Summary

  • Apple's new 13" and 15" MacBook Air with the M3 chipset offer faster performance and support for Wi-Fi 6E, starting at $1,100.
  • The M3 MacBook Air boasts up to 60% faster speeds than the M1 model, supporting hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing.
  • With a 16-core Neural Engine, the M3 MacBook Air is hailed by Apple as the "world's best consumer laptop for AI", available for pre-order now.

Apple announced a new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air equipped with the M3 system-on-a-chip, and it is available to order starting today. Aside from the upgrade to the M3 chipset, the new MacBook Air includes Wi-Fi 6E support and can power two external monitors. The 13-inch M3 MacBook Air starts at the same $1,100 price point as the outgoing model, and the 15-inch version similarly starts at $1,300. Besides the aforementioned upgrades, the M3 MacBook Air is virtually identical to the prior M2 MacBook Air, coming in the same Silver, Starlight, Space Gray, and Midnight colorways.

👁 The M3 MacBook Pro in Space Black.
Apple M3 vs. M2: Major changes, upgrades, and downgrades

Apple's M3 chips are pretty powerful, but what are the actual changes when compared to the M2 series?

What's new about the M3 MacBook Air?

Source: Apple

Apple's MacBook Air refresh is a minor one overall, but the upgrade to the M3 system-on-a-chip is significant. With this chipset, Apple dramatically improved graphical performance on the best Macs, even those on the cheaper end of the Mac lineup. We've backed up Apple's performance claims in our reviews of the M3 iMac and M3 MacBook Pro. In fact, Apple claims in its press release that the new M3 MacBook Air laptops are up to 13x faster than the fastest Intel MacBook Air. Owners of the M2 MacBook Air probably won't need to upgrade, but Apple notes that the M3 MacBook Air is up to 60% faster than the M1 MacBook Air.

The M3 chipset's graphical improvements aren't just limited to raw performance. With the upgrade, the M3 MacBook Air supports hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing, and an AV1 decode engine, for the first time. The M3 MacBook Air is also the first base-model Apple Silicon computer to support native display output to two external displays. Notably, this functionality is only available when the display's lid is closed. For the full M3 MacBook Air specifications, check out the table below.

Apple MacBook Air (M3, 2024)
Operating System
macOS Sonoma
CPU
8-core CPU (Apple M3)
GPU
8-core or 10-core GPU (Apple M3)
RAM
8GB, 16GB, or 24GB
Storage
256GB, 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB
Battery
Up to 18 hours
Camera
1080p FaceTime HD camera
Speakers
Six-speaker sound system with force-cancelling woofers
Colors
Silver, Starlight, Space Gray, and Midnight
Ports
MagSafe 3 charging port, 3.5 mm headphone jack, 2x Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports
Weight
2.7 pounds (13-inch), 3.3 pounds (15-inch)
Connectivity
Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.3
Security
Fingerprint reader

Apple is calling this generation of MacBook Air the "world's best consumer laptop for AI." That's due to the 16-core Neural Engine found within the M3 SoC, which can be used to run local AI models or other generative AI tasks. While there aren't a lot of first-party AI features in macOS Sonoma yet, Apple cites AI functionality in third-party apps like Pixelmator Pro and CapCut.

The 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models with the M3 chip are available for pre-order starting today, and will become widely available for purchase this Friday, March 8. Students and educators can receive a $100 discount on the M3 MacBook Air through Apple's education store. In a lineup reshuffle, Apple is discontinuing the M1 MacBook Air and the M2 MacBook Air will remain at a lower $1,000 price point.

Apple MacBook Air (M3, 2024)
Operating System
macOS Sonoma
CPU
8-core CPU (Apple M3)
GPU
8-core or 10-core GPU (Apple M3)
RAM
8GB, 16GB, or 24GB
Storage
256GB, 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB
Battery
Up to 18 hours

Apple's new M3 MacBook Air offers improved graphical performance in a familiar form factor, keeping the great battery life the laptop is known for.