Over the years, we’ve touted the MacBook Air as the laptop for just about anyone – it’s an ideal combination of performance, features, and price. It became even more compelling when Apple redesigned it and upgraded to the M2 chip in 2022 and released a 15-inch M2 model in 2023.
The MacBook Air now joins the M3 party that Apple started last autumn. It’s practically the same laptop as before – besides the chip upgrade, there are only two other new features in the new M3 MacBook Air. A lot has not changed with the Air, and neither has our perception of the laptop: The MacBook Air continues to be the best laptop choice for just about anyone.
PERFORMANCE
This update to the MacBook Air is all about the speed bump that’s provided by the new M3 chip. Our benchmarks look at how it compares to the previous M2 as well as the other M3 Macs that Apple offers.
Geekbench 6.2.2 (Single core)
M3 MacBook Air: 3,144
M2 MacBook Air: 2,619
M1 MacBook Pro: 2,380
M3 MacBook Pro: 3,167
Geekbench 6.2.2 (Multi-core)
M3 MacBook Air: 11,936
M2 MacBook Air: 10,030
M1 MacBook Pro: 8,459
M3 MacBook Pro: 11,971
We use Geekbench 6 to check the general, overall performance of a Mac. In both the Single-Core and Multi-Core tests, the M3 MacBook Air was 20 percent faster than the M2 MacBook Air – a typical boost from one chip generation to another.
Compared to the M3 MacBook Pro, you can see that the M3 MacBook Air offers practically the same performance. That’s expected
