First Press Release of the Month Yields New MacBook Airs

Yep! This is not a joke! New MacBook Airs (in 13" and 15" sizes) with the M3 chip were just announced in a press release! And I think this is a great update, because in addition to the M3 chip, the new Airs boast two long-asked-for features: support for more than one external display (up to two, at max both 60Hz and one 5K and another 6K) (although this leaves the MacBook lineup in a strange spot, with the MacBook Air supporting more external displays than the MacBook Pro powered by the same chip), and a Midnight finish that doesn't serve as a safety hazard (before it could easily be swamped with fingerprints, and that plus Touch ID doesn't go well together). Too bad the support for two external displays only works with the MacBook Air in clamshell mode and closed. Anyway, the features that aren't that wanted but still good additions are the M3 chip and Wi-Fi 6E (the latter "up to 2x faster than Wi-Fi 6"). The M3 chip, just for a refresher (don't blame yourself if you don't know the relatively new M3 chip just announced in October, as well), features ray tracing and mesh shading native to the hardware rather than a software addition, AV1 video decoding with the new media engine, an overall better-performing Neural Engine (refresher: 16 cores, performing 18 trillion operations per second), hardware-native AI capabilities (although we're still waiting for Apple to make the AI software at WWDC in early June) to run AI programs 100% on the MacBook Air with no network or server doing anything, 25 billion transistors (spaced 3nm apart from each other), an 8-core CPU with an equal performance/efficiency core split and an up to 10-core GPU, and of course is an Apple-made chip part of the Apple silicon family that started in 2020. Same prices as before ($1,099 for the 13", and $1,299 for the 15"). Beyond features and to the overall lineup, the M1 Air is apparently discontinued, with the M2 now the cheaper (I mean, less expensive: nothing Apple is ever cheap) model at $999. As always, you can find $100 discounts at the Apple Education Store if you're a student, however. You can preorder the new MacBook Airs starting right now, and you'll get them when they are available on the 8th. See how I said in the title that it is the "first press release of the month"? That's because more new products are coming in press releases, the M2 iPad Air and M3 iPad Pro to be exact.

Sources: Cult of Mac (https://www.cultofmac.com/848041/m3-macbook-air/)

By Leo