MacBook Air 15-inch (2024)

No quantum leap, but M3 chip is a neat upgrade

-  GERALD LYNCH

$1,299 From www.apple.com

Features Apple M3 chip, 8GB unified memory (16GB/24GB available), 15.3in Liquid Retina display (2,880 x 1,864), 256GB storage (512GB/1TB/2TB available), Wi-Fi 6E (aka 802.11ax Wi-Fi), Bluetooth 5.3, 2x Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports, MagSafe 3 port, 3.5mm headphone jack

THE 15-INCH MACBOOK AIR IS STILL A SUPREMELY PORTABLE MACHINE, WITH THE BENEFITS OF EXTRA SCREEN REAL ESTATE

THE M3 MACBOOK Air lands with a nearidentical look to its predecessor, but with a few performance and feature improvements facilitated by that new M3 chip. For those who held out from picking up last year's model, was it worth the wait? Read on to find out.

The new 15-inch MacBook Air M3 is available to order now, direct from Apple, with other retail partners following suit. You will get the most configuration options if you buy it from Apple, though.

Prices start at $1,299, which gets you an 8-core CPU / 10-core GPU, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. RAM can be configured with two further options 16GB adds $200 to the price, while the maximum 24GB adds $400. You've got three SSD storage options that can be chosen over the 256GB entrylevel, too - 512GB puts another $200 on the price tag, 1TB adds $400, and 2TB costs an additional $800 over the base price.

As ever, Apple's RAM and storage upgrades come at a premium, but they're near impossible to add post-purchase, so you'll want to make sure you're making the right choice to get many years of use out of it. A fully spec'd 15-inch MacBook Air with M3 will cost $2,499 - at this level consider an M3 MacBook Pro instead.

All models are available in four colors: "Midnight" navy-black, a "Starlight" pearlygold, a dark "Space Gray" and a lighter "Silver".