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New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

apple.com

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Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#31

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

scrlk wrote: post #21
elthran wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Cynic/Windows user here with a genuine question - why is this interesting? I'm currently looking at my wife's old corporate-issued windows laptop, which is running 2 external monitors as well as it's own display - am I missing something here, or is this just a case of Apple being held to different standards to other manufacturers in terms of feature parity?

M1/M2 MBAs are limited to one external display. The M3 MacBook Air relaxes this restriction by allowing two external displays.

... When the clamshell is closed. With an open one it is still just one external display.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#32

Post by mcphage »

asplake wrote: post #26
bstchn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exaclty are these unreliabilities?

Failure to drive those displays, big TVs or projectors for the most part

What do you use to connect the screen to your Air? I've got an M2 air, and recently purchased a 5120x1440 screen with HDMI and DisplayPort outputs. I first connected it through HDMI to one of the USB/HDMI/USB-C Apple adapters, and the result was terrible. But I ordered a DisplayPort->USB-C cable, and it worked perfectly.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#33

Post by microtonal »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #30

For anyone having issues with only one external display at once, DisplayLink adapters work very well, allowing you to connect much more displays if you need them.

It comes with a bunch of downsides though. It is lossy, requires a third-party driver (and you become dependent on them to provide timely updates for new macOS releases), protected content from iTunes and other players is not visible on the laptop display when DisplayLink adapters are connected, a bunch of HiDPI resolutions are missing on Apple Silicon Macs, etc.

USB-C Alt-Mode and Thunderbolt always trump DisplayLink. So it's best to figure out first what displays you want to connect and then buy the Mac that supports that configuration. But if you already have a Mac that doesn't support the number of displays that you want to hook up, DisplayLink is a solution.

Luckily, these new MacBook Air models support two external 5K@60Hz displays with the lid closed.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#34

Post by kayodelycaon »

seuraughty wrote: post #28
asplake wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Failure to drive those displays, big TVs or projectors for the most part

I thought they could drive up to 6k or something crazy - surprised to hear it struggles with TVs and projectors that I imagine are 4k.

They don't have HDMI port, so you're limited to your adapter or the TV's display port capabilities.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#35

Post by reactordev »

microtonal wrote: post #33
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #30

For anyone having issues with only one external display at once, DisplayLink adapters work very well, allowing you to connect much more displays if you need them.

It comes with a bunch of downsides though. It is lossy, requires a third-party driver (and you become dependent on them to provide timely updates for new macOS releases), protected content from iTunes and other players is not visible on the laptop display when DisplayLink adapters are connected, a bunch of HiDPI resolutions are missing on Apple Silicon Macs, etc. USB-C Alt-Mode and Thunderbolt always trump DisplayLin…

Mine requires no driver, it's plug and play. I just get the Apple Security nag when I plug (anything) in.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#36

Post by bombcar »

fh9302 wrote: post #7
retskrad wrote: post #3

I can't tell the difference between my new M1 Max MacBook Pro and the new M3 Max Macbook Pro. Corporations have become pros at exploiting our human psychology. Their ads can make you believe that the smallest bump in improvements will make your older computer appear useless in comparison. That's why it's for the best if you avoid ads as much as possible.

The difference is really obvious during code compilation or other tasks that can take advantage of all cores.

Someone should sell a little app for Mac that glows red when an upgrade would have been useful (e.g, when you maxed out your max Mac).

I suspect mine would be green almost all the time, even on this almost three year old M1 Max.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#37

Post by bombcar »

benfa94 wrote: post #16
zuhsetaqi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like it. Which is a huge win in my opinion. To bad the base MacBook Pro M3 14" doesn't have that feature

which version of the MacBook Pro 14" do i need to buy to have this feature?

The M1 Max MacBook Pro can drive four monitors + the screen, at least.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#38

Post by pier25 »

retskrad wrote: post #3

I can't tell the difference between my new M1 Max MacBook Pro and the new M3 Max Macbook Pro. Corporations have become pros at exploiting our human psychology. Their ads can make you believe that the smallest bump in improvements will make your older computer appear useless in comparison. That's why it's for the best if you avoid ads as much as possible.

Maybe you don't really need a Max chip?

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#39

Post by gxs »

elthran wrote: post #19
zuhsetaqi wrote: post #6

Most interesting change: > Support for up to two external displays: MacBook Air with M3 now supports up to two external displays when the laptop lid is closed …

Apple Cynic/Windows user here with a genuine question - why is this interesting? I'm currently looking at my wife's old corporate-issued windows laptop, which is running 2 external monitors as well as it's own display - am I missing something here, or is this just a case of Apple being held to different standards to other manufacturers in terms of feature parity?

This is far from a "genuine" question.

It's easy to deduce that it's a big deal for macbook air users because it wasn't possible before.

It's easy to deduce both from the article and from other comments here, which presumably you read if you're going through the trouble of responding to someone else's comment.

I typically despise this type of question, where you're obviously trying to make a point but playing dumb and playing it off as if you have no clue what you're talking about.

This type of question is used all over the place and super obnoxious.

I'm not American, genuine question, why is it a big deal that you're getting free healthcare? I've had free healthcare my whole life, shrug.

As a European, genuine question. Why is it a big deal that Biden wants to forgive student loan? I've gotten free education my whole life, shrug.

As an apple user, why is it a big deal that Dell is extending it's warranty to 2 years? My apple device gets updates 4 years later, shrug.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#40

Post by brigadier132 »

retskrad wrote: post #3

I can't tell the difference between my new M1 Max MacBook Pro and the new M3 Max Macbook Pro. Corporations have become pros at exploiting our human psychology. Their ads can make you believe that the smallest bump in improvements will make your older computer appear useless in comparison. That's why it's for the best if you avoid ads as much as possible.

> I can't tell the difference between my new M1 Max MacBook Pro and the new M3 Max Macbook Pro

I don't know why you bought a new one. You can have two ways to look at this, one way is your ultra pessimistic view, my view is I don't need to upgrade my laptop ever 2 years anymore.

Before the M1 Max I was upgrading so often because intel macbooks sucked so much. Now I can comfortably say I'm keeping my M1 Max for a decade.

As for being "exploited" by ads, just don't be, stop mindless consumption...

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