The M3 MacBook Air "Problems"

Apple launched their new M3 MacBook airs

there's a 13-in model and this here is

their 15-in model but despite being what

many would argue to be the best laptop

in this segment there were a lot of

concerns and complaints that kind of

bubbled up right at the announcement

like when I tweeted about it there were

just people that were I think that had

legitimate concerns about it but there's

also stuff that seems a little bit

misguided I kind of want to go through

it so uh right off the rip this is the

M2 MacBook Air in a 13-inch model and

this is the M3 and the surface anization

on the new M3 versions at least in the

darker colors so the midnight color and

the space black are supposed to have

this like seal to them like kind of

coating over it to prevent fingerprints

or to kind of reduce the presence of

fingerprints and when I tested it on the

space black model last year it seemed

pretty noticeable but for whatever

reason I'll just demonstrate real quick

so this is the M21 when I smudge it

around my nose and my face which is

disgusting but just to get the point

across the grease appears right there

kind of smudges appear if I do the same

thing on the new one I would have

imagined that it would be much more

reduced but I feel like there's not much

of a difference and I was surprised I

mean look at me I'm like rubbing laptops

on my face here but I was surprised at

how present these smudges were uh and I

don't know if I got a lemon or something

but like when I try to clean it off it

seems just as smudgy so my impression is

that it is slightly better than the

nonsealed version but it's not like a

fingerprint prooof material if that's

what you're hoping for okay on to the

actual meat of this video uh all right

first I want to talk about what I think

is the biggest change or update to the

M3 product it's the ability for the M3

MacBook Air to be to connect to two

external displays now to be able to pull

this off the lid has to be closed you

cannot use the built-in laptop screen

it's just if you're connecting two

screens it'll now work if you do want to

use the built-in laptop screen you're

back down to just One external display

just like the M1 and M2 MacBook airs now

when this feature was announced I think

a lot of people were disappointed

because they were like how is this

announcement like there's so many

Windows laptops out there that can run

three or four screens concurrently and

even the previous generation of MacBook

airs like the Intel based ones those

could run two external screens with its

internal laptop screen running like what

GES what what's going on here well I

think it's just the nature of these

chips these M1 M2 M3 like the base model

of those chips they've always only had

one display controller that would handle

the external displays it was just like

one single controller that could handle

a 6K output for externals now what I

think they're doing now on the M3

MacBook Air I think they're just

rerouting the internal 5K uh display

controller and just pumping it out

there's no like malice or like bizarre

trickery going on that's just the nature

of the hardware you cannot have more

than those two displays running at any

given time and I see the complaints like

there's that's that's just the way the

hardware is now that being said I think

that there's some kind of trickery that

was going on back in the day as in when

I think about what's happening here it

doesn't make sense for Apple to just

give out free features like this that's

just Apple's not in the business of

doing that right I think what happened

is that Apple felt pressured to do this

from the Enterprise clients like for a

lot of people I know several kind of

high-end clients that purchase Apple

hardware and they held back from Apple

silicon they continued to use their

intel-based MacBooks because those

things could run two external screens no

problem and I think Intel banked on

Enterprise clients to be able to just

pay a premium and buy into that Pro

lineup to get that extra screen external

stuff and I don't think people wanted to

spend that money and I think Apple felt

pressured they're like you know what I

think we have to do this if we're going

to get a lot of Enterprise clients to

switch over to Apple silicon I think

that's the only thing that makes sense

to me why else would they do this right

this seems too good for Apple's nature

to be true but I think it's a win I

don't think it's perfect but having two

external displays on an entry-level

MacBook Air is not bad but you do need

to have peripherals now connected to

that device uh the second point of

contention is the starting configuration

of 8 GB of RAM and 256 gigs of storage I

hate it every time I see it like it

bothers me now there's two issues at

hand here first is the whole idea that

the starting configuration is only 8

gigs of RAM but the second issue is the

