After discovering that the Spring Apple Event wouldn't be as we expected, the launch of the new MacBook Air with M3 chip came as a surprise. It has now been disassembled and scrutinized, revealing an improvement that, although minor, significantly modifies the user experience and adds to the differences between this new model and the previous MacBook Air with M2 chip.
The new MacBook Air with M3 chip significantly improves its performance
The repair site iFixit recently published a video in which they tear down the base model of the new 13-inch MacBook Air with the M3 chip and 256GB of storage. This internal analysis brought to light that, unlike its predecessor with the M2 chip, the new model (both the 13 and 15 inches) includes not one, but two 128GB flash storage chips. This seemingly minor change results in notably faster SSD speeds, as the system can read and write data simultaneously from both chips.
Indeed, the YouTube channel Max Tech tested both the M2 and M3 models of the 13-inch MacBook Air, using Blackmagic's tool to test disk speed, and the results were clear: the SSD in the M3 model achieved writing speeds up to 33% faster and reading speeds up to 82% higher compared to the SSD in the M2 model.
Apple's decision to return to the dual-chip configuration for the base model of the MacBook Air with M3 chip is a very welcome change, as achieving the 256GB size through two 128GB chips in parallel allows combining both speeds to offer much faster read and write speeds. Something that, in the M2 model, already happened in the 500GB configurations and beyond, but not in the entry-level 256 configuration.
Aside from the SSD-related change, the teardown reveals that the M3 models of the MacBook Air (which Jony Ive almost managed to eliminate) have an internal design practically identical to the M2 models. The video provides a detailed view of the battery cells with adhesive pull tabs, the logic board, the trackpad… among other components.
With this change, Apple completely addresses the performance limit concern in the M2 model that, although most likely unnoticed for our everyday tasks, could be significant when pushing the computer to its limits. Sometimes, a minor modification in internal components can have a large impact on the overall performance of a device.
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