by Josh Teder

It’s been six months since I bought an M3 MacBook Air, and the thought that keeps coming back into my head about this laptop is, “Why didn’t I buy one sooner?” But should you really be looking at a MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro? And have Apple’s iPhone integration features with macOS further turned the MacBook Air into just another device like our smartphones that too easily come riddled with distractions? I’ll give you my thoughts on those questions and more, but first, let’s go through the highlights with the MacBook Air.

Build Quality and Design

The first highlight is its build quality. The MacBook Air’s keyboard is fantastic. The small key travel is satisfying and allows me to type faster than those with more travel plus the keyboard doesn’t hurt my fingers after a long day of typing like other keyboards with more key travel have. It also has a satisfying sound; you can take it into a coffee shop and type on it without causing too much attention to yourself.

Touch ID and Security

Touch ID is another excellent part of the build. It’s what you use to authenticate into the MacBook Air. Even though the notch might make you think it has Face ID built-in, it does not. The notch hasn’t bothered me. I do wish it had Face ID, but Touch ID still works great. Apple integrates Touch ID throughout macOS. You’ll use it to get to your passwords, approve purchases, and more, and it’s really easy to use.

Audio Quality

The speakers are another hardware feature on this laptop that are impressive. While they don’t get as loud as speakers in some other laptops like my Surface laptop, they’re plenty loud for listening to music in your room. The most impressive thing about the speaker system is I’ve gotten distortionless playback even at high volume. Now, are you going to be able to get really good bass out of these speakers? No, but if you don’t, for some reason, have headphones around, or you just want to play some ambient music in the background of your laptop, the sound is clear, distortionless, and decent.

MagSafe and Ports

MagSafe is another great feature. It frees up a USB-C port to be used for other accessories, and if someone trips over your charging cord, your laptop’s not going to go flying across the room because it’ll magnetically detach from your laptop.

Form Factor and Protection

The overall form factor is just beautiful. The only thing you’ll want to be aware of is since this is made out of aluminum, it can scratch. I’m not the biggest fan of getting cases for MacBooks personally, but I am a big fan of getting a laptop sleeve for it. I bought this awesome one from Bellroy, and so far it has helped me avoid getting any dings or scratches like I’ve gotten on my MacBooks previously. They’ve been a sponsor before on the channel; they did not sponsor this video. If you’re interested in learning more about it, I’ll leave a link to it in our blog post.

Display Quality

The display on this computer is also great. The anti-glare coating is better than other laptops I’ve used, including the recent Surface laptop. It has P3 wide gamut and, importantly, it has Apple’s True Tone technology, which automatically adjusts the display’s white balance to match your surrounding lighting environment, making the display more comfortable to view and read things on.

Battery Life

Next, let’s talk about battery life. Now both the 13-inch version of the MacBook Air as well as the 15-inch version are rated for 18 hours of battery life, and that’s been in line with my experience with this laptop. Its standby battery life has been excellent too. I’ve easily gone over two weeks without charging it. Its standby battery is much better than my iPad Pro’s, for example.

MacBook Air vs. iPad Pro

Now, I’ve noticed that some people are curious about whether or not they could just use an iPad Air or an iPad Pro with a Magic Keyboard. As someone who used an iPad Pro as my main mobile computer for the past couple of years, when I got a MacBook Air, the only thing I could think was, “How the hell did I survive this long without a real mobile computer?”

macOS Freedom

And of course, one of the best things about macOS is freedom. You can download apps from the Mac App Store and the web, something you can’t do on Apple’s other platforms.

Screen Savers

The last thing I’ve really loved with this laptop and macOS are these screen savers that subtly fade into the desktop background. They’re just so cool.

Unused Features

So, what are some things with the MacBook Air that I haven’t really used over the past 6 months? First is the dual charger. Now, when you order your MacBook Air, you can choose to option it either with the 30/35W dual charger or a 70W fast charger. After 6 months, I think most people would rather have the 70W fast charger or a charger like the 150W charger from Anker that I’ve gravitated towards using over the past 6 months, especially while traveling because it can not only fast charge the MacBook Air but charge three additional devices as well. If you want to learn more about the one I bought, I’ll leave a link to it in our blog post.

Webcam Quality

Another thing I haven’t really found myself using on the MacBook Air is the webcam, and that’s because the quality of the webcam is just not as good as if you use your iPhone. The iPhone with Continuity Camera just looks way better.

Downsides: RAM Configuration

Next, let’s talk about the downsides with the MacBook Air, and the biggest one by far is the starting 8 gigs of RAM base configuration. This is just an abysmal amount of RAM to start a computer off at in 2024, even one that has an ARM-based architecture. There have been times when I’ve gotten the computer to slow down to a crawl with 15 to 20 Safari tabs open, Apple Music playing in the background, plus an email app and Messages open in the background. Now, I can’t say for certain if this was a RAM issue or not. I haven’t been able to reproduce this issue in the past several months, but this issue cropped up enough over the course of about a month where I still thought I should mention it in this video. And if you are planning to get a MacBook Air to use as your main computer, I would still err on the side of caution and go with the 16 gigs of RAM.

Performance for Intensive Tasks

Now back to the RAM for a second. Since I’m only using this computer on the go and I’m not doing many intensive tasks with it like video editing, the 8 gigs of RAM and its overall performance has actually been fine for my personal needs with this machine overall. But what if you did want to edit video or photos on this? How is its performance? In my limited experience, you should be okay for occasional photo edits, and I was even able to go through and edit okay in Final Cut Pro. However, once it came time to export my file, it just started exporting at a snail’s pace. Eventually, I just gave up, tried to exit, causing Final Cut to then get stuck, and then I had to force quit the app. So yeah, I wouldn’t say this is a computer I’d recommend specifically for video editing.

