Apple has announced the release of two new MacBook Air laptops, both equipped with the latest Apple Silicon M3 processors.
These laptops come in 13 and 15-inch sizes and offer up to 18 hours of battery life. In addition, they support running up to two external displays, making them a potential desktop replacement for video editors who need a good platform for editing footage on location.
Image Credit – Apple
The new M3 processors are designed with Apple’s latest 3-nanometer technology and have an 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU. They also offer support of up to 24 GB of unified memory.
These features give users 60 percent better performance than the previous M1 MacBook Airs and over 13 times faster than the fastest Apple Intel model. The GPU is built with hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing, which is not only great for realistic gaming but also for creating more natural-looking CGI with better lighting, reflections, and shadow effects with realistic detail.
Image Credit – Apple
The laptops also come equipped with a new efficient 16-core neural engine for on-device machine learning, which Apple says makes the new MacBook Air the best consumer laptop for using artificial intelligence.
macOS has also been optimized to deliver a fine-tuned AI performance which boosts productivity to keep users from being bogged down in the minute mechanics of their workflow.
Users can do everything from removing background noise, enhancing photos, running optimized AI diffusion models for image generation, and developing cloud-based solutions.
Image Credit – Apple
Apple’s iconic Liquid Retina display displays high-resolution 2880 x 1864 resolution graphics with up to 500 nits of brightness, with wide P3 color gamut and support for 1 billion colors that make any visual content look vivid with sharp detail and crisp text.
The MacBook Air also supports running up to two displays through Thunderbolt making it ideal for content creators hungering for additional screen real estate without being chained to a desk. The processors can encode and decode the latest AV1 video codecs with more efficient and higher-resolution video while streaming.
The new MacBook Pros can edit video footage in Final Cut Pro 60 percent faster and two times faster than a comparable PC laptop using an Intel Core i7 processor with 40 percent greater battery life, for a total of up to 18 hours.
Other features include a 1080p Facetime HD camera for video conferencing, an immersive sound system with support for Dolby Atmos, and Apple’s three-dimensional Spatial Audio that makes video content a more immersive experience.
There is also a backlit magic keyboard with TouchID, two Thunderbolt 3 ports with support for USB 4, WiFi 6E for faster download speeds, and a 3.5mm headphone hack.
All of this is packed inside Apple’s unibody design that has been constructed with up to 50 percent recycled content including a 100 percent recycled aluminum enclosure, rare earth elements, and copper for the main logic board.
Even the packaging is 99 percent fiber-based to make it better for the environment and bring Apple closer to its goal of removing plastic from all packaging by 2025.
Pricing and availability
Both 13-inch and 15-inch M3 MacBook Air models are available now in midnight black, starlight, silver, and space gray. The 13-inch M3 MBA starts at $1,099 or $999 for education, while the 15-inch Air is available starting at $1299, or $1199 for education.
Users can also get a trade-in on their current computer for credit towards a new Mac through Apple’s Trade-In Program. Shipping begins on March 8, 2024.
[source: Apple]
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