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Yesterday, Apple announced the M3 MacBook Air. Coming in the now standard 13- and 15-inch form factors, this represents yet another leap forward for Apple’s most loved laptop.
I have no research to back up my claims of the MacBook Air being Apple’s ‘most loved laptop’, I’m afraid, but I don’t care – it’s a wonderful thing. I prefer my 15-inch MacBook Air over my three-times-as-expensive 14-inch MacBook Pro and I still use it every single day for writing and the stuff that keeps this business ticking along.
There are no physical changes this time around – but there doesn’t need to be. The current design language for the MacBook Air is still relatively young and remains, I think, the most attractive laptop on the planet.
Enough gushing. The M3 MacBook Air upgrade isn’t going to break any world records in terms of performance gains, but it does come with some very interesting updates that are worth talking about.
But first, some bad news.
Goodbye M1 MacBook Air, hello M3 MacBook Air
It was inevitable, unfortunately, but it still surprised me when I checked the Apple website yesterday, following the announcement of the M3 MacBook Air.
The M1 MacBook Air – which had been consigned to entry-level status when the M2 version was launched in July 2022 – has been removed from Apple’s website. That means you can no longer buy one brand-new, directly from Apple. It has been deprecated. Removed. Consigned to the history books.
This has made me very sad indeed. That might sound daft, but the M1 MacBook Air means an awful lot to me. It was my first experience with Apple silicon and the product which launched Mark Ellis Reviews into the stratosphere. That’s why I will never sell it or give it to anyone other than my girlfriend, who is currently putting it to good use while studying for a degree. I don’t blame Apple for doing this at all – it’s a natural evolution of a product line. It has just reminded me, once again, how brilliant that M1 MacBook Air was.
The good news is that, according to Apple, the M3 MacBook Air is up to 60 percent faster than the M1 model, and a whopping 13 times faster than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Air.
This brings me to the pricing and specs – because if you fancy picking up an M3 MacBook Air, there’s some stuff you need to be aware of.
M3 MacBook Air specs and pricing
The M3 MacBook Air comes in two sizes – 13- and 15-inch. Regardless of which one you choose, the options for what goes inside remain the same.
Both laptops start with 8GB of unified memory and 256GB of storage. They can be configured with up to 24GB and 2TB, respectively. The arguments about the validity of 8GB of memory in 2024 persist, but I remain firm with my stance on this: if you cannot afford anything more, or if you’re using your MacBook Air for basic tasks, it will do the job brilliantly (I’ve been using that base spec for the last four years).
The M3 chip can be tweaked – but only for the 13-inch version. That starts with an 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU, but an extra £100 nets a 10-core GPU (standard on the 15-inch MacBook Air). Is it worth it? I’m not convinced it is; if you’ve got more money to spend, put it into memory and storage.
The M3 MacBook Air appears to have received a price cut in the UK, too. The 13-inch base model version is now £1,099 – £200 cheaper than the M2 edition it replaced. My 15-inch M2 MacBook Air (the base model) cost £1,399 in 2023 – the M3 version now starts at £1,299. So, a £100 saving there, too. Nice.
Regarding internal upgrades, the M3 MacBook Air gains Wi-Fi 6E, which is twice as fast as the M2 generation, and the ability to drive two external displays. The latter is a lovely addition, although it’s worth bearing in mind that you can only drive two displays with the lid closed – as soon as you open it, one of them turns off.
Who is the M3 MacBook Air for?
The question of who should buy a MacBook Air is becoming trickier to answer these days, simply because the stuff you can achieve with Apple’s ‘cheapest’ laptop bleeds so extensively into MacBook Pro territory.
That never used to be the case, but the main differentiators between the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro today are ports and top-end performance.
The MacBook Air doesn’t extend beyond the M3 chip. There’s no M3 Pro and no M3 Max version. Nor can you go beyond 24GB of unified memory or two terabytes of storage. That said, when you begin creeping into the upper echelons of the MacBook Air configurator, you will hit price points that suggest you should be instead looking at a MacBook Pro. If that happens, you probably should make the leap.
For everyone else, there’s the MacBook Air. That’s how good this laptop is. In 15-inch form, with the sweet spot spec of 16GB of unified memory and 1TB of storage, you’re paying £1,899 for a laptop that will last many years and will delight you every single day.
As I’ve always said – if you know you need a MacBook Pro, you know you need a MacBook Pro. For everyone else, there’s the M3 MacBook Air.
Conclusion: should you buy the M3 MacBook Air?
There’s a caveat to my buying guidance above. While I think you should buy an M3 MacBook Air today, if you’re considering upgrading from the M1 or M2 MacBook Air, I’d think very carefully about doing so (unless you fancy a switch to the 15-inch version).
There’s a reason Apple is focusing so much on the performance upgrade from the Intel generation MacBook Air to this M3 variant – it has the numbers and knows there are still a huge number of people out there using the former. Tim Cook wants to get the Intel crowd into Apple Silicon Land as fast as possible – and I don’t blame him. If you sit within that crowd, today is a very good day indeed.
If you don’t sit within that crowd, and you have neither the thirst for the 15-inch display nor the performance gripes to justify a chip upgrade – I’d sit pretty; you’re still in a very good place indeed.
My full review of the 15-inch M3 MacBook Air will arrive soon. Stay tuned.
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1 Comment
Typo check: “The MacBook *Air* doesn’t extend beyond the M3 chip.” Nearly wrote a corrective saying there absolutely are M3Pro and M3Max MacBook Pros, but Occam’s Razor suggests it was just a typo. 🙂
Regardless of where we stand on the “8GB of RAM is enough” argument, one welcome change, which is more marketing than technical, is that there is now a 16GB standard configuration, rather than needing to go to BTO to get that option. That’ll matter even more a bit later, as it’s only the standard configurations that you can get from other retailers… at discounted prices.