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Adding the M1 laptops in all of the benchmarks graphs would have been much more useful than M2. I think most people with M2 wouldn't even be looking at this laptop.
Apple does that but it is so the performance graph looks more impressive than it is. It's more important to see the improvement from the previous generation, that is just how everything is tested.
@@Jj82opyou’re forgetting the people who have an M1 and didn’t upgrade to an M2 and they would like to know how big of a leap it would be to upgrade from a M1 to an M3 and whether or not it’s worth it
@@The-Caged-King this isn't a full review video or channel. Their priority was to compare to the M2. They can't make these videos perfect for everybody's needs and there are other reviewers we can watch.
@@Jj82op While that's true (even though I think this a dumb statement) it is literally one line more. They already have the benchmarks done and just need to add them..
If you have any apple silicon laptop, this won't be much of an upgrade. Realistically unless you need hardware ray tracing or absolute max performance the earliest most people should think about upgrading from an M1 is later this year or early next year with M4. The one exception to this is if you made the mistake of going with 256GB thinking it would be just enough and now realise it's not (not to say it's not enough for anyone because it definitely is enough for some).
@@CricketEngland No they don't...? the new xps 13 comes with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD for £1349. If you upgrade to the i7-165H they bump the RAM up to 32GB and the price up to £1599, but you're still getting a smaller 1200p LCD display, and no GPU. To put it in line with the MacBook Pro, you'd have to 1. upgrade to the 3k OLED display, which brings the price up to £1899, and then also just buy a different laptop because it comes with Intel integrated graphics, which aren't even close to the same ballpark as M3. The xps 14 is more comparable and spec for spec it costs £450 more than the M3 MacBook Pro (16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) or exactly the same price if you don't need the NVIDIA graphics. Also "Dell... only charges you £200 to upgrade the SSD" - ONLY?! That's the exact same price Apple charges, and it's really high for what it is, when both companies do it.
@@CricketEnglandAs someone who uses dell laptops at work I’m not buying a dell laptop. Awful QC on those things. I have $5500 precision laptop and it sucks.
Coming from an i7 2019 MB Pro. The difference in speed when doing daily tasks is insane, and the battery life is phenomenal. Worth the upgrade for sure. Yes the extra features, pro motion, miniLED, more ports, active cooling, etc on the M3 MB Pro are tempting but for real world use the air is just perfect and more than enough for what I (and most people) need.
yep, I have a MacBook Pro m2 for work and an m3 air for personal, and I can not tell you which one is which minus the display on the pro looks better and that's about it. That is a huge thing for me, but as far as clicking around and doing home daily tasks this thing will be fine for years on years to come as it has power to spare. So yeah if you need a basic machine that does basic stuff the air is your go to. If you need the fancy screen a stripped down pro is for you. The more cores and more stuff are just not needed unless you can cite the exactly power thing you're going to do.
and I totally agree, it has the same exact cpu from the base Pro, the only real thing it's missing is the cooling fan, you can fix this with a 1mm thermal pad, it will bridge the constant between the m3 chip and the bottom case, which would be more than enough to passively cool it. And NOOO NOO0OOOOOOOOO DON'T GET THE BASE MODEL, UPGRADE THE GPU TO 10 CORE AND AT LEAST 16GB RAM IF YOUR NOT LOOKING TO DUMP THIS LAPTOP IN THE TRASH AFTER 2 YEARS!!!
@@Stratagos lol bruh, y'all should be the last one to talk about tech. No, it's not enough. The same dev environment I have on a 16GB Linux machine that is like $300 cheaper hits the bottleneck on Mac and starts swapping. I would rather prefer to have more RAM that is not unified than the so-called unified bs that swaps causing the SSD's (another unified shit that cannot be replaced or upgraded) lifespan to be shorter quickly. Nobody cares about that unified ultra super mega or whatever you call speed. Memory is supposed to be there for more apps to be held. Everything unified is just dumb. Don't get brainwashed and brainwash others into believing it's an ok thing. It's nothing but another of Apple's marketing tactics. For a device that is $1200, 16 is an expected memory, especially in 2024.
