The M3 Air arrived in March 2024. The headline change is dual external display support. The M2 Air was capped at one external screen, which knocked it out of consideration for anyone working with two monitors.

The chip M3, 8-core CPU, 8 or 10 core GPU, up to 24GB unified memory. For coding, browsing, design and even moderate Xcode builds it is more than enough.

Battery 18 hours claimed. Real world: 11-13 of mixed use. I went four full work days without plugging in once.

The fanless design No fan, no noise. Sustained loads will throttle, but for most workloads you never notice. If you are exporting Davinci timelines, get a Pro.

What it replaced for me A 13 inch MacBook Pro M1. The M3 Air is lighter, runs cooler under spike loads, and the screen is the same panel. I did not miss the Touch Bar.

Who should not buy it Video editors. ML researchers. Anyone running heavy Docker stacks day in day out. Get the Pro M3 instead.

Self-hosting from a Mac I use my desktop M2 mini for self-hosting now. [DigitalOcean has a £200 free credit through this link](https://m.do.co/c/3389d86ebe0c) if you want to try a VPS instead.

[Mac mini M4 long-term review](/blog/mac-mini-m4-pro-home-server) covers the home-server angle.

MacBook Air M3 review: the default laptop you should buy