MacBook Air M3

[...] gpt-oss:20b is a top ten model (on MMLU (right behind Gemini-2.5-Pro) and I just ran it locally on my Macbook Air M3 from last year. I've been experimenting with a lot of local models, both on my laptop and on my phone (Pixel 9 Pro), and I figured we'd be here in a year or two. [...] A basically frontier model, running for the cost of electricity (free with a rounding error) on my laptop. No $200/month subscription, no lakes being drained, etc. [...]

Regularly leaks memory and I have to kill the process after it reaches 40 GB in size. Happens on my M3 MacBook Air and Pro on a weekly basis since last year. I'd gladly get rid of it if I didn't rely on M365.

[...] I would much rather work on my MacBook Air M3 with a 2TB SSD and 24GB RAM with a 20+ hour battery life than an iPad Air/Pro with a keyboard and mouse attachment that hypothetically runs MacOS. [...] Give me a fully decked out MacBook Air + a cheap $349 low end iPad any day over an iPad Pro. [...] As a bonus I can use my iPad as a second monitor. [...] But the MacBook Air has better battery life and the iPad still makes trade offs between portability and power like less RAM (RAM takes battery), OS optimizations, sustained performance tradeoffs, etc. [...]

Got my m3 MacBook Air last year, absolutely love the thing to bits

Review: After more than three months of use, the M3 MacBook Air has proven itself to be Apple's best Mac for almost anyone, with more than enough flexibility and power for daily tasks.

[...] My work Dell Laptop is only a 3 year old CPU with integrated GPU (and unused Nvidia GPU) but Chromium and Firefox are both slow as shit just loading pages like Slack and Outlook. Even resizing the browser windows seems 4-5x times slower than my M3 Macbook Air. Maybe this is strictly a Linux issue but it hardly matters when the Windows ecosystem is pretty stagnant, full of junk-ware, and software development is much, much better on Linux/MacOS.

[...] My main use is photo-editing, albeit I have a Studio (M1 Ultra) I’ve had for 2 1/2 years now which serves that primary function and it’s still fantastic. [...] Amazingly, when I bought it, it represented the leading edge in my assortment of gear, leaping ahead of my then late 2015 27” iMac. Now of course, that old MacBook is tired, the battery runs down at a torrid pace and it gets ridiculously hot. [...]

[...] My second one was a Macbook Air M3! The Apple II has a very interesting and quirky software collection. [...]

[...] Price was obviously a lot more reasonable at the time. [...] I’ve since purchased an m3 MacBook Air as my thin client and for lightweight travel use, and when my wife needs to take a call in the office or whatever I pop out to the living room and either hop on Remote Desktop or SSH into my Studio. [...]

[...] And use a top level vitest start so it properly runs all the packages in a pipeline rather than as separate vitest runs (which would mess up the maxWorkers optimization anyhow.) I have my 3000 test project suite completing in 15 seconds on my MacBook Air M3. [...]

[...] It's soooo slow workflow wise. [...] The slow workflow MacOS had. [...] But people always argued that I used a subpar Mac device as slow as Macbook Air 11. [...] I use a M3 Macbook Air with 24GB now. [...] And after the glass update, I has become abysmal. [...]

Works well for me. I'm on desktop (Macbook Air M3) but have a decent amount of RAM

I don’t even think you can do hackintoshes anymore post Apple silicon right? I remember having one about 10 years ago and it was absolutely fantastic and ran really well. Wish we could do that now so I wouldn’t have to develop apps on my M3 MacBook Air, which constantly runs out of memory and is a huge pain.

Works great on my M3 MacBook Air under Safari. [...]

I've got an M3 MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM and it runs Ableton and Serato so well I don't actually need a Pro anymore, so Mac may have shot themselves in the foot there.

My MacBook M3 Air & Pro laptops can run two QHD displays with one at 240 Hz and the other at 120 Hz. What it can't do is run either above 60 Hz with HDR enabled. But for my use cases, I've never need more than 60 Hz anyway.

[...] My vision has since gotten bad enough that I can't really use laptops/phones well, anymore — but recently got a 15" MacBookAir, M3 pre-Tahoe (for bedtime youtubies). The hardware is exceptional, battery life even more so... and I'll never update the operating system.

I've tried it, but it's very slow on a not too complex codebase with my M3 Macbook Air. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Language Files Lines Blank Comment Code -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Typescript JSX 121 18724 1699 1051 15974 TypeScript 61 5389 629 550 4210 CSS 5 1039 50 22 967 Markdown 3 657 173 0 484 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was like 5-10FPS at best, not really usable unfortunately because I like these tools. I'm using another similar one which is buttery smooth, Code Canvas.