@@sjn_ Yeah, I've come around on this and agree with you, 8gb is a lame Apple ploy! I guess I was trying to convince myself and watched a few fanboy vids on the unified architecture. I ended up buying 16gb for my daughter's M3Air and 18gb on my M3pro. Now that I've had my M3pro for a couple of weeks, I would have been pissed if I picked up the 8gb base.
@@sjn_ 8GB is enough. But 16GB should be the norm. It's what every tech youtuber says, 8GB is good enough for basic tasks, but you should get 16GB if you like to do more than browse the web or excel.
People say go Pro, but for me while I would like a Pro’s (more power, better screen, ports don’t bother me I already have a set of really good docks and adapters), My main machine is still an M1 Pro 2020 with 16GB RAM and I have a backup M2 Air 8GB, I do prefer the M2 Air, but definitely notice the extra RAM on the M1, but for me the Airs offer long life battery, thin and light machine. The screen isn’t a big deal as my MacBooks spend most of there time docked to a 27” 4k screen. Also I prefer the thinner shell and weight when carrying it about and I find it really comfortable to type on (Due to the lower Z height) when I’m using it out and about. Cost of the upgrades it’s still cheaper than an equivalent Pro. Really the standard M chips are just so powerful, so while 16GB 512GB SSD is a must really if you prefer the lighter machine you won’t be disappointed.
Even though Apple did a great job to persuade me buying the more expensive laptop, I have bought M3 Air 16/512. An excellent laptop for a quite reasonable price. The smaller size is more important for the non working tool. Regarding the sound, I mostly use the headphones, not external speakers. So the minor difference with the Pro version is not a big deal.
Video idea for if you guys take them lol When I got my 2020 Zephyrus G14, my friend told me I should get a cooling pad for it. I had no idea what they were until then, but now that I have one I don't actually see much of a performance difference. The temperatures of the chassis and the hotspots around the keyboard seem to be cooler, but I don't think it actually contributes to internal temperatures. I think it could be an interesting idea, though it might not be a big enough idea for the main channel. Anyway just wanted to pitch the idea. Have a great day if this gets seen!
I got a Cooler Master NotePal U2 Plus for my Razer 15" 2018 - threw away the noisy fans that came with it, slapped to 120mm Noctuas on it that I regulate with a Zalman Fan Mate2 - and I can say it makes a huge difference. The Laptop runs cooler and a lot quieter. But that was all-in a 100€ Upgrade! But IMHO still worth it. If had used the shitty fans that came with it would have only been 25€ though.
@@SirusStarTV Yes good point - but one could just use some rubber feed that you can buy for this purpose on Aliexpress for $2 a set including shipping - this way you needn’t to carry around a dead cooling pad…
I wanted the M2 MacBook Air, but the color options stunk and I was able to get an M1 Pro with the config I wanted in the Air (512/16) for $100 more on sale. The extra $100 got me a 120 Hz Mini LED screen, better speakers, and more ports.
The M2 air has the same colour options as the M1 Pro and more. It literally has the same two colour options that every MacBook since 2016 has had, one of which is the same as every aluminium MacBook *ever*
@@thebuddercweeper yeah that’s the point, I was hoping there would be better options and they just went with the same old shit so why not just get the pro at that point
I cannot get over how limited that I/O is. Two type C ports and a headphone jack means dongle hell if I wanna do something as simple as plugging in an external drive. Type C drives are not common around here. Having said that: this much horsepower in a dead silent, rock solid package cannot be beat. Nobody else offers something similar.
@ZaHandle how is it imaginary.... my nikon has a wifi sd card that saves photos directly to an ipad.... airplay i do from my macbook air 2 15 inch to a monitor.... i have a wireless keyboard mouse and use my airpods... but ehh i dont live in the stone age
12:08 "if all you do is web browsing ,watching RU-vid, browsing memes and basic photo editing " it's literally description of Chromebook. You don't need 1000$ machine to run browser.
Yes and no. If you feel like you need a mac this is a perfectly fine option. There's a lot of stuff you're paying for here that's obviously better than a chromebook. Like the entire rest of the machine.
