Apple Announces New MacBook Air Models With M3 Chip

[profcutter]

Appreciate the discussion about M1 owners upgrading. I thought about getting the M2 when they released, as I liked the form factor, midnight color, and magsafe, but that wasn't enough to upgrade. Told myself I'd wait till the M3. Now the M3 is here, I'm having second thoughts, for much of the reasons listed above. I'm a casual user on my MBA, mainly web browsing. Not sure I need to drop $1299 (I need 512GB hdd) for the minor improvements. Guess I'm waiting another 20 months before considering an upgrade. Might as well ride this M1 into the ground.

Yeah, why not wait? I always encourage folks to wait until they really need the update. There’s no prize for having the newest m3 MacBook Air.

 

[profcutter]

My family has two M1 MBA, one M1 iPad Pro, I use a work MBP 16" M1 Pro, and just purchased a M2 15" MBA to replace my 2019 MBP 15" i9 which had thermal issues from day 1.

Honestly the M2 Air is no better than the M1 Air. Comparatively, my M1 Pro (w/ 32GB RAM) feels the most sluggish of all since it's plugged into an external display. When it's unplugged, even on low power mode, it feels quicker than the M2 for obvious reason.

The biggest benefit of the M2 over all of them (with M1 MBA a close second) is/are software updates/upgrades.

My corporate-managed work M1 Pro is a nightmare.

Huh. I wonder if that’s a pro vs max GPU core issue. Mine with two monitors attached doesn’t feel sluggish at all.

 

[ric22]

Huh. I wonder if that’s a pro vs max GPU core issue. Mine with two monitors attached doesn’t feel sluggish at all.

The Pro chip shouldn't feel sluggish when connected to two external monitors...

 

[Rob9874]

The biggest benefit of the M2 over all of them (with M1 MBA a close second) is/are software updates/upgrades.

What do you mean? M1 doesn't get software updates/upgrades?

 

[Tagbert]

It shifts menus to the right, but removes status items altogether if needed.

Ah, then you need Bartender to manage those app icons. I’ve been using Bartender since before I ever got a MB with a notch because those icons were proliferating like tribbles. It does a great job of giving you control over them and to move the lower priority ones to a hidden panel.

 

[chucker23n1]

Ah, then you need Bartender to manage those app icons. I’ve been using Bartender since before I ever got a MB with a notch because those icons were proliferating like tribbles. It does a great job of giving you control over them and to move the lower priority ones to a hidden panel.

Yeah, if it ever does bug me enough, I might spring for a utility like that.

(It wouldn’t fix the “some menus are on the right” part, though.)

Either way, it doesn’t really keep me up at night. It is, otherwise, a fantastic machine.

 

[lindros2]

What do you mean? M1 doesn't get software updates/upgrades?

Speed - updates take 1/10 the time of intel and maybe 1/2 of M1.

13.5 > 14.4 took under 10 minutes. Maybe less.

 

[im_to_hyper]

What I meant was Apple are trying to showcase their M3 against the Intel laptops is like comparing an F1 car's capabilities to one from the 1990's. Obviously it is leaps and bounds in terms of performance and there are comparing it to the Items chips to sound better. "60x speed's compared to Intel" sounds more convincing in a sales and marketing term compared to "a little faster than an M2 chip but not by much".

Apple are beginning to milk the cow as hard as they can, compromising on innovation.

I see. That sounds like one way to take it. Another way to take it is that M2 owners are not in the user groups targeted for an upgrade: so the marketing campaign is to further move folks off Intel to AppleSil

 

[bluedoggiant]

Anyone else think it’s interesting this was announced on a Monday vs the usual Tuesday? Food for thought for those anticipating new iPads in near future.

 

[uploaded]

sigh. . . old man here, remember using a TRS80 with a cassette tape deck for storage. If you stored anything, you had to remember the number on the tape recorder to find it again. And then keep a running log to make sure that you didn't overwrite something. View attachment 2356356

Thanks for the picture my friend! The Tandy RadioShack TRS80 was my first computer!
A friend brought it to Germany from the USA back then (1984?) - I made my first BASIC experiences with it and loaded games and programs from the cassette tape deck. A great experience.

 

[X Cruz 187]

I think the M4 generation should set a new base of 12. That's adequate for most users, I suspect.

I miss the good ol days when you could pop out the memory and max it out yourself and HD.

 

[Cheffy Dave]

Still only support for 1 external screen 😂

Please re-read the article,it says it will support TWO screens with top down!

 

[chucker23n1]

I miss the good ol days when you could pop out the memory and max it out yourself and HD.

Sure, but you probably don't miss how bulky those laptops were by comparison.

 

[Tagbert]

Sure, but you probably don't miss how bulky those laptops were by comparison.

I built/sold computers in the 80’s and remember having to regularly open them up and reseat the memory chips periodically as they would work themselves loose. The later simms were better but sometimes they also needed a little TLC.

 

[ric22]

Sure, but you probably don't miss how bulky those laptops were by comparison.

Old old laptops were bulky, of course, but a modern laptop as bulky as the current 16" MacBook could accommodate removable storage/RAM if Apple desired. I've handled Chinese laptops that size that did. Obviously Apple don't and won't, for the myriad of reasons we've discussed ad nauseam...

 

[Populus]

Old old laptops were bulky, of course, but a modern laptop as bulky as the current 16" MacBook could accommodate removable storage/RAM if Apple desired. I've handled Chinese laptops that size that did. Obviously Apple don't and won't, for the myriad of reasons we've discussed ad nauseam...

They no longer can, because M_ chips have the DRAM in the chip, as unified memory. I guess that helps having less latency?

 

[X Cruz 187]

Sure, but you probably don't miss how bulky those laptops were by comparison.

My white MacBook from 2007 still works I love that thing it still runs Leopard. 🤣 maxed out ram 4gb and 512 SSD.

 

[Quackington]

My white MacBook from 2007 still works I love that thing it still runs Leopard. 🤣 maxed out ram 4gb and 512 SSD.

Damn. It it noisy and slow?

 

[MajorFubar]

They no longer can, because M_ chips have the DRAM in the chip, as unified memory. I guess that helps having less latency?

They no longer can, because they purposefully designed the M* architecture so that it couldn't be user upgraded, and sold that concept to you by using fancy graphs that promised edge-case efficiencies only maybe a tiny percentage of buyers truly need. Compared to a whole army of percent who would prefer to be able to upgrade.

It wasn't just an unfortunate side-effect. It was a deliberate design.

 

[seek3r]

They no longer can, because they purposefully designed the M* architecture so that it couldn't be user upgraded, and sold that concept to you by using fancy graphs that promised edge-case efficiencies only maybe a tiny percentage of buyers truly need. Compared to a whole army of percent who would prefer to be able to upgrade.

It wasn't just an unfortunate side-effect. It was a deliberate design.

A bit of one a bit of the other really. Apple isnt lying about the advantages, but they are definitely taking advantage to keep base models relatively low (and while it should be higher given how cheap RAM is I will argue 8GB *is* actually pretty decent for most folks, and I wouldnt be surprised if the M4 or M5 bump that base to 12 or 16, which should definitely be fine for most) and charge huge amounts for RAM upgrades that cost them very little.