Other Downsides

Another downside is the lack of upgradeability. You can’t upgrade the RAM or really any other internal components after the fact. Another downside is ports. There are only two USB-C ports, and they’re both on the same side as MagSafe, which, depending on your situation, could make it slightly more annoying to charge your MacBook Air versus if it had a way to charge from either side like my Surface laptop and even my iPad Pro.

Display Limitations

Another downside is the screen brightness is only 500 nits, and there’s no 120 Hz ProMotion display. 120 Hz isn’t necessary, but it’s one of those things that if most of your other Apple devices have it, it becomes more noticeable on the ones that don’t. Now, because I’ve used this laptop indoors most of the time, the brightness has been totally adequate for my needs. But if you want to work with it outside, take it to a park in like bright sunlight, it may not be great for that situation.

Setup Issues

Another slight downside with this laptop is one I actually encountered during setup. When you set it up from another Mac using Migration Assistant, there’s no option to use your iPhone or your other Mac to transfer over Wi-Fi passwords or Apple ID information like you do when setting up other Apple products, and I’d really like to see Apple fix that.

Fingerprints on Dark Models

Fingerprints are another downside for the darker models of the MacBook Air. Now, they might not be as bad as the previous two models with the Midnight color that I have, but they definitely still show, and Apple really should have included a polishing cloth with this computer. Now, are the fingerprints bad enough for me not to recommend getting the Midnight color? Depending on how you use your laptop or how clean you generally keep yours, that will definitely have an impact. Though yes, I still do like the color that I ultimately chose.

Lack of Touchscreen

Now, one thing you might expect me to list as a downside with a MacBook Air is it doesn’t have a touchscreen, but to me, a touchscreen in this form factor would only make sense if the screen itself was detachable like with an iPad Pro.

macOS Integration and Distractions

One big thing I do think is a potential downside for the MacBook Air and all Macs in general is macOS’s continuation into becoming as distracting as an iPhone. macOS Sonoma introduced the ability to not only access your entire iPhone through a virtual screen on your desktop, but you can now have all of your notifications from your iPhone show up on your Mac. Apple’s been going in this direction for years, like with widgets you can put directly on the desktop that link with your iPhone.

Now, some of these features are extremely helpful, and being able to quickly access your phone if it’s not in the room with you to get to an app like an authentication app to log into a service, for example, you could make an argument that this actually helps keep your phone away from you as you’re trying to work. But on the flip side, you can make the argument that it moves the Mac further away from being just a great device to write on and get stuff done on, and moves it closer to being as distracting as an iPhone, which is certainly going in the opposite direction of other companies like Freewrite, a digital typewriter, the reMarkable tablets, Daylight Computer. There’s a whole category of devices out there for people promising to be distraction-free.

Now, is some of this just marketing taking advantage of the times we’re living in? Yes, I think some of it is. But all of these companies are still at the same time hitting on something that I’ve even felt while using the MacBook Air over the past 6 months. When a laptop and phone kind of merge together, it’s a device that can do so many different kinds of things, but does it actually become worse for people who want to use it for productivity? For some, I think the answer is yes, and that’s a bit worrying.

Final Recommendation

So ultimately, do I recommend getting a MacBook Air? Yes. The keyboard is excellent to type on, the aluminum materials feel premium against your hand, and having Touch ID built into the computer overall has been great. If you’re looking for a portable Mac, I don’t think you can really go wrong getting a MacBook Air. But some out there might also want to look at getting a MacBook Pro instead.

MacBook Air vs. MacBook Pro

For users who need more power for tasks like photo and video editing or really graphics-intensive tasks, that’s where I’d recommend getting a MacBook Pro. But there are some other users out there that might not fit into that category but might still benefit from going with a MacBook Pro because of some of the upgraded features like longer battery life—up to 22 hours of video playback compared to 18 hours on the 13-inch MacBook Air. Though note that’s the M3 MacBook Pro; the M3 Pro and M3 Max models drop back down to 18 hours of battery life.

You also get way more ports: three USB-C ports, one SD card reader slot (which if you’re a photographer or videographer, that’s a must), plus an HDMI port. It also has a ProMotion display with HDR brightness up to 1,000 nits sustained and 1,600 nits peak. That’s compared to the 500 nits max brightness you get with the MacBook Air’s display.

If you spec out the 13-inch machines to my recommendations, which is at least 512 gigs of storage and 16 gigs of RAM, the price difference between the two is about $300, making the M3 MacBook Pro a tempting upgrade. And for those that want an even larger MacBook Air, the cost difference going from the 13-inch to the 15-inch model is $200.

If this is going to be your main computer and you’re not planning on having a monitor to go along with it, I would at least go in a store and look at them side by side before making that purchasing decision. And that’s because I think for a lot of people out there, the extra screen real estate you get with the 15-inch is going to be worth it for you in that scenario.

Advice on Purchasing

Now, the last piece of advice I need to give you about purchasing these laptops is, as I’m recording this, Apple is set to announce the new MacBook Pro computers in October 2024. So if you’re looking at getting a MacBook Air but you’re tempted by the base model MacBook Pro, wait to buy one until Apple announces the new ones.

And to see the current price for all the different MacBooks and other devices and accessories you’ve seen in this video, you can check all of that out and more in our featured product section below.