Chromebooks are quite garbage really. They have crappy 1.8 Ghz dual core processors, often 4GB RAM, crappy screens and build quality and cost like $300-350 for the cheapest ones. You're way better off buying an entry level iPad as it's performance smokes anything that $350 segment has to offer. And it's worth spending a extra to at least get the $699 M1 Air instead as that's just so much of a laptop for $700. I'd say it still kicks ass of every thin and light Windows laptop because of insane power efficiency.
Just got a Apple refurbished M2 1T 16gig 15inch. for 1489. Not a bad price. Finally upgraded from my mid 2012 quad core i7 which is now running hot, I will miss the IO and will now have to always use a hub for ethernet but the light weight and size is why I choose it over the pro. I mainly use it for multi tracking live shows.
So obviously, the devices you need depend on the context of your life, your job, your hobbies, etcetera. But I feel like for the most part, a typical person probably doesn't need a powerful laptop. Phones are capable at this point of most anything a laptop can do, with laptops' only real advantages being that they're better for typing on and potentially more powerful, and the occasional bit of software that's not available on mobile operating systems which some people may need. That being the case, it just doesn't feel good to me to buy a device which charges you an extra $400 if you want to have enough ram and storage for desktop applications. Desktop software is either lightweight enough a cheaper phone/laptop/tablet could run it fine, or else it's optimized under the assumption you have more memory and storage than a phone would have, yet more memory and ram than a phone would have is a huge upcharge. There's a mismatch between the processors put in high-end laptops and the base storage/ram. At that point, there are three things that make sense to me: - forego a laptop entirely, just use your phone - if you need a keyboard and a big screen and lots of power, build a desktop. Putting a 2tb SSD and 64gb of RAM in it costs less than upgrading a Macbook for an extra 256gb and 8gb - if you need a keyboard and big screen portably, get a Galaxy Tab S9 FE with a keyboard attachment for under $500. Same storage and ram as an M3 macbook air, but with lightweight programs that those specs aren't going to bottleneck, plus it comes with a stylus if drawing or handwritten notes are your bag, and you can take the keyboard off and just use it as a tablet for content consumption when you're off work If 256gb of storage and 8gb of ram are enough for you, you probably don't need the processor speed of an M3 chip - the tablet setup for under $500 is right there, more portable, more versatile, plenty powerful for the types of workloads that 8gb of ram is enough for. If they aren't, you need to pay through the nose to get that portably - $1600 is a lot. In fairness I haven't mentioned the Apple integration at all, and that IS a selling point for a lot of people. So if you are a fan of Apple, have an iPhone and Airpods and everything, you need a laptop for portable lightweight workloads, and you want your laptop to interface with those things nicely, then it makes sense to get a Macbook. An M1 Macbook Air, refurbished, for around $600-700. You'll still get your 256gb/8gb configuration that's good enough for you, the processor is still completely overkill for the workloads that 256/8 are adequate for, and you save a thousand bucks.
I'd say DO NOT BUY M1 MACS AT THIS POINT. Yes, it's still plenty fast for most of us. If you don't want to or can't spend more or you just bought a M1 Mac: Rest assured, it's still a great computer. BUT: Apple releases macOS updates up to 7 yrs for a Mac after release. This means that an M1 has a maximum of 3 yrs of software updates left. Per year of use (calculated with base model prices), the M2 works out to be CHEAPER per year of up-to-date use. M1: 700/3 = 233 USD per year M2: 1099/5 = 220 USD per year For long term usability -> buy an M2 Macbook Air
I bought low spec M1 Airs off Ebay 1.5 years ago for ~$550. They're still going strong, came with minimal dings/scratches. Tbh it all depends on use case too. I use these for work for 1 specific task and the occasional RU-vid
Long term Mac/IOS dev here. Spent decades buying Macbook Pros. I've moved to the Mac mini and Macbook Airs. BUT, you absolutely MUST get at least 16GB RAM. 8GB is ridiculous, and you will regret it. And yes, Apple's price gouging on the RAM/storage is criminal.
It's criminal what Apple is doing with storage and RAM upgrade. 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD are not enough nowadays, and they have a 4x-10x markup on upgrades. If you need a laptop, just buy a used Thinkpad with 16GB RAM and put a 1-2TB SSD in it. Or a framework if you're looking for a more premium option. By the way, you should compare audio on Mac OS vs Asahi Linux.