price of the upgrades now I'm going to

address the 8 gigs of Base Ram first I

don't think that that number is terrible

in the sense that there are a ton of

people I would say the vast majority of

people that even consider this machine

that would be perfectly good with 8 gigs

of RAM for like five six years and would

never notice any difference in the

workflow if they had 16 gigs of RAM I I

firmly believe that I've done a lot of

testing I've shown it to you guys I

think there's a lot of like clickbait

YouTube out there that tries to to build

the idea that you absolutely need 16

gigs of RAM but rage bait doesn't take

away from the reality of data if you're

using it for regular use 8 gigs of RAM

is plenty for the vast majority of

people but the other issue at hand is

the cost of the upgrades and it wouldn't

be having this super sweaty conversation

about RAM on a MacBook if it wasn't for

the fact that they have crazy pricing

for those upgrades like to go from 8

gigs of RAM to 16 is $200 I actually

think it's like five times the industry

price for like Ram upgrades at this

point but because it's all baked on you

have to make that decision upfront now

if you think about the math it's like

literally 20% more money to go for an

extra eight gigs of RAM it's so stupid

it it like eats my soul every time I

look at that configuration pricing but I

think there's a bit of a solution here I

think for most people that are looking

at that like the the price configurator

and they're like wow that is a stupid

amount of money and it is but usually

you're like on a hard budget you're like

I have 1,00 bucks or like whatever 12200

00 bucks and that's my limit like I

don't want to go more than that so like

what do I do and the The Simple Solution

this time is you don't get the M3

because they have great product the M2

that's 100 bucks cheaper and if you get

it on refb or used it's even more you

can get like 15 20% off just by going to

the previous generation and if you want

to save even more money the M1 MacBook

airs are even cheaper which leads me to

the conversation of that mild

performance gain over the years from M1

to M3 cuz that has been another

complaint that we keep see popping up

it's like wow these new Chips aren't

that much better absolutely they aren't

but that's kind of a good thing right in

terms of pricing when they when they

release this M3 product they have to

reduce the price of the older one and if

the gains aren't massive which they

aren't just buy the old one I think in

all my years of doing YouTube I don't

think I've ever made a video where I was

like don't buy the new one buy the old

one because that's normally like common

sense right if you want the best value

the previous generation is always going

to be that case so I don't bother with

that but in think in this particular

timing of this time period because the

M2 and m1s were so close in performance

to the M3 and they're that much cheaper

and apple has a refurb store which has

like steeper discounts it just doesn't

make sense to buy the M3 product if

you're on a tight budget unless you need

the double external screen now the CPU

gains since M1 have been limited the

gains when it comes to graphics

performance though is more noticeable

it's just that it's quite dependent on

the application that you're using now

the battery life on the M3 MacBook air15

was really similar to the M2 product

from last year it's just that it seems

to drain a little faster on heavier

loads but I think in general when you

look at Apple's website there's a reason

why they're comparing a lot of this

performance on the M3 MacBook Air

product to Intel products just because

that's where you're going to notice the

biggest gains now in terms of gaming

this is a fanless system right keep that

in mind but uh this can run some pretty

demanding games at lower settings but in

general you're going to want to be

playing some really light titles now the

last last thing I want to talk about

real briefly is the mentioning of AI in

Apple's marketing material so they

talked about running llms and defusion

models on the M3 MacBook Air and it's

legit even though they don't use

nvidia's Cuda Apple silicon is fairly

effective at handling that type of

workflow uh now just to wrap this off

the internals of this device haven't

changed right like nothing or when I say

internals I mean like the screen and the

keyboard this is still a class leading

keyboard uh the speakers are't change

these sound really good especially for a

device that's super thin like this uh on

the screen it goes up to 500 nits this

is a solid screen I mean obviously the

exposure of the camera is kind of

portraying A Brighter Image than it

actually gets up to it is capped at 60

HZ if that matters to you it is like the

thing that I believe Apple uses just

kind of separate the pro products from

the amateur products uh that refresh

rate okay there you have it the M3

MacBook

Air