[...] Applying thermal pads to the VRM module fixed the throttling problem. [...] After buying it, I regularly had throttling issues. [...] (I had two external monitors and using adobe creative suite back then.) I came across some forum posts about the VRM module not being able to cool and that was making the system think it was overheating. It sounded reasonable so I decided to give it a shot. I got the thermal pads, carefully opened the laptop and applied a few layers to the various components to make sure it was touching the case (this is what makes this mod work properly, heat transfer to the aluminum case.) It worked like magic, it felt like a brand new computer after months of bad experiences. Only side effect was that bottom case gets really hot (that heat needs to go somewhere) so I couldn’t comfortably use it on my lap. [...] I retired what was my then favorite computer for an M3 MacBook Air with 24gb ram and couldn’t be happier. [...]

Why are you worried about performance for a 2D game that's basically moving a few sprites around the screen? A game like this shouldn't be taxing for modern hardware As some of the other comments imply that there are some performance issues Because there's nothing implied and they experience perf issues first hand? TFA: I’ve been experiencing performance issues I’m using a Macbook Air M3 with 16GB of RAM

is it just my machine? I’m using a Macbook Air M3 with 16GB of RAM Using one of the singularly most powerful personal computers ever made. Some arbitrary PC Master Racer: "Hold my beer, and I will show you a powerful personal computer." :-)

How do you deal with the horrendously slow on-the-fly compile times in dev mode? I wonder how anyone gets any work done when they have to wait 10 seconds on every page load on a M3 Macbook Air

1 hour of audio processed in 5 seconds (RTX 4090, Ryzen 9 7950X). [...] On M3 MacBook Air, 1 hour in 23.5 seconds (14x faster). This is a custom speaker diarization pipeline I've developed; it's a modified version of the pipeline found in the excellent 3D-Speaker project by Alibaba Research. My optimizations/modifications were the following: - changed VAD model - multi-threaded Fbank feature extraction - batched inference of CAM++ embeddings model - clustering is accelerated by RAPIDS, when NVIDIA GPU available Optimizations aside, massive credit needs to be given to the CAM++ speaker embeddings model, whose efficiency is where the majority of the speed comes from. [...] Were you also frustrated by how slow speaker diarization is? [...]

I normally use an M3 MacBook Air, but I still have my T430 from college and I love how upgradable and hackable it is. What I've done so far: Maxed out the RAM to 16GB (using lower voltage DIMMs to increase battery life) Swapped to a larger 9 cell battery Upgraded the CPU (and thermal paste) from a 2 core/4 thread i5 to a 4 core/8 thread i7 Flashed a custom BIOS to remove the WiFi card whitelist and installed an Intel 7260 WiFi AC + Bluetooth card Replaced the stock 1600x900 TN panel with a 1920x1080 IPS display Replaced the barrel charging port with a USB-C connector (requires a 20v USB PD power supply, but those aren't super rare or expensive) Replaced the HDD with an SSD Replaced the optical drive and a 2.5" drive enclosure and installed a second SSD Future projects: Flash Coreboot Upgrade to a faster i7 Upgrade to a 1440p IPS panel Swap to a T420 keyboard

Years after AppleCare ended, they replaced literally every part of my 2012 MBP, for free, except the bottom cover (new display, new circuitboard, new battery, new keyboard). [...] I didn't buy another Apple laptop until the M3 MacBook Air debuted (what an impressive machine — particularly battery life!). [...]

I agree on your second point, which is why unless Apple ever moves away from only having 2010-era storage amounts and absurd prices to size up, from now on I'll be buying used only. Just picked up an M3 MacBook Air with 16GB and 1TB SSD, mint condition, for under a grand.

Man, Apple laptops even with all their quirks are light-years ahead of the median. I have a reasonably modern ThinkPad and MacBook Air M3 with similar specs, so I can feel the difference.

[...] I actually returned an M3 Macbook Air I got for xmas because I find it too reflective, waiting and hoping for a non-reflective Macbook Air. If Apple had made it clear they weren't gonna release a non-reflective screen for the Macbook air, I might've just kept the M3 or perhaps gotten the heavy Pro. [...]

I once spent hours trying to find out why apple's font rendering is so atrocious for a 1440p monitor on a m3 macbook air (reddit just keeps telling everyone to get higher resolution screens). [...] (I guess that's normal for Apple stuff nowadays - when I hook up my ipad to my projector, I need to tell it every single time not to use the audio output of the projector, but keep using the bluetooth speaker.)

