M3 MacBook Air - The Best Laptop BUT…

this is the new M3 MacBook Air and honestly it does look a lot like the older model the M2 MacBook Air which I have conveniently placed on my desk and yes if you swap these around and I came to sit down and record this video and had to pick out the M3 model I probably wouldn't be able to tell you because they look exactly the same there's there's no difference here but despite looking exactly the same you know that's not the whole story there are some improvements on this M3 model that honestly make it a better laptop for more users and some surprise features that I wasn't really expecting that make it a better value than this M2 MacBook Air but despite this being a better value than this older M2 MacBook Air there are still some things that frustrate me about this laptop which has me asking Apple why do you keep doing this so yes we started this off by saying the M3 MacBook a looks exactly as same as the M2 MacBook Air but that's not necessarily A Bad Thing don't forget this is only the second time that apple is reusing the body for the MacBook Air it literally got a redesign with that last 2 M2 generation and it brings over a lot of great things it's still super thin super lightweight has excellent build quality a fantastic keyboard a fantastic trackpad the bezels on it are smaller it's a nice 13.6 in display it's got you know good display quality good speakers and you know it's just a really nice portable laptop it's got the mag safe charging port two USBC ports right I don't need to go on and on about the design of this laptop because again it is the same as the M2 with maybe one thing that should have been new but maybe isn't right Apple said there's a new fingerprint resistant coating on this M3 model but here is my old M2 model for reference now let me say I've been using this one for over a year at this point if you look at it I would would say it's more fingerprint but again I've been using this for a lot less time this new M3 model and the fingerprints look pretty bad on it already so even if we you know say apple added a new fingerprint resistant coating and even if it does make a slight difference which I'm kind of questioning does it um I still feel like the smudges or fingerprints are still showing up on this midnight color so if that bothers you you should probably pick another color now there are a few surprise features on this M3 MacBook Air the one surprise feature isn't really a surprise because apple is all too happy to advertise to you that the new M3 MacBook Air can now support up to two external monitors connected to it at the same time provided that the MacBook Air lid is closed this is by far the most important new feature on the M3 MacBook Air and probably a reason why a lot of people who are still still on older Intel MacBooks are finally going to switch over to this new laptop and I say that because over the years of reviewing the M1 and the M2 I cannot tell you how many comments I have gotten from people who were interested in purchasing a MacBook Air but couldn't because it didn't support dual monitors and the only other choice for them if they wanted a Macbook was to spend $22,000 on on a prle variant of the MacBook Pro that was the cheapest laptop up until this MacBook Air that could do dual monitor support natively so I think that's a really nice feature to have on this MacBook Air but there is one problem with it and that is that in order to use this feature again you have to make sure that the MacBook Air lid is closed now yes this probably isn't the biggest problem for most users because if they are using a feature like dual monitor support it's more than likely they have like a little workstation set up and they're going to have an external keyboard and an external Mouse but uh there are times where maybe you want to connect to a you know dual external setup and you want to use the built-in keyboard and trackpad that are already on the MacBook Air and right now at least you just can't do that as soon as you open the lid on the MacBook Air the second external display that you were connected to automatically disconnects and turns off and you're just left with that One external display and I feel like this would be an easy fix for Apple to do in software like if they detect that you have two external monitors connected to your MacBook Air and you open the lid maybe they don't have to automatically turn off that second display maybe they just keep the MacBook Air display off until you unplug it and then the native display would turn on the MacBook Air again it would be nice if we could still use our keyboard and trackpad when connected to an external monitor I don't think that's too much of an ask the second surprise is actually a surprise and that is that Apple fixed one of the biggest issues people had with the M2 MacBook Air and that is that it shipped with a slower internal drive than the M1 MacBook Air this was a huge controversy when the M2 MacBook Air launched it basically had half the read and write speeds of that older cheaper M1 MacBook Air but now when I ran the dis speed test on the base model 256 GB version of the M3 MacBook Air it had the same read and right speeds as the M1 MacBook Air I was getting around 2800 read speeds and around 2200 right speeds and on the M2 air it was about 1,500 