Macbook Air M3 (2024) 13.6 (2024)

FAQs

Is buying a MacBook Air M3 worth it? ›

The M3 MacBook Air starts at Rs 1,14,900. Pay that and at least for the next five years you will be sorted as the MacBook Air is worth it — for your peace of mind and for the sheer idea of not thinking about replacing a laptop for a good few years. You won't go wrong with it.

The Best Gets Better

In any case, the MacBook Air with the M3 processor is an excellent choice for the everyday consumer and hybrid worker. It's the most refined we've ever seen Apple's legendary laptop, and it's closer to the brand's Pro line than ever.

Of course, the M3 is much faster than the M1 chip (Apple claims speed gains of up to 60%), so this laptop I love also benefits from the maturation of Apple's chip-making process.

The Bottom Line

The 2024 Apple MacBook Air 13-Inch shoehorns more performance into its slim chassis, and amps up the external-monitor support and gaming capability. It holds its own as the best ultraportable Mac.

Though the M3 MacBook Air does certainly overheat and hits an incredibly high temperature, it's not clear if that's a significant issue. The MacBook Air has never been a high-performance device, even with a fan, so it sees a performance drop throughout an intensive workload, which is unsurprising.

Apple boasted that the MacBook Air M3 laptops can last up to 18 hours. While the Air M3 doesn't hit that lofty number, battery life is still quite astonishing.

The M3 chip certainly delivers better performance than M1, based on our testing. If that's your priority, you should consider getting the new M3-powered 13- and 15-inch laptops. However, if you don't need the performance boost M3 provides, you might be better off sticking with the MacBook Air M1 you currently own.

The biggest difference between the M2 and M3 models is in the chip that runs the laptops. And if you want the very best performance, especially for AI applications (both on the cloud and on-device), look to the M3.

Performance: Apple silicon keeps the lead

What sets this laptop apart is the M3 chip. Built on 3-nanometer processing, the M3 continues the M chips' run of dominance. It's extremely powerful, reaching benchmark numbers that rival Intel processors, but is much more efficient.

If you are a developer ( like I am ) , I would recommend getting the 16GB memory upgrade. But for light work and light coding work , mine is perfect. For personal use , this one is the best laptop i have ever used. My previous laptop was M1 MBA with 8GB memory.

What is the Intel equivalent of the MacBook Air M3? ›

We compare the Apple M3 and the Intel Core i9-13900H here. The Apple M3 uses up to 24 GB of memory in 2 memory channels. The maximum memory bandwidth is 102.4 GB/s. In comparison, the Intel Core i9-13900H supports up to 64 GB of memory in 2 memory channels and achieves a memory bandwidth of up to 102.4 GB/s.

The latest MacBook Air models will be released on March 8, 2024, and preorders are available now by going to the Apple website. The MacBook Air 13-inch with M3 starts at $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1.799, and the MacBook Air 15-inch with M3 starts at $1,299 / £1,299 / AU$2,199.

Is the 2024 MacBook Air worth it? Yes, the MacBook Air is a powerful laptop that caters to specific groups of users. If you fit into one of these user categories, you'll definitely benefit from having a MacBook Air at your disposal when it comes to handling your everyday computing needs.

They keep getting faster

The M3 was about 19 percent faster than the M2 in multi-core CPU tasks but a more impressive 39 percent faster than the M1. In graphics tests, it was only about four percent faster than an M2 Air with the same number of GPU cores.

While the newly launched MacBook Air M3 offers increased GPU and CPU performance, faster Wi-Fi, and better microphones, if your work doesn't involve downloading and working with large files, video editing, and animation as well as AI-intensive tasks, the MacBook Air M2 should handle day-to-day tasks without a hiccup.

The M3 MacBook Air will have full connectivity for two external monitors, so if you frequently work with more than one monitor, it's certainly worth upgrading. There is a small catch in that you can only use two external monitors while the laptop lid is closed.

The M3 chip certainly delivers better performance than M1, based on our testing. If that's your priority, you should consider getting the new M3-powered 13- and 15-inch laptops. However, if you don't need the performance boost M3 provides, you might be better off sticking with the MacBook Air M1 you currently own.

Apple claims the chip is 60% faster than M1 Air and 16x faster than the last Intel MacBook Air. The latter is especially impressive, and good enough reason for those owners to upgrade to the M3. Those on an M1 Air have reason to upgrade as well, if nothing more than for the design, but it is not as necessary.