MacBook Air M3 After 3 Months: Value You Won't Believe!

Summary

In this video, Kyle Erikson shares his 3-month experience with the M3 MacBook Air, comparing it to the M3 Pro MacBook Pro. He discusses design, performance, and battery life, highlighting the Air's thin and light form factor, its two USBC ports, and fanless design. Kyle finds the Air's performance impressive for productivity, coding, and creative workflows, with only minor GPU differences noticed in GPU-intensive tasks. He also praises the MacBook Air's battery life and overall solid performance, concluding that it meets the needs of most users, except for those with very specific advanced requirements.

Takeaways

• 😀 The M3 MacBook Air has been used daily for 3 months for various tasks, including productivity, coding, and creative workflows.
• 💻 The MacBook Air is often underrated due to its thin design and fanless nature, which some people may perceive as underpowered.
• 🔧 The 13-inch model in midnight color has a new anodization process to reduce fingerprints, but they are still visible and prone to wear.
• 🔌 The MacBook Air has only two USB-C ports, which might limit versatility compared to the MacBook Pro but hasn't been a significant issue for the user.
• 🖥 The Liquid Retina display on the M3 MacBook Air offers a high-quality viewing experience, suitable for photo and video editing.
• 🚀 The M3 MacBook Air's performance has been comparable to the M3 Pro MacBook Pro for most tasks, with minor differences in GPU-intensive applications.
• 💾 The user's configuration has 16GB of memory and a 500GB SSD, which provides a noticeable performance bump from the base model.
• 🔋 The M3 MacBook Air has excellent battery life, easily lasting a full workday with light to moderate use.
• 🔧 The MacBook Air's SSD speed and memory bandwidth are high, but the user has not noticed a significant difference in everyday use compared to other Macs.
• 🌐 External SSDs are used by the user for most workflows, as internal SSD speeds are rarely a bottleneck.
• 🔄 The MacBook Air's fanless design can get warm but does not throttle performance noticeably, even during heavy tasks.

Q & A

How long has the author been using the M3 MacBook Air?

The author has been using the M3 MacBook Air for 3 months.

What are the primary use cases for the M3 MacBook Air as mentioned by the author?

The author uses the M3 MacBook Air for productivity, coding, and creative workflows both at home and while traveling.

What is the author's perception of the MacBook Air's design?

The author thinks the MacBook Air is an underrated laptop with a thin and fanless design, which some people might perceive as underpowered, but it is more capable than given credit for.

How does the author describe the build quality and durability of the M3 MacBook Air?

The author mentions that the M3 MacBook Air, despite being thin, has held up well even with frequent use and travel, showing minimal signs of wear around the USB-C ports.

What are the limitations of the M3 MacBook Air's port selection compared to the MacBook Pro?

The M3 MacBook Air only has two USB-C ports, which limits its versatility compared to the MacBook Pro that offers more port options.

How does the author utilize the HyperDrive USB 4 SSD enclosure in their workflow?

The author uses the HyperDrive USB 4 SSD enclosure with an NVMe drive like the Samsung 980 Pro for high-speed data transfer, which often outperforms the internal drive of the MacBook Air.

What is the author's experience with video editing on the M3 MacBook Air?

The author finds video editing on the M3 MacBook Air to be smooth, with export times and performance being almost identical to the M3 Pro MacBook Pro, despite the latter having a more powerful GPU.

How does the author's M3 MacBook Air configuration compare to the base model?

The author's configuration has 16GB of memory, a 512GB SSD, an 8-core CPU, and a 10-core GPU, which is a significant upgrade from the base model with 8GB of memory, a 256GB SSD, and fewer GPU cores.

What is the author's opinion on the M3 MacBook Air's performance for coding and graphic design?

The author finds the M3 MacBook Air to be very smooth for coding and graphic design tasks, with no noticeable difference in performance compared to the M3 Pro MacBook Pro for regular usage.

How does the M3 MacBook Air perform in terms of battery life according to the author?

The M3 MacBook Air has excellent battery life, easily getting through a full workday and more with light use, and only needing to be charged once or twice during a week-long trip.

What is the author's stance on the importance of SSD speed in the M3 MacBook Air?

The author does not consider SSD speed to be a bottleneck or a deciding factor for purchasing the M3 MacBook Air, as they have not noticed a significant difference in SSD speed between Mac models during actual use.