I have been thinking about buying a MBA 13-inch, though the M3 is close to the price of a M4 MBPro 14-inch. But although the M3 MBA now seems less good value, a new MBP M2 is looking tempting! (I work day to day on a M2 mini and have no issues with it at all, and no need for AI.)
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Anyone else tempted by a new M2?
- Thread starter streetsandtheatres
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For the money and now with 16GB in base spec it’s a great value. Just remember that it can only support a single external display but that may or may not matter to you.
it’s the Mac I’m recommending to family who want a general purpose computing device for email, web, casual photos etc.
oh, and it will do AI so you’re covered there too!
it’s the Mac I’m recommending to family who want a general purpose computing device for email, web, casual photos etc.
oh, and it will do AI so you’re covered there too!
Is there any difference in the M2 and M3 for a normal student?
I'm looking for my daughter who may be headed to college in a year. Thinking the M2 with 16gb would be good.
I think it would be a perfect device for that. The only ‘feature’ difference is that M3 can drive two external displays at the same time. M2 can drive only one external monitor.
Other than that, in daily use they are about the same. If you’re a benchmarks geek, then you will see that the M3 does some tasks like video encoding more quickly and the M3 chip supports hardware ray-tracing for the couple of games that can utilize that. Otherwise they are the same. Both will perform well.
If you do some homework, one other thing you will see is that M2 with 256GB SSD used a single chip for vs. two chips on the M3. If you’re doing large multigigabyte transfers they will run more slowly on the M2. It’s a non-issue for most people.
Other than that, in daily use they are about the same. If you’re a benchmarks geek, then you will see that the M3 does some tasks like video encoding more quickly and the M3 chip supports hardware ray-tracing for the couple of games that can utilize that. Otherwise they are the same. Both will perform well.
If you do some homework, one other thing you will see is that M2 with 256GB SSD used a single chip for vs. two chips on the M3. If you’re doing large multigigabyte transfers they will run more slowly on the M2. It’s a non-issue for most people.
I had read about the single chip thing, but assumed it was for all 256gb drives. Good to know the m3 isn’t like that!
Here's more on that.
Base Model M3 MacBook Air Has Faster SSD Speeds After Controversy With Previous Model
The base model 13-inch MacBook Air with the M3 chip, 256GB of storage, and 8GB of RAM has significantly faster SSD speeds compared to the equivalent...
www.macrumors.com
Honestly though - it's clickbait hype in my opinion. I had a base model M2 and was a great little machine. I had low expectations for it but it worked really well with everything I threw at it. Yes - if you run benchmark testing, or specific activities designed to show up the difference, then yes it performs more slowly. In day to day use, I doubt many would be able to even tell. Still - I had to mention it since you were asking about the differences between M2 and M3.