M2 vs M3 MacBook Air Comparison: When SHOULD you upgrade?

I've got both the M2 MacBook Air and the all-new M3 MacBook Air here in the studio. I take a close look at all the changes between these two models and thoroughly test them out including copious benchmarks to see how the new model performs and whether or not it is worth the upgrade!

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Chapters ➡
0:00 Intro
0:57 SSD performance
2:47 Wi-Fi upgrade
5:09 Journey Nexa sleeve
6:46 New finishes on MacBook Air
8:51 Two external displays
9:35 M3 benchmarks
12:18 Summary and which to buy

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[AppleInsider]

Thanks to Journey for sponsoring this video!

[dkd]

I slept dreaming about the M3 air woke went to the store and ended up buying an M1 with more storage. I will invest the change I have in other equipments

[akshatpruthi]

I bought M2 last week, as I wanted to go for a basic laptop and not looking for high performance..

[cuteatif]

After watching your video, I went ahead and bought myself a midnight 15 inch M2, as there is a very minimal difference in M2 and M3

[gasdia]

Watching this from my 13 MBA from 2015! Thinking about getting the M3 … but the MBA m2 with 16 gb of RAM is tempting

[FRKNSTN_music]

This is one of the first in video ads that I didn’t skip. That sleeve is actually really neat!

[mikes]

I have an old MacBook Air and it still does everything I need. The new one does look tempting.

[davidjacobs]

Been using Macs for 13 years and I’ve still only filled just over 100GB so 256GB is still enough for some users.That’s why it still exists.

[ooplasma]

I'm on a 2018 macbook pro base model, i was looking at my storage usage and im at only 80GB used, not sure I need to upgrade the 256GB SSD tbh.

[TechPhotoGames]

Great review, MBA M3 or M2 is a solid choice for anyone looking for a 5+ year laptop (or longer). I'm still enjoying my M1 and it's been a solid workhorse, may look at upgrading to M4 next year - the AI locality will be strong on the M series systems.

[deepakdevellore]

starlight is so underrated, it resists all smudges and looks clean and new even its dirtier than nyc subway

[valhallaoutcast]

My old 2015 MBP is finally due to be upgraded, I am not you typical pro user so it was always overkill, will be getting a MBA just trying to decide between M2 and M3 in Canada its a $200 difference, I think the M2 will do me just fine

[Little-bird-told-me]

My 2014 Air still serves me well. However if i were to upgrade I might choose the m2 as m3 doeasn't offer anything spectatcular over M2. For my usecase slightly slower SSD is not an issue.

[AlexS-hxzv]

I just got the M2 MacBook Air last week, and it everything that your average consumer would need. Even more - I film & edit videos

[ajleslie]

Big notice from the pro to the m2 is the speakers. My 2017 had a much nice speaker, but its thicker.

[rheacutillo]

15” Air, choosing between refurbished M2 24gb/2TB or new M3 16Ram/1tb. Thoughts please?

[ingramdw]

My 15" midnight M3 MacBook Air is on its way already - upgrading from a 13" midnight M2 model - pretty much just like your video. I agree this is the sweet spot machine.

[rnegoro]

Did you use the base M2 model for the test ? the base M2 model is found to be slower, you have to use the upgraded to 512 gb

[jillf]

I’m scared of Apple suddenly discontinuing software updates but I want the M2 so bad!!! Even with the rapid cycling of products, is the M2 still worth it?

[shaikhhar]

The problem with 256GB ssd is not the storage space itself. 256 is more than enough for most preofessional. I have 140GB free out of 256GB in mine and I work professional software development task in it with multiple servers running locally, tabs open, docker instances, etc

The issue with 256 GB is if paired with low RAM and heavy usecase, which cause a lot of swapping hence causing lot of writes to the drives called (TBW)
Now higher the SSD storage, higher is the TBW rating. Eg 256GB has 150TB, 512 has 300TB and so on. So if you have low RAM and use it heavily, your SSD 'might' die sooner than if you had higher Storage SSD.

So either have sufficient RAM in which case get the least SSD (upgrade not worth 200$ or more for just 256GB extra) Or get enough SSD (Atleast 512GB) because not only these SSDs are not upgradeable in Apple but more importantly they are also non-replacable, hence if your SSD dies then your whole otherwise perfectly functioning macbook is rendered useless