Apple has virtually no competition in the thin and light space. If power efficiency, battery life and performance while on battery is important to you then Windows laptops don't even come close. Also Windows in it's current state is ad and junk ridden garbage which is very annoying. Linux fixes that, but it's compatibility can be all over the place with laptops and you're still limited by inefficient chips on a 15W package. FWIW, I've tried the Thinkpad with 32GB RAM, Ryzen, Linux route. Sucked big time on a thin and light and switched to M3 AIr and the difference is night and day.
Memory management on macOS is really very good, so it’s mostly ok. That’s what I would say if it didn’t cost a kidney to upgrade the SSD. Because, memory I kinda get it, because they use just two memory modules, but ssd price is a steal (in the bad way).
It’s 2024 and Apple ships its base models laptops M3 with only 8GB & 512SSD (£1699) then charges you over £400 to upgrade your memory and SSD, so you then get a 1/2 decent system Dell ships its new XPS 13 ultra-7 base model with 32Gb memory and 512SSD (£1498.99) and only charges you £200 to upgrade the SSD. HP ships it HP Spectre x360 ultra-7 base modem 16GB memory and 1TB SSD (£1669.00) I know the one I’m not taking
I just picked up the base model M3 at Best Buy for $850 USD, great steal in my opinion. I needed something mostly for basic stuff and decided to go MacBook for once since I'm almost entirely in the Apple ecosystem outside of my home PC and consoles. Have been pretty happy with it so far.
Very nice thorough review! I would like to add that if you plan to resell your MBA in the future, the M3 may be the wiser choice over the M2. The M2 saves you a 100 bucks now, but the resale value of the M3 will probably make up for that.
Something I would love to see is how macbooks and laptops performance during programming work, like try running a bunch of containers, allocate a bunch of memory and cpu for it, also try running a IDE like pycharm with a env connection to a container + LSP checks, try running heavy python scripts.
@@Zoophilla Should be fine, yes. When it comes to RAM, macOS does it differently than Windows. You won't see system critical error messages or blue screen of death, it will just run. Of course crashes are possible, but very rarely.
I couldn’t have said it better! “The day Apple stop putting sticker in their packages is the day we know we failed as a society” It works in so many levels!!
I don't get the obsession with fast charging, super charge this, supervooc that. If the battery won't hold charge after a year because if super fast charging then what's the point!
Its a fast laptop, sure, but it thermal throttling after 45 sec on anything remotely demanding makes it a glorified netbook. The fact that these netbooks cost anything over $300 is mind boggling. - Coming from a Macbook Pro M2 Pro user.
Jake try the Asus Zenbook oled series, in my usage although i was running Linux, i got almost 8 hours, which is more than enough for most people and it has an oled 120hz display which is next level and much cheaper than MacBook air, I got mine for 660$ with 17 13th Gen, 16G ram, 512 GB SSD from Best buy under excellent condition
Intel chips suck in power efficiency compared to Macbooks. It's not even a competition really and I say that as someone who has used an Intel, AMD and 2 Macbooks (m1 and m3) in the last 4 years. LG Gram was awesome, but it really heated up with simplest of things. x86 laptops are fine only if you don't care about heat, noise, performance when on battery power, suspend power consumption, etc. The instant wake features in Macbooks is something that Windows simply doesn't have a competitor for. The power efficiency of current x86 chips is nowhere near the ARM chips and on a 15W package where you're power limited, that makes all the difference.
@@youtindia that's the thing I am not familiar with LG gram, but I have used two ultra books in the last 4 years, except for the instant wake up feature I didn't notice any of the other issues you have mentioned 1. Lenovo Slim 5 pro with Ryzen7 5800U 2. Asus Zenbook OLED 14' with Intel i7 13th Gen H series CPU with upto 35W TDP on battery Both of these laptops have very less fan noice compared to all the other windows laptops (I can only hear them when I am compiling something or running parallel tests with a bunch of docker containers being spun up), but at the same time I barely noticed any heat, because they have a good heat management system, although they are not as power efficient as ARM silicon they last almost 8 hours in my use and they have better specs (especially the display on Zenbook, which runs on 120hz all the time unlike MacBook's dynamic thing) for my use and are much cheaper , and a MacBook M1 air which I returned because the entire freaking chassy gets heated up even in basic use (couple of chrome tabs, couple of vscode windows and some music in the background ), and I use an M2 Max MB pro for work (since that's what they give at my office) and this thing is almost brand new and even then it takes a split second to open any app, it's not as instantaneous as it is on Linux or even windows (this is related to software since X86 is much more mature and Arm is not as optimized but the entire product matters) However, I do agree with you for most windows laptops but not all of them.