for both of those so no longer does the base model have painfully slow storage this is going to make a lot of people happy and those are really the only new features on the M3 Mac MacBook Air besides the obvious one and that is that the M3 MacBook Air gets an upgraded chip over the old M2 MacBook Air it doesn't have an M2 Chip in it it now has an M3 chip in it uh and listen if you Benchmark that M3 chip it's impressive it really is when you look at single core performance it is up there in levels of performance right alongside the M3 Max MacBook Pro it is one of the most powerful computer chips available in single core performance and even in multi-core performance it is really impressively powerful especially when you consider that this is all running in a fanless laptop that is just super super thin all around the M3 chip is impressive but so was the M2 Chip so was the M1 chip when we're talking about general computing use the target audience for this Bas level MacBook Air there's not much to say here that's new here I've seen people online talk about how they've upgraded in the past from the M1 to the M3 and they were expecting really increased levels of performance and for most users you know the general users where this computer uh is aimed at that really isn't what is going to affect your performance at this point is the M3 faster than the M2 yeah is the M2 faster than the M1 yeah but the M1 was already so fast that if you clicked on almost any app in the dock it would open up almost instantly within like one or two seconds and yes if you measured it and and did that same test on the M3 they would open slightly faster but when the M1 was already opening apps within a second whatever speed improvements happen on the M3 doesn't really matter all that much so it stands for reason that most consumers wouldn't benefit from getting more speed increases on these chips most most consumers would probably benefit from Apple keeping this MacBook Air at the same $1,100 price point but then giving us more storage with it and then giving us more memory with it because again most users aren't going to notice the speed improvements from M2 to M3 or even M1 to M3 but they might notice having more storage to store their files on or they might notice that they can open applications and have a bunch more open and they you might notice that hey when they open up Final Cup Pro when they finally get to try some of these creative tasks that require a little bit more power it's going to run smoother on a M1 MacBook Air that had 16 gbt memory than it does on an M3 MacBook Air that has 8 GB memory despite the M3 being more powerful because in some use cases the memory is going to matter more than the actual processing power of the Chip And you know when I ask myself why does Apple keep doing this why do they keep shipping these Bas level models with such low storage and such low memory the you know my positive outlook on this because this is such a great computer even at the base level you know tier is that they keep doing this because it is a great laptop it does work really well but you always have to use those butts but you might need more storage but you might need more memory and I you know remember I I feel like this may be less true with apple in modern days but the old saying with apple was that when you buy something from them it just works and even though this base model might honestly be fine for 80% of users out there maybe even 85% of users out there I would love to be able to not say but anymore I would love to be able to say hey this base model comes with 16 GB of memory or hey maybe scale it back a little bit 12 gbt memory Just 4 gbt memory more listen to me Apple you know we're going to bargain here 4 gbt memory more and it comes with a 512 GB hard drive at the same price point and then all of a sudden this becomes a machine where I'm not saying but I'm saying get get it because at that level it becomes a machine you can recommend to so many more users users it becomes a machine you don't have to worry about it becomes a machine that doesn't have the ifs ands or butts no crevits right it just becomes a great laptop that you don't have to worry about one that is really easy to recommend so the M3 MacBook Air is a great laptop the it's better than ever has dual display support has the fast internal drive again thank God but if you need more storage you're going to have to spend $200 more and if if you need more memory if you want to use intensive applications you're going to have to spend $200 more on 16 GB that's the video if you liked it give me a like if you want to see more make sure you're subscribed and as always thank you so much for watching and I'll catch you in the next one

Channel: GregsGadgets

Views: 44,739

Keywords: MacBook Air, MacBook Air m3, m3 MacBook Air, MacBook Air 2024, MacBook Air m3 review, MacBook Air m3 performance, MacBook Air m3 ssd speed, MacBook Air m3 base model review, MacBook Air m3 features, MacBook Air m3 base model ssd speed, MacBook Air 2024 review, MacBook Air m3 base model, MacBook Air 2024 base model, MacBook Air m3 worth it, MacBook Air m3 gaming, MacBook Air m3 dual monitor support, MacBook Air 2 monitors, MacBook Air m3 new features

Id: H5hdQw3C27g

Length: 11min 19sec (679 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 09 2024