Apple today announced its latest MacBook Air models, powered by the company’s new M3 chip. The new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Airs feature the M3 processor, which Apple says provides a significant performance boost over the previous M1 and M2 chips.
The M3 chip brings an 8-core CPU, up to a 10-core GPU, and support for up to 24GB of unified memory. According to Apple, the M3 makes the new MacBook Air up to 60% faster than the M1 model and up to 13 times faster than the previous fastest Intel-based MacBook Air.
“MacBook Air is our most popular and loved Mac, with more customers choosing it over any other laptop. And today it gets even better with the M3 chip and new capabilities.”
Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing
In addition to the raw performance gains, the M3 chip enables new capabilities like hardware-accelerated mesh shading, ray tracing for improved graphics, and AV1 decode for more efficient video streaming. Apple says tasks like gaming, photo/video editing, spreadsheet work, and video editing see major speed improvements with the M3.
Apple is also touting the MacBook Air as the “world’s best consumer laptop for AI” thanks to the M3’s faster 16-core Neural Engine and AI accelerators. This allows advanced on-device AI capabilities like real-time speech-to-text, visual processing, text predictions and more.
Beyond the M3 chip, the new MacBook Airs retains the slim aluminum unibody design available in four colors: midnight, starlight, space gray, and silver. The 13.6-inch and 15.3-inch Liquid Retina displays now support up to 1 billion colors and 500 nits of brightness.
One key new feature is support for up to two external displays when the laptop lid is closed. The MacBook Air previously only supported one external display. Connectivity is upgraded with Wi-Fi 6E for faster wireless speeds.
Other specs include MagSafe charging, two Thunderbolt ports, a 1080p FaceTime camera, three-mic array, improved speakers, backlit Magic Keyboard with Touch ID, and up to 18 hours of battery life.
The 13-inch MacBook Air with M3 chip starts at $1,099, while the 15-inch model begins at $1,299. An entry-level M2 13-inch Air remains available starting at $999. Apple says the M3 Air models will be available to order starting March 4th, with shipments beginning March 8th.
With the powerful new M3 silicon, AI enhancements, and external display support, Apple is positioning the refreshed MacBook Air lineup as appealing to productivity users, creative professionals, and students alike. The new models aim to further cement the Air’s status as Apple’s most popular laptop line.
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