@@youtindia I have an M2 Macbook air and it just refuses to die. I know Battery life varies but this Laptop lasts more than 16 Hours for me which is insane, I can use XCode, Davinci and Multi-Task Flawlessly than on old intel powerbooks
@@kay1229 Seriously. I am convinced that anyone advocating for x86 based Windows laptops in 2024 has not used ARM based Macs because once you get used to low power profile of the ARM chips, it's hard to go back. It literally makes your laptop as portable as a mobile phone and it changes the way you interact with laptops.
That ram and storage size in 2024 is just ridiculous. 16gb / 512gb should be the absolute minimum, and I'm leaning much more towards 1 tb as the minimum for storage. Even for just browsing and normal office workload, 8 GB is not enough.
It’s 2024 and Apple ships its base models laptops M3 with only 8GB & 512SSD (£1699) then charges you over £400 to upgrade your memory and SSD, so you then get a 1/2 decent system Dell ships its new XPS 13 ultra-7 base model with 32Gb memory and 512SSD (£1498.99) and only charges you £200 to upgrade the SSD. HP ships it HP Spectre x360 ultra-7 base modem 16GB memory and 1TB SSD (£1669.00) I know the one I’m not taking
Unfortunately, the battery and wifi issue is very bad. The battery definitely runs out very quickly when used with Airpods. I have been using the product for three months. The Macbook pro m1 and Macbook pro i7 2019 that I used before were better computers. Pro users may not like it. The only good thing is that when I work in the garden on a sunny day, the screen definitely does not reflect. The M1 pro was bad in this regard.
I don't get why they insist on pairing that excellent processor with such a tiny amount of ram that it barely functions. Ram is the part that's cheap and easy. Any application where 8gb ram and 1/4 tb ssd is acceptable, the M3 processor doesn't give you any advantage over the predecessors. Any application where the M3 is a significant advantage, you absolutely *require* 16 if not 32+ gb of ram to keep up with it. It's like they didn't even think about any real-world use cases and are just relying on people buying spending two grand for the logo.
knowing that your SSD is going to die at one point, low RAM configs (memory swapping) combined with low storage will literally give you a broken product that you can't even repair. Below 16GB and 1TB SSD most of these machines will clog up the landfills
There are 3rd party repair centres that have upgraded the nand chips. It's highly unlikely that you will kill your ssd even after 10 years unless you're running a server it's super uncommon for ssd's to die from average day to day use. I am with you about the ssd being non-user replaceable but the argument that the ssd will die from use only applies to highly specific cases.
Apple uses enterprise strength SSDs due to their reliance on swap, so you will find other aspects age faster than the SSD. Same with RAM, both are now certain to last 10+ years. It is 2024 and tech is now advanced compared to the 1980s.
@@palaashatri that is simply false. Over 60% of MacBook Air sales are the base model and the MacBook Air is the best selling Ultrabook in the world. You have to think outside your own experience to understand that there are tens of millions of people that can cope with 8GB of RAM without a single problem. For example in business & enterprise many companies hand out laptops that simply have a few apps like office. If they had to pay extra for more RAM, it would be wasteful. My 80-y-o parents have used 8GB for 40+ years and they will continue to use it without problems. Such a bad take and misleading scaremongering nonsense. If 8GB is not enough for you, move on, why are you so bothered that others are using 8GB? If it started at 16GB/512GB the MB Air would still be priced at £1500 as it is now, so your argument is so pointless and moot it defies comprehension.
