Apple MacBook Air 2024 vs MacBook Air 2023: What’s new/improved

Apple has unveiled the new MacBook Air with the powerful M3 chip, taking its combination of power-efficient performance and portability to a new level.

Apple claims that with the M3 chip, MacBook Air is up to 60 percent faster than the model with the M1 chip and up to 13x faster than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Air.

But how is the Apple MacBook Air 2024 different from the MacBook Air released last year? Let’s find out.

Also read: New Apple iPads and more rumoured to launch this week

Performance

The major difference between Apple MacBook Air 2024 and MacBook Air 2023 is the chip. The MacBook Air 2024 is equipped with the M3 chip, while the MacBook Air 2023 is powered by the M2 chip. 

Built using 3-nanometer technology, the M3 chip brings even faster performance and more capabilities to MacBook Air.

With the next-generation GPU of M3, the new MacBook Air supports hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing, offering more accurate lighting, reflections and shadows for improved gaming experiences.

The Apple MacBook Air 2024 also includes the latest media engine with support for AV1 decode, providing more efficient and higher-quality video experiences from streaming services.

Also read: Apple warns about putting your wet iPhone in rice: Here’s what to do instead

Support for up to two external displays

MacBook Air with M3 supports up to two external displays when the laptop lid is closed. 

For comparison, the MacBook Air with M2 only supports one external display.

Connectivity & enhanced calls

MacBook Air with M3 features Wi-Fi 6E, which delivers download speeds that are up to twice as fast as the previous generation.

On the other hand, the MacBook Air with M2 chip features Wi-Fi 6.

The MacBook Air with M3 Chip also comes with enhanced voice clarity on audio and video calls. 

Anodization seal 

Like MacBook Air 2023, the new MacBook Air also comes in four colour options: Midnight, starlight, space grey, and silver.

However, the midnight variant of the MacBook Air 2024 features an anodization seal to reduce fingerprints.

AI

Last, but not the least, Apple claims that the M3 chip includes a faster and more efficient 16-core Neural Engine, along with accelerators in the CPU and GPU to boost on-device machine learning, making MacBook Air the world’s best consumer laptop for AI. 

Leveraging this AI performance, macOS delivers intelligent features that enhance productivity and creativity, so users can enable powerful camera features, real-time speech to text, translation, text predictions, visual understanding, accessibility features, and much more.

You can check your homework with AI Math Assistance in Goodnotes 6, enhance photos in Pixelmator Pro, and remove background noise from a video using CapCut, and much more.

MacBook Air can also run optimised AI models, including large language models (LLMs) and diffusion models for image generation locally with great performance.

Moreover, MacBook Air supports cloud-based solutions, allowing users to run powerful productivity and creative AI apps, such as Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, Canva, and Adobe Firefly.