The new M3 MacBook Air has been rumored for over a year Then again, this new MacBook surprised everyone with a random press release announcement rather than a flashy launch event

Now that we've seen what Apple calls "the world's best consumer laptop with AI," let's answer the obvious question on many people's lips

In other words, since the M2 MacBook Air is #1 on our best laptops list, the Cupertino staff has to be cautious about upgrading it so as not to spoil its greatness Here's what we know so far

Of course, the M2 MacBook AIr starts at $999 for the 13" model The only real change to this system is the elimination of the 15-inch M2 model This larger screen size is reserved exclusively for the M3 version, and pricing for these models is as follows:

Pre-orders are currently being taken, with full availability set for March 8 [Apple proved it with the MacBook Air It offers users a very sleek system that is beautiful from every angle, while still maintaining a flat, practical design

Open the MacBook Air and you will notice that everything else has remained the same From the keyboard and trackpad to the display, you literally get the exact same experience, and whether you choose the 136" or 153" Liquid Retina panel, Global editor-in-chief Mark Spoonauer says, "Video viewing, photo editing, and more You get the same great color rendering that Global Editor-in-Chief Mark Spoonauer said is "perfect for video viewing, photo editing, and everything else you want to do with no trade-offs

It's great that the Air's legendary smarts and standard port arrangement are not traded off for the M3's power

The M2 is no slouch, but the M3 shows off some serious wizardry, thanks to the move from a 5nm process to a 3nm process (in essence, smaller diodes allow more stuff to be packed onto the computer chip, improving performance and power efficiency), Apple was able to include hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading in the new Air

Besides, this is the first time Apple has started talking seriously about AI and all of its potential to be unleashed with the Neural Engine: the 16-core engine is faster than the M2 and promises "great performance" when running optimized AI models on devices and in the cloud, it promises

One thing we can't be sure of is how the chip spec upgrade will affect the MacBook Air, with Apple's usual antics to let us know how much better it is than the M1 and Intel machines and there is zero mention of the M2 in the comparison

We'll have to wait to see the hands-on results of the new Air, but if the differences between the M2 and M3 MacBook Pros are any indication, we can expect to see significant improvements in single-core and multi-core performance, along with significant improvements in graphics performance

How would the performance of the M3 change with a fanless metal construction? Time will tell Special kudos to two upgrades that seem to be mostly ignored: first, Wi-Fi 6E is now included for faster download/upload speeds; second, for the first time on an entry-level Apple silicon, this laptop now supports two monitors! [8GB RAM/256GB SSD is the basic configuration In the laptop arena, this is getting a bit more ridiculous

The MacBook's battery life is one of Apple Silicon's greatest achievements and frankly puts its current competition with Windows to shame This lineage is likely to continue with the M3 Air, with this model touting "up to 18 hours of battery life" (the same marketing for the M2)

In fact, when we put the M2 Air through its paces, the ultra-thin machine logged 14 hours and 33 minutes in our rigorous battery life test Given Apple's track record, it would be natural to expect the same this time around But let's make a definite statement when we try out the new model

The release of the M3 MacBook Air may be more of a refresh than a major leap forward, and we won't know if the refresh is major or minor until we get our hands on the latest model But this is the long-awaited update of the undisputed champion when it comes to the best laptop you can buy

This is the epitome of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality, and I'm here for it Stay tuned for my review of the new MacBook Air