I bought an M1 Air as my first Mac, and bought the M2 for the new design when it came out. While I prefer the design, the build just doesn't feel as good as the M1 did for some reason. I don't know what it is, but the new design M2/M3 machines just don't feel as good to me as the M1 Air did with the old design. With that said, they look a lot better now. I love the mini-Pro look, especially since I think the redesigned Pros are way too chunky for me.
im looking new laptop ive got dell xps 9560. Ive had dell laptops since 2008 i need spend lot money on dell what do you suggest apple or hp or dell or lenovo i would like 16gb ram or 32gb ram and 512gb ssd or 1tb ive got apple iphone 11 pro thinking upgrading to iphone 16 pro max and ive got samsung galaxy tablet s9 fe not sure get 14 inch or 15 inch or 16 inch laptop budget upto $4000
The fact that it can't run 2 displays without closing the laptop lid while Windows laptops have been able to do more than that many for 10 years now (I'm actually not kidding) is quite dissapointing...
It’s only worth it if you want the base model with 8 gigs of ram. Once you upgrade ram and storage you are looking at $1600-1700 after tax. An m3 MacBook pro with a 120hz screen is only like $100 more at that point.
@@MLM7827 Yeah, portability is the priority for me. The performance difference between Pro and Air for my workload (full stack web dev) wasn't enough to justify the difference in portability.
Hello guys. Which purchase will be better? M3 16GB 256SSD or M2 16GB 512SSD MacBook Air? Quite normal and base usage but I want to buy just good and solid product and spend my money well.
You talk about all the specs which the Apple official infos. But there’re some problems that M series MacBook which you need to review the most, it’s the touchpad and screenshot. Of course you said that there’s no problem with the touchpad and screenshot. But many people experienced MacBook Air m1 with bad experience of touchpad after buying the new macbook several months afterwards. The touchpad not smooth, even MacBook Pro 2012 touchpad was so very smooth and good, but this air M1 was so bad and mot smooth. And also after screenshot usually we put the shot directly insert it into Words or Apple Pages. After put it the screenshots for several times, it will loading so ever lasting! Never experienced it from MacBook Pro 2012, even using other things at the same time was never damage from the screenshot like M series MacBook. So, I don’t know whether your review on M3 junk did the same other like m2 or m3? Without any research or experience it? Better not misinforming.
For me it will be the m1 pro model with 16gb ram and 512gb and all the other benefits (fans, speakers, display, connectivity) . Performance should be about the same as the M3 and you can get it in good condition for even cheaper (at least in germany)
Air is significantly lighter and portable though. 1.24kg vs 1.6kg is something you'll definitely notice. Using a 1.6kg laptop on your lap in the bed is a pain and digs into your thighs and crotch haha. It huts if you do it long enough.
Older pros are an awesome value. I picked up M1 Pro beginning for 2023 for $1500. Even better values out there now. Having better screen and ports makes a big difference.
The m3 does have a better GPU, which is critical for a lot of workloads. Davinci Resolve for instance is particularly VRAM hungry, especially with color grading and AI effects like magic mask.
3:45 at this point I feel like the display support is just for product segmentation for the MacBook Pros. As a software dev with a lot of my work offloaded to remote instances, I might not need the horsepower of the Pro chips but still need the screen space
the reason ur wrong tho is cuz of the ports. Almost everyone will need/want to use an HDMI over the course of owning a laptop. As well as an SD card slot.
If you buy 8GB of RAM, you should NOT buy the Air M2! The SSDs speed (and lanes) is half as fast as the M1s SSD. And every time you run out of memory (with is not a very bad thing) your Mac starts swapping content to the SSD. But then you are limited by the SSDs speed. With again, M2 has half the performance. But i doesnt know if its the same with MacBook Air M3.
I would personally prefer a different color for the "protagonist". Not only a little pulsating red dot on the side. If you watch 1.5x or more it's easy to miss. Even if your comparison is 3 laptops. It's s small complaint but.. Why not simply put another color in the main one? In fractions of seconds we know if it's 1st, 2nd or 3rd place..
But what about the laptop's display response time? And the built in DAC quality? And mouse latency or more accurately TouchPad latency? And wow an IPS on a laptop! In PC space they're usually T.N Panels.
