Apple (AAPL) dropped a major upgrade to the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air on the morning of Mar. 4. While much of the attention has been on the M3 chip, support for Wi-Fi 6E, and the ability to connect to displays, it also elevates the experience in one particular color.
If you opt for the 13-inch or 15-inch M3 MacBook Air in Midnight, you get an improved paint job that takes a page, or rather a stroke, from the higher-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros in Space Black.
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Just like that sweet color, the new MacBook Airs in Midnight boast the custom anodization seal that basically stops fingerprints in their tracks. And this should end with one of the biggest pain points folks with a Midnight MacBook Air have had—fingerprints all around the case.
You’ll be able to confidently maneuver and use the MacBook Air in Midnight how you like without worrying about your fingerprint tracks displaying all around it. The extra seal around the Midnight aluminum finish doesn’t change this shade's awesome colors. It’s still a dark blueish-black that changes depending on how the light hits it—like a glow-up to the classic black MacBooks of years past.
Jacob Krol/TheStreet
Aside from that addition to the Midnight shade, much of the design of the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air remains the same. It’s just 0.44 inches thick, only 2.7 pounds as a 13-inch, and the 15-inch is just 0.45 inches and 3.3 pounds. That makes either option an ultra-portable laptop that is travel-ready. Both MacBook Airs feature a MagSafe 3 port and two USB-C/Thunderbolt 4s on the left, with a single headphone jack on the right.
When you lift the lid, you get a 13.6 or 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display with a peak brightness of 500 nits. There is still a cutout notch, like the previous generation and MacBook Pros, containing a 1080pHD FaceTime camera. Thanks to the M3 chip's Neural Engine, you get things like Portrait Mode and various call lighting types.
That’s really speaking to the main difference with the new Macs: the M3 chip is inside and can be configured with up to an 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and up to 24GB of RAM. There is also no built-in fan or cooling system, but fear not, as the Airs will run cool even with more advanced tasks like photo or video editing, animation rendering, app development, or use cases in healthcare.
For instance, Amy Tan Cangilla, @AmyTangerine, uses a MacBook Air and iPad with Apple Pencil as two key parts of her workflow for video edits, creating graphics, and even creating her new book “Paper Play.” Thanks to continuity features, she can move assets created on an iPad right to a MacBook Air and easily stitch things together in iMovie and export in no time.
Similarly, Brayden Gogis, can write in Xcode and see the real-time changes to his app Joybox, while Damilola Awofisayo, showed off Sklara running through AI and ML tasks in real-time on a MacBook Air. Either route went off without a hitch.
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Like the M1 Air and the M2 Airs ushered in more power in a more affordable device than the MacBook Pros, the latest M3 13-inch and 15-inch beat that same drum. The M3 chip also supports ray tracing and mesh shading, which makes these laptops better equipped for gaming and creative tasks. You should be able to stretch the performance quite far on either an entry-level 13-inch or 15-inch MacBook Air with M3.
Also new with the M3 Airs is support for Wi-Fi 6E and the ability to run two displays when the lid is closed. The latter fills in a missing feature from the previous MacBook Airs. You’ll still get a sizable and responsive trackpad, a comfortable keyboard, and excellent sound. Even more importantly, though, Apple still promises up to 18 hours of battery life.
Ahead, take a look at some photos representing a first look at Apple’s latest laptop, and we’ll be back soon once we’ve been able to test the 13-inch and 15-inch. Apple’s taking orders now for the 13-inch MacBook Air with M3 starting at $1,099 ($999 for education customers) and $1,299 ($1,099 for education customers) for the 15-inch MacBook Air with M3.
A look at the new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Airs in Midnight and Space Gray.
Jacob Krol/TheStreet
The 13-inch MacBook Air with M1 and the 15-inch MacBook Air with M2 are now discontinued, while the 13-inch MacBook Air with M2 is now the entry point to the Mac lineup at $999.
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@jakekrol Here’s a look at Apple’s brand new 13-inch and 15-inch #MacBookAir with M3. #apple #macbookair #macbook #macossonoma #fingerprint #nofingerprints #applemac #max
♬ Not my fault sped up - Abby :)
