Apple MacBook Air 13″ 2024 M3: Hands-On review
The Apple MacBook Air 13″ 2024 M3 and MacBook Air 15″ 2024 M3 are available now. MacRumors has already received a device for review to test and to try out the new features and evaluate whether an upgrade is worth it. The MacBook Air is available in 13.6-inch and 15.3-inch sizes, just like the previous versions. Apple hasn’t made any significant changes to the design this time. So most of the innovations can be found inside.
The most important innovation is the M3 chipset, which Apple already uses in the MacBook Pro 14. In the test, the Apple MacBook Air 13″ 2024 M3 with an 8-core CPU and a 10-core GPU achieved a Geekbench single-core score of 3,106 and a multi-core score of 11,690 points. For comparison: the MacBook Air M1 managed 2,335 / 8,314 points and the MacBook Air M2 2,595 / 9,745 points, meaning Apple was able to significantly increase CPU performance.
Compared to the M1, the Apple MacBook Air 13″ 2024 M3’s single-core performance has increased by 28% and multi-core performance has increased by 34%. Compared to the M2, both the single-core and multi-core performance are 18% higher. In the Metal GPU tests, the M1 achieved a score of 32,117, the M2 managed 45,651 and the M3 46,920 points. Overall, the CPU and GPU performance have improved significantly compared to the M1, However, it is only slightly improved compared to the M2.
It’s worth noting that the M3 also features hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading. The technologies help with 3D rendering, making games look more realistic on Mac. There is also an AV1 decoder on board to help with videos and streaming. There are a few other improvements, including support for Wi-Fi 6E for connecting to 6GHz networks. The latter are not yet widespread, but are a good investment in the future.
The Apple MacBook Air 13″ 2024 M3 also supports two external displays and the call quality is also better. The model in black / midnight features a new coating to avoid fingerprints.
Apple MacBook Air 13″ 2024 M3 prices
Prices for the Apple MacBook Air 13″ 2024 M3 start at $1,099 and for the 15-inch model at $1,299. In our opinion, the upgrade is only worth it if you don’t already own an M2 MacBook Air, as these devices already have the same design 2022 / 2023. But if you still have an M1 model or an Intel MacBook and are looking for a new device, the M3 MacBook Air is worth considering.
If you only use the MacBook Air for everyday tasks like surfing the Internet and emailing, it’s not worth investing extra money in more RAM or a better graphics processor. However, if you run more computationally intensive tasks such as 3D rendering or video editing, the new Air M3 is a good choice.
