The world’s most popular laptop is better than ever with even more performance, faster Wi-Fi, and support for up to two external displays — all in its strikingly thin and light design with up to 18 hours of battery life
CUPERTINO, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — March 4, 2024 — Apple® today announced the new MacBook Air® with the powerful M3 chip, taking its incredible combination of power-efficient performance and portability to a new level. With M3, MacBook Air is up to 60 percent faster than the model with the M1 chip and up to 13x faster than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Air.1 And with a faster and more efficient Neural Engine in M3, MacBook Air continues to be the world’s best consumer laptop for AI. The 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air both feature a strikingly thin and light design, up to 18 hours of battery life,1 a stunning Liquid Retina® display, and new capabilities, including support for up to two external displays and up to 2x faster Wi-Fi than the previous generation. With its durable aluminum unibody enclosure that’s built to last, the new MacBook Air is available in four gorgeous colors: midnight, which features a breakthrough anodization seal to reduce fingerprints; starlight; space gray; and silver. Combined with its world-class camera, mics, and speakers; MagSafe® charging; its silent, fanless design; and macOS®, MacBook Air delivers an unrivaled experience — making the 13-inch model the world’s bestselling laptop and the 15-inch model the world’s bestselling 15-inch laptop. Customers can order starting today, with availability beginning Friday, March 8.
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The new 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air soars with the powerful M3 chip, featuring a super-portable design, power-efficient performance, and all-day battery life. (Photo: Business Wire)
“MacBook Air is our most popular and loved Mac, with more customers choosing it over any other laptop. And today it gets even better with the M3 chip and new capabilities,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “From college students pursuing their degrees, to business users who need powerful productivity, or anyone who simply wants the unmatched combination of performance, portability, and industry-leading battery life, all in a fanless design, the new MacBook Air continues to be the world’s best thin and light laptop.”
Blazing-Fast Performance with M3
Built using industry-leading 3-nanometer technology, the M3 chip brings even faster performance and more capabilities to MacBook Air. Featuring a powerful 8-core CPU, up to a 10-core GPU, and support for up to 24GB of unified memory, the new MacBook Air is up to 60 percent faster than the model with M1 and up to 13x faster than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Air.1 It also features up to 18 hours of battery life, which is up to six hours longer than an Intel-based MacBook Air.1 Users will feel the blazing speed of M3 in everything they do, from everyday productivity, to demanding tasks like photo and video editing, and software development. And with the next-generation GPU of M3, the new MacBook Air supports hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing, offering more accurate lighting, reflections, and shadows for extremely realistic gaming experiences. It also includes the latest media engine with support for AV1 decode, providing more efficient and higher-quality video experiences from streaming services.
M3 takes MacBook Air performance even further:
- Game titles like No Man’s Sky run up to 60 percent faster than the 13-inch MacBook Air with the M1 chip.1
- Enhancing an image with AI using Photomator’s Super Resolution feature is up to 40 percent faster than the 13-inch model with the M1 chip, and up to 15x faster for customers who haven’t upgraded to a Mac with Apple silicon.1
- Working in Excel spreadsheets is up to 35 percent faster than the 13-inch model with the M1 chip, and up to 3x faster for customers who haven’t upgraded to a Mac with Apple silicon.1
- Video editing in Final Cut Pro® is up to 60 percent faster than the 13-inch model with the M1 chip, and up to 13x faster for customers who haven’t upgraded to a Mac with Apple silicon.1
- Compared to a PC laptop with an Intel Core i7 processor, MacBook Air delivers up to 2x faster performance, up to 50 percent faster web browsing, and up to 40 percent longer battery life.1
World’s Best Consumer Laptop for AI
With the transition to Apple silicon, every Mac® is a great platform for AI. M3 includes a faster and more efficient 16-core Neural Engine, along with accelerators in the CPU and GPU to boost on-device machine learning, making MacBook Air the world’s best consumer laptop for AI. Leveraging this incredible AI performance, macOS delivers intelligent features that enhance productivity and creativity, so users can enable powerful camera features, real-time speech to text, translation, text predictions, visual understanding, accessibility features, and much more.
With a broad ecosystem of apps that deliver advanced AI features, users can do everything from checking their homework with AI Math Assistance in Goodnotes 6, to automatically enhancing photos in Pixelmator Pro, to removing background noise from a video using CapCut. Combined with the unified memory architecture of Apple silicon, MacBook Air can also run optimized AI models, including large language models (LLMs) and diffusion models for image generation locally with great performance. In addition to on-device performance, MacBook Air supports cloud-based solutions, enabling users to run powerful productivity and creative apps that tap into the power of AI, such as Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, Canva, and Adobe Firefly.
World’s Most Popular Laptop
More people choose MacBook Air over any other laptop, and M3 raises the bar yet again with its phenomenal combination of performance, portability, and capabilities users love:
- Two perfect sizes in a super-portable design: With a durable aluminum enclosure that’s built to last, the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air have fantastic battery life, are incredibly light, and are less than half an inch thin, so users can work, play, or create from anywhere. The 13-inch model provides the ultimate in portability, while the 15-inch model offers even more screen real estate for multitasking. There’s a perfect size for everyone, from students on the go to business professionals who prefer a larger screen.
- Gorgeous Liquid Retina display: MacBook Air features a brilliant 13.6- or 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display with up to 500 nits of brightness, support for 1 billion colors, and up to 2x the resolution of comparable PC laptops. Content looks vivid with sharp detail, and text appears super crisp.
- Support for up to two external displays: MacBook Air with M3 now supports up to two external displays when the laptop lid is closed — perfect for business users, or anyone who requires multiple displays for multitasking across apps or spreading out documents at the same time.
- Versatile connectivity: MacBook Air with M3 features Wi-Fi 6E, which delivers download speeds that are up to twice as fast as the previous generation. It also includes MagSafe charging and two Thunderbolt ports for connecting accessories, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack.
- Camera, mics, and speakers: With a 1080p FaceTime® HD camera, users will look their best whether they’re connecting with friends and family, or collaborating with coworkers around the world. Users will also sound their best with a three-mic array and enhanced voice clarity on audio and video calls. MacBook Air features an immersive sound system with support for Spatial Audio along with Dolby Atmos, so users can enjoy three-dimensional soundstages for music and movies.
- Magic Keyboard and Touch ID: The comfortable and quiet backlit Magic Keyboard® comes with a full-height function row with Touch ID®, giving users a fast, easy, and secure way to unlock their Mac; sign in to apps and websites; and make purchases with Apple Pay® — all with the touch of a finger.
