The M3 Macbook Air Is Finally as Fast as It Should Be

If you’re in the market for a new MacBook Air, you’ll be happy to know that the new, base $1099 MacBook Air has no glaring issues like the base M2 model did. The SSD speeds are finally fast enough for us to again recommend the base-level MacBook Air. How fast? We’re talking almost double the read speeds, and 33% faster write speeds. For one year, that’s quite a jump.

What was up with the M2 MacBook Air?

If you don’t spend a lot of time reading about Apple news online (we don’t blame you), you might not know about a little change that Apple made with the base model M2 MacBook Air.

In the base M1 MacBook Air with 256GB storage, Apple used two 128GB NAND chips that worked in parallel. With multiple NAND chips, MacBook can perform read and write operations across these chips simultaneously, effectively doubling the data pathways and increasing the overall speed of data transfer. This is similar to having multiple lanes on a highway, allowing more traffic to flow at the same time, compared to a single-lane road.

The M2 MacBook Air shifted to a single 256 NAND chip, effectively closing down one traffic pathway. But, with the base M3 MacBook Air, Apple is back to using two individual NAND chips and the results speak for themselves. 

How much faster is the M3 MacBook Air?

Based on the benchmarks performed by Max Tech on the new base M3 MacBook Air, the SSD storage is 33% faster at write speeds, and close to double as fast (82%) at read speeds. 

The read speeds went up from 1576 MB/s to 2889 MB/s, and the write speeds went up from 1584 MB/s to 2108 MB/s.

These changes matter a lot especially on the base MacBook Air because the computer uses the SSD for as RAM when it’s under heavy load. And when it’s in RAM swap, these faster speeds really come in handy. There's now no need to upgrade to the 512GB model just to get faster SSD speeds.

While the tests were performed on the 13-inch MacBook Air, it’s safe to assume that they carry over to the 15-inch MacBook Air as well. This change, combined with the fact that you can run two screens using the MacBook Air (with the lid closed), the base MacBook Air makes for a great value proposition at $1099. Wait for a sale, and you can snag it for that original price of $999 as well. 

If you want to learn more about the performance differences between the M2 and M3 MacBook Airs, check out our detailed guide.