The MacBook Air has been a preferred laptop device based on its performance and sleek aesthetics. The MacBook M2 and the M3 MacBook Air are two of the most popular models from the brand. But which one should you choose? While you can check out the detailed specifications at Maple, here’s a quick comparative analysis of both.
Comparing the Chip: The Powerhouse of the Device
The first and most important difference between the MacBook M2 and M3 is the chip. The MacBook M2 comes with the M2 chip, and the M3 comes with a slightly more advanced M3 chip. The key features of both include
- Up to 16 hrs of battery life
- Up to 2 TB of storage
- Up to 10 core GPU
- 8 core CPU
- Unified memory of up to 24 GB
- Touch ID
The M3 chip can offer up to 22 hours of battery life for the larger M3.
In several benchmark tests, the M3 is seen to perform 21% better than the M2 in multi core tasks and 18% better in single core ones. The M2 Chip is based on the A15 Bionic chip and has 2p billion transistors, a neutral engine, and 3.49 GHz of CPU clock speed.
The M3 MacBook Air has the M3 chip based on the A17 chip, which has 25 billion transistors, a faster neutral engine, and 4.05 Ghz of clock CPU clock speed. It also has other features like hardware accelerated mesh trading, ray tracing, and dynamic caching.
Display and Colours
Both the MacBook M2 and M3 have a screen size of 13.6 inches and have a Liquid Retina Display. The M3 MacBook Air comes with a 14.2 inch screen option as well as a more advanced Liquid Retina XDR Display.
This mini LED backlit display supports XDR brightness while the M2 also gets 500 nits brightness. Both models have True Tone technology. The larger MacBook Air M3 gets an additional ProMotion technology with adaptive refresh rates of up to 120Hz.
The colour options for both are also similar and include
- Midnight
- Starlight
- Space Grey
- Silver
The larger M3 gets only the Space Grey and Silver colour choices.
Storage Options
| DEVICE | STORAGE |
| MacBook M2 | 256GB SSD, 512GB SSD, 1TB SSD, 2TB SSD |
| MacBook M3 13.6 inches | 256GB SSD, 512GB SSD, 1TB SSD, 2TB SSD |
| MacBook M3 14.2 inches | 512GB SSD, 1TB SSD, 2TB SSD |
Audio and Acoustics
The M3 MacBook Air comes with a choice of a 4 speaker sound system with wide stereo sound or a 6 speaker high fidelity sound system equipped with force cancelling woofers. The M2 comes with a standard 4 speaker sound system. Both models offer spatial audio support when playing videos or music using Dolby Atmos.
The M3 has a choice of a mic array with directional beamforming for the smaller and an advanced studio quality mic with the same function and an added high signal to noise ratio for the larger model. The M2, on the other hand, gets the same three dimensional mic with a directional beamforming array. It also has some advanced features like voice isolation for enhanced clarity.
Final Words
The choice between the MacBook M2 and the M3 comes down to your purpose and budget. Both models are powerful and guarantee excellent performance. You can now buy the MacBook M2 and M3, or check out the MacBook Air 15 price in India at Maple, Apple’s trusted reseller for authentic products at the best prices.