M3 MacBook Air 15" 2 Weeks Later: Almost Pro
The 2024 MacBook Air has the new M3 chip, and after two weeks I can honestly say it’s pretty great. But I wouldn’t recommend the spec I have.
For almost two years, my 13-inch M2 MacBook Air has been my secondary Mac, for the couch and trips, while I work on my M2 Max MacBook Pro. This time I got the 15-inch M3 MacBook Air with 16 GB of memory and 512 GB of storage, and found myself wanting to use it more. It feels more like my Pro machine.
Design
It looks exactly like the M2 version, in Silver, Space Gray, Midnight and Starlight. I love Midnight, but the M2 version got gross the second you touched it. Apple says the new Air uses the Space Black MacBook Pro’s process to better hide fingerprints and grease.
I went with Starlight. It’s almost a super-soft copper or gold in some light, but next to my silver MacBook or Studio Display it looks like a dingy silver, like the color process went wrong. Not my favorite, but nice to have something different that won’t look disgusting after a few days.
I still love Apple’s modern design, flat top and bottom with curved sides. It feels impossibly thin and light, though the 15-inch weighs about the same as the 14-inch Pro. Nothing comes close to how small and light the 13-inch feels for the performance.
Ports
The same MagSafe and two Thunderbolt / USB4 ports. Two ports still feels limiting if this is your main computer and you need a display, storage, a mouse and an SD card reader, unless you use a dock or hub.
CalDigit sponsored this video, with its Element Hub.
Display
There’s really nothing to complain about: 500 nits, wide color and 224 ppi, sharp, bright and vibrant. With my Spyder X calibrator, mine measured 86% of Adobe RGB and 96% of P3, versus 88% and 99% on my 14-inch MacBook Pro and Studio Display.
You can now connect two external displays, which people have wanted since the M1. Some will be upset you have to close the lid, but I think it’s a good option, and if you need more, you probably need a MacBook Pro anyway. I prefer one large display with my MacBook below it, and the 15-inch sometimes feels like a step up from the 14-inch Pro.
Trackpad and keyboard
Apple trackpads are the best, but on the 15-inch Air and 16-inch Pro they’re too big for me, pushing the keyboard back. The 13-inch Air’s and 14-inch Pro’s are just right.
I love typing on the Magic Keyboard, and it feels the same across all Apple laptops and keyboards. But the keycaps get worn and shiny way too fast, within weeks. For what these cost and how much Apple prides itself on quality, that’s a big blemish.
Speakers and camera
Fine for family video calls and work Zoom calls. The 15-inch’s speakers are louder than my 13-inch M2 Air’s but lack some detail compared with the 14-inch Pro.
Performance
With all my everyday apps (lots of Safari tabs, personal and work email, Teams, Calendar, Notes, Reminders, Photos, Citrix and utilities), it’s been really good. My 8 GB M2 Air would struggle with that, and I’d have to close apps.
Geekbench 6 shows about a 17% difference between the M2 and M3, and GFXBench about 10%, pretty minor and unnoticeable. The big usability difference is memory. Apps want real RAM, no matter how good unified memory is, especially since the GPU shares it. My base 8 GB M3 MacBook Pro failed to export my simple YouTube videos about 90% of the time; this 16 GB Air exports them without issue. The MacBook Pro’s fan helps sustained work, but in that test memory was the bottleneck. In 2024, no Mac should ship with 8 GB.
Gaming, Wi-Fi and battery
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider ran at a comfortable 50–60 fps on medium. Lies of P ran pretty well, though I kept getting my butt kicked. Resident Evil 4 stuttered sometimes, even with MetalFX upscaling.
- Wi-Fi 6E gave me several hundred megabits per second more on my 6E access point in the right conditions, but it depends on everything in between.
- Battery: Apple says up to 18 hours. One normal workday left me at 56% after about 8 hours; a day of benchmarks and gaming had me at about 9% after 7.
The four MacBooks I’d buy under $2,000
First: no one should buy an 8 GB MacBook in 2024, even for the lightest use. Websites and apps will only use more memory. If you plan to keep it 3–7 years, save a bit longer and get 16 GB.
Then ask yourself: do I want a bigger display, and more built-in storage?
- 13-inch M3 Air, 16 GB, 256 GB — the most portable. The M2 is $100 less, but for $100 you get a new CPU, Wi-Fi 6E, faster storage and probably another year of updates.
- 13-inch M3 Air, 16 GB, 512 GB — if you need more storage. Beyond that, buy an external SSD instead.
- 15-inch M3 Air, 16 GB, 256 GB — about $1,499, a fantastic laptop.
- 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Pro, 18 GB — around $1,799, often less on sale, just $100 more than my 16/512 15-inch Air. Not the base 8 GB M3 Pro; the M3 Pro chip, with more CPU and GPU cores and a fan to run faster longer, plus a 20% brighter XDR display with HDR and ProMotion, better speakers, more ports, two external displays plus the built-in one, and even better battery life.
I could probably be happy with a 13- or 15-inch Air 85% of the time. They’re fantastic for everyday computing and light creative work, and the two ports aren’t much of an issue with a dock at my desk and hubs on the go. Just get 16 GB.
Links
- CalDigit’s docks and hubs (sponsored)
- CalDigit Element Hub
- CalDigit TS4
- M3 MacBook Air 13”
- M3 MacBook Air 15”
- M3 Pro MacBook Pro 14”
- Studio Display
- Spectrum Black with Gorilla Glass
- I was wrong about 5K and the Studio Display
- CalDigit is my dock partner
- https://www.threads.net/@jerryschulzeonyt
- My iPhone Art
- Grovemade Desk Mat and Knife (save 10% JERRY10)
- UNLIMITED Cloud Backup for your Mac with Backblaze
In this video
Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. See my ethics statement.