[...] Also you can take my M3 MacBook Air 15" from my cold dead hands. [...]

[...] I upgraded my M1 MBP to a MacBook Air M3 15" and it was a major upgrade. [...] The screen is also brighter. [...] EDIT: The screens are not different in terms of brightness.

For normal web dev, any M4 CPU is good as it is mostly dependent on single core speed. If you need to compile Unreal Engine (C++ with lots of threads), video processing or 3D rendering, more cores is important. I think you need to pick the form factor that you need combined with the use case: - Mobility and fast single core speeds: MacBook Air - Mobility and multi-core: MacBook Pro with M4 Max - Desktop with lots of cores: Mac Studio - Desktop for single core: Mac mini I really enjoy my MacBook Air M3 24GB for desktop + mobile use for webdev:

I really like these new devices, but I’ve found that the latest MacBook Air (M3) is sufficient for my needs as a manager and casual developer. My MacBook Pro M1 Max has essentially become a desktop due to its support for multiple monitors, but since the Mac Mini M4 Pro can also support up to three external displays, I’m considering selling the MacBook Pro and switching to the Mini. I’ve also noticed that the MacBook Pro’s battery, as a portable device, is less efficient in terms of performance/battery (for my usage) compared to the MacBook Air. [...]

I use a 48" OLED with my MacBook Air M3 and for me that is a near ultimate web development experience both on desktop and when travelling: I mentioned this here on Hacker News just yesterday, but most respondents were appalled that it was only a 4K monitor:

I guess it is just me, but I cannot stand working on small screens on the desktop. I will accept a small screen on a laptop because it is inconvenient carrying around something larger, but on a desktop, there is no reason to compromise. I use a 48" OLED with my MacBook Air M3 and for me that is a near ultimate web development experience both on desktop and when travelling:

A Macbook Air M3 is significantly faster than this HP Elitebook in for example compilation tasks. [...]

I just bought a $1099 MacBook Air M3, I get about 10 tokens/s for a q5 quant. Doesn't even get hot, and I can take it with me on the plane. It's really easy to install ollama.

Yeah I had the same experience and ultimately got rid of an M1 iPad Pro for an M3 MacBook Air. I still have the ease and portability for watching videos while doing the dishes or on an airplane, with the added benefit of a keyboard and OS for productivity in case the muse visits.

[...] Searching in that list in the preference panel or Keychain app is dog-slow on my M1 Pro Studio or on my M3 MacBook Air. [...]

[...] Being a year old, I got a killer deal buying brand new, only paid 1200 out the door. [...]

I ordered a mac mini not because my MacBook Air (M3) couldn’t handle my cubase projects. Or didn’t compile fast enough. Or had problems during image/video editing No I bought one because of the duck feces of apple to enforce the „Screen Recording“ permission for the Display Link driver

I got a new macbook (air, m3) and my USB-C monitor no longer works as a hub—the monitor connects, but no devices connected to the monitor connect. I'm going to try to limit myself to spending only an hour trying to figure this out, because otherwise it'll consume my entire day. TechSupport […]

I got a new MacBook Air 13” M3 16GB RAM 512GB SSD because I needed a powerful computer for FL Studio, obviously my old Celeron HP Stream 11” wouldn’t have worked. I love my MacBook

Last month, I earned $2.1k from my side hustle. I believe in reinvesting to grow, so after eight years, I bought a MacBook Air M3 😀

I have a brand-new m3 for 1 week and some of the keyboard keys are not working while I was working. Any ideas about this? I need help guys, thanks!!

Really annoyed in UK Apple is giving people gift cards worth huge amounts this weekend. I bought a new MacBook Air M3 and a new Apple Watch 10 three weeks ago and the sales person gave no hints that it would be good to wait. Instead got no perks at all and paid full price! [...]

I just bought the m3 air base model and it does everything I need it to do for that's for sure

Ive had my new M3 MacBook Air for about two months, now, and I love it. [...]

I bought an Mac mini m1 stock (yes with 8 gig ram and 256GB SSD) and had zero problem for years, in fact I bought MacBook Air M3 stock (also with 8 gig ram and 256GB SSD) and I love everything about both system and barely ran out of SSD or RAM AppleMac

8GB is perfectly fine for most people, especially if you use it as a secondary portable Mac like I do. My MBP has 36GB and for day to day tasks there isn't a lot in it.