of a muted Hue of blue I don’t know if you can tell in the shots but the M2 air has a truly deep midnight blue hue to it whereas the new anodization process has slightly taken out that deep blue
hue either way I still absolutely love this color it’s probably my favorite color and other than the new anodization process design-wise they’re basically identical as you can see here but yeah excuse my very dirty M2 air I wasn’t kidding when and I said I use this laptop a lot there is an interesting tradeoff that I haven’t seen covered much and it’s found on Apple’s technical specification page it looks like apple has removed the Wide Stereo Sound feature found on the M2 air and after testing the speakers between the M2 air and M3 a it does
seem like the M3 air lacks punch at higher volumes in comparison to the M2 air but it’s not all that noticeable so it could be Placebo what has improved are the microphones with what Apple calls enhanced voice Clarity and wide spectrum microphone modes.
Macbook air 15 review
I think this makes perfect sense for the M3 air a better quality uh microphone is great for meetings on the move and Apple’s likely preparing for improved voice recognition for AI it’s also worth pointing out that the only difference between the 13in and macbook air 15 inch case M3s outside of its size of course are the
speakers the macbook air 15 case comes with six speakers whereas the 13in comes with four and if you like using your MacBook in a docked setup the M3 chip now supports two external displays but only in clamshell mode so when the laptop lid is closed in this mode it supports a primary display up to 6K resolution and a secondary display up to 5K both at 60 HZ or you could choose to prioritize refresh rate up to 144 HZ at 4K resolution so basically it can’t support dual Pro xdr displays but I mean not many if anyone will need
that sort of setup with a MacBook Air 15 review interesting that the core M3 14in MacBook Pro doesn’t even support two external displays yet that’s macbook air vs macbook pro but likely Apple will change this with a future software update on the connectivity front the M3 air now supports Wi-Fi 6E which means it is able to connect to faster 6 gz networks but my gripe I mentioned in my previous M2 Air review is the fact that the under bolt ports are on both on the left hand side it would have been much more practical if they had balanced the ports on either side
Macbook air 13
Because there’s been situations where the cable reached the right side but not the left okay guys so is the M3 air worth buying after spending a week using it every day this is my favorite everyday laptop there’s just no way around it for me I absolutely love it as someone that travels and I can’t say put in one place why while trying to hold down a pretty heavy workload the 13in M3 air is one of the most important devices that I use in my day and going from 8 GB of RAM to 16 GB and
an M3 chipset has unlocked a lot more from my everyday workflow being able to get more done since I’m less throttled by Hardware but and here is the big but these base configurations with 8 GB of RAM isn’t great value for money but what is great value for money right now is the M2 MacBook airs Apple may have discontinued the M1 but the M2 air is still available to purchase at a lower cost price at only $11,200 for the base model with 16 GB ram upgrade heck you could even find it significantly less secondhand so
that’s my recommendation get the M2 air with 16 GB of RAM if you’re looking to save money but the M3 a suits people who are on the go and need that slim form factor while maximizing power all right guys if you made it to the end of the video drop the c word comment neur Ral and I’ll give it a like and while you’re here I’ll drop a video over here where I go over the best free Mac apps for your MacBook Air you definitely want to download and use so go check that video out
as always thanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next video w
