MacBook Air M3: specifications, release date, cost, and recent news

These are the latest MacBook Air M3, measuring 13 and 15 inches. These upgrades to Apple’s well-liked laptop lineup include the formidable M3 CPU, as rumors had it, possibly making them the quickest and most potent MacBook Airs yet.

Apple said in a blog post that the new MacBook Air is up to 13 times quicker than the quickest MacBook Air with an Intel processor and up to 60% faster than the MacBook Air M1. Additionally, the business promises that the notebook’s battery will last up to 18 hours. Additionally, Apple has said that the MacBook Air is the “world’s best consumer laptop for AI,” despite its historical reluctance to use the phrase.

Both MacBook Air notebooks are substantially comparable to their respective predecessors, the MacBook Air M2 and MacBook Air 15-inch, save from having the M3 processor. The unibody metal chassis and general design of the new laptops are identical. There are four colors available, one of which being midnight, which has the same anti-fingerprint anodization seal as the MacBook Pro M3 Pro that was introduced the previous year. The pricing of the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air is the same as that of the previous versions, coming in at $1,099 and $1,299, respectively.

All of Apple’s statements on the new M3 MacBook Air computers are included here.

MacBook Air M3 Price and release date 

Apple’s online shop is already accepting preorders for the new MacBook Air with M3, with shipment beginning this Friday, March 8.

The starting prices for the 13-inch MacBook Air and the 15-inch MacBook Air are $1,099 and $999, respectively, for educational purposes. The colors of both gadgets are space gray, silver, starlight, and midnight.

The preceding 13-inch MacBook Air M2 is now available in midnight, starlight, silver, and space gray, with prices starting at $999 and $899 for educational purposes, respectively.

MacBook Air M3 Specs

The fundamental Apple M3 processor included in the 14-inch MacBook Pro that was released last year is also present in the new MacBook Air notebooks. This processor has an 8-core CPU, a 10-core GPU, and supports up to 24GB of unified memory (RAM) thanks to TSMC’s 3nm technology.

According to Apple, the new MacBook Air is up to 13 times quicker than the fastest MacBook Air with an Intel processor and 60% faster than the now-discontinued MacBook Air M1. Additionally, the firm claims that the new laptops can run on a battery for up to 18 hours, which is more than 3 hours longer than the MacBook Air M1 that we tested.

The new MacBook Air delivers more realistic lighting, reflections, and shadows because it supports hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing, made possible by the M3’s powerful GPU. Additionally, the laptop has AV1 decode capability, which makes streaming movies more effective and high-quality.

To find out what the new MacBook Air computers are capable of, we will need to bring them into our testing facility. Nevertheless, given that the 14-inch MacBook Pro has the same underlying M3 processor, we anticipate performance that is comparable. Meanwhile, the table above shows how all of the M-series chips compare to one another.

MacBook Air M3 Design

Like its predecessors, the new MacBook Air notebooks have a flat, practical form. These devices are very light—each weighing less than three pounds—as implied by their names.

The same four hues are available to us: midnight, silver, space gray, and starlight. Given that it makes use of the same fingerprint-resistant technology seen in the MacBook Pro M3 Pro and M3 Max laptops of the previous year, the latter is the most intriguing of the lot.

The laptops still include two Thunderbolt 4/USB-C connections, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and MagSafe charging. Supports one external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz and up to 5K resolution at 60Hz when the lid is closed, in addition to the built-in display’s full native resolution of 1 billion colors.

MacBook Air M3 AI

The processor’s version of the NPU featured on Intel’s Meteor Lake CPUs, the M3 chip has a faster 16-core Neural Engine. Since 2020, the M-series has included a Neural Engine; nevertheless, Apple has never referred it this technology as “AI.” With the release of the MacBook Air M3, that has altered, perhaps to take advantage of the excitement around AI.

According to Apple, the Neural Engine and accelerators in the CPU and GPU will improve on-device machine learning. The MacBook Air M3 is now, according to the firm, “the world’s best consumer laptop for AI.” Additionally, macOS Sonoma offers capabilities like real-time speech-to-text, translation, text predictions, visual understanding, accessibility features, camera features, and more that will make use of on-device AI.

Large language models (LLMs) and diffusion image creation models are among the optimal AI models that MacBook Air can run locally. Additionally, the laptops will be compatible with cloud-based AI solutions, enabling you to use programs like Adobe Firefly, Canva, and Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365.

MacBook Air M3 Outlook

Although the MacBook Air M3 announcement isn’t that shocking, it’s nonetheless excellent news for people hoping to replace their current MacBook Air M2 or upgrade from an earlier model.

After testing the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air computers, we’ll update this article, so check back for more!.