If there’s one Apple product that has greatly benefitted from the company’s transition to Apple silicon, it’s probably the MacBook Air. The combination of a CPU that barely sips power, a thin and light passively cooled body, awesome battery life, and still a lot of performance has made it perhaps one of the nicest tech products to use today. If you’ve been waiting for Apple to update the MacBook Air to the company’s latest M3 chips, today’s your lucky day.
Apple has just launched two new laptops, the 13-inch M3 MacBook Air and the 15-inch M3 MacBook Air. The 13-inch version was released with an M2 chip almost 2 years ago, while the 15-inch version was launched as a brand-new form factor less than a year ago. Still, they were both sporting the M2 chip, which was replaced last year by the M3, so they were due for an upgrade. Apple chose not to do a special launch event for these, and while definitely an odd decision from the company’s part, we can also see why. These are identical to Apple’s previous MacBook Air laptops, with the difference that the insides are being swapped out. Instead of the base M2, you get the base M3, and all the performance benefits it brings you.
The 13-inch MacBook Air M2 model is being kept around, with the price being brought down to $999. If you want to save money, that’s still a pretty good option. The 13-inch M3 model starts at $1,299 with 512GB of storage, while the 15-inch version starts at $1,499. Apple is not selling a model with 256GB of storage for the M3-powered products anymore, but it would’ve probably been $1,099
Apple has also discontinued the M1 model of the MacBook Air, the first Apple silicon-powered MacBook, so that’s a painful loss there—it was the cheapest way to get Apple silicon, given how it was discounted pretty frequently. The M2-powered 15-inch MacBook Air was also discontinued. That one was actually launched in June last year, so it was probably one of the most short-lived Apple products in recent memory.
Both MacBooks are now available for purchase on Apple’s website.
Source: Apple
