(Credit: Apple)
Apple updated the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air laptops this morning with an M3 chip and a Wi-Fi 6E connection.
Apple says the M3 chip is 1.6 times faster than its M1 chip and 13 times faster than its speediest Air with an Intel chip. The M3 chip's Neural Engine has 16 cores, and has accelerators in its CPU and GPU for machine learning applications, Apple says. It promises 18 hours of battery life on a single charge. That's the same battery life from the M2 MacBook Air, but it's still impressive.
(Credit: Apple)In our tests of the M3, we found the third generation of Apple Silicon to be the most impressive yet. "Regardless of the model, you'll see dramatic upticks in processing speed, graphics performance, and battery life that goes and goes," we noted in December.
Apple's newest Air laptops can be connected to up to two external monitors; the M2 MacBook Air only supports one external display. There's also Wi-Fi 6E, which supports 6GHz spectrum, plus faster wireless speeds and lower latencies, provided you have a compatible router. As we noted in our review of the 15-inch M2 MacBook Air last year, "Wi-Fi 6 will do the trick just fine for the vast majority of us," though Wi-Fi 7 is now on the horizon.
(Credit: Apple)The 2024 MacBook Air comes in four different colors: midnight; starlight; space gray; and silver. Both the 13-inch and 15-inch models come with a built-in three-mic array and Dolby Atmos support. Like other Apple laptops, the new Air models also have 1080p built-in webcams, backlit keyboards, and Touch ID.
The new 13-inch Air has a starting price of $1,099, and the 15-inch version costs $1,299.
If you're on a budget, the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air now starts at $999. The Air with the M1 chip is no longer available for sale on Apple's website.