Entry-Level M3 MacBook Air: SSD Boosts, RAM Disappointments

Let's start with entry-level M3 MacBook Airs

I think that these new laptops are practically perfect. They are the best Airs ever, and there's only one thing

one small thing, maybe not small, that's missing that would make these the best laptop of all time

for most people, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Griffin, I'll let you take it away

Yeah, well, previously with the M2 MacBook Airs, there were two small things that kept them behind

Another one was that on M2 Macs, with the base model of 256 gigabytes of storage

Apple used a single storage chip instead of two storage chips. So, on the 512 gigabyte and higher

it used two chips running in parallel, so you'd have really fast read and write speeds for storage

but if you had the base model, it would only read and write half as fast

And the M2 was actually a regression from the M1 MacBook Air before that

which also used two chips on the base model, and tests showed a decline in performance

between like 30 and 50%, which is pretty significant. Yeah. But they fixed that on the entry-level M3 MacBook Air

As YouTuber MaxTech shows in his 13-inch MacBook Air with M3 teardown video

the new machine uses two 128-gigabyte storage chips. This ensures the SSD delivers better performance

than the M2 model, which, with benchmarks indicating 33% faster write speeds

and a whopping 82% faster read speeds. So, this is a pretty significant upgrade

I personally don't think that the read and write speeds was the biggest problem with the old M2 MacBook Airs

because people ordering the base model MacBook Air probably aren't the sort of people

who are doing a lot of reading and writing, gigabytes at a time, but it is nice that they fixed this

not least because there's no longer any wiggle room for an outraged clickbait news cycle

to complain about these new MacBook Airs. Well, there is one thing, Griffin

There is one thing. And it's still a money grab if they would just ship these things

with 16 gigs of RAM base. It would literally be the perfect laptop

And I think the only reason they don't is the same reason that they skimped with the SSD chips

and only put one in is because it probably saves them like 25 cents per machine

That's true. And TC, I heard, was like negotiating, I forget what the number was

but when he negotiates, when he personally negotiates component prices, I heard that they were quibbling

over like the ninth decimal place, you know, like for some of these component parts

Well, here's the thing. How much does it cost to upgrade from eight gigabytes to 16? Is it $100 or $200

I forget, but it's a lot of extra money. Now we got- Yeah

Either way, if you buy it in the education store, you get $99 off. So you could consider that a free upgrade

Sure, you could do it that way. IKF Davis saying eight gigabytes is enough

I don't know, man. I bought my wife the M1 base M1 MacBook Air

and that thing is constantly telling her that she needs to close applications

because it's out of memory. So I don't know if it's the apps that she's using

I'm guessing it probably is, but I have literally never seen that message

on a MacBook Pro in my life, and I've also never had eight gigabytes of RAM

I think 16 in 2024 is the play. I think that eight gigabytes

when you take into account, you know, how much RAM some apps use

and how people like to have a lot of apps open and they don't restart very often

I think it's on the low end. The fact that my wife is encountering it, she is by far no power user

The thing is about power, like not being a power user, is that you wouldn't think that a non-power user

would use a lot of applications, but on the other hand, non-power users use Google Chrome

with like 3,800 tabs open. Right. And each one of those tabs is like 300 megabytes

and so it fills up pretty fast. And it's not just Google Chrome either, because if you use the official Slack app

instead of making a Safari web app, then that's another instance of Google Chrome, which is another 300 megabytes there

It adds up. There you go. And actually, she may be a Google Chrome user

but her computer, that M1 MacBook Air, it's like the perfect size, the perfect form factor

All it needed was the distinct SSD chip so that they could increase the write speeds

and then the extra RAM, and it would literally be the perfect computer

And you could actually do real work on it, like editing videos, like Photoshop

They would just add extra RAM. The performance would be exactly where it needs to be

Of course, it's their entry-level computer, so I get it. There probably isn't a reason for a business purpose

for a business case for Apple to do that, because they want to keep the thing cheap, and they don't want to take sales away from the MacBook Pro

but like they're so close. Like the 15-inch MacBook Air with 16 gigabytes of RAM

and the dual SSD chips is kind of like the perfect computer

for I think 95% of people, and would even steal sales away from the MacBook Pro

if you're just doing light editing, video editing and stuff. But anyway, this is a huge performance increase

for the new MacBook Air, and I just want to give credit to Max Tech

for being all over this issue in previous MacBook Airs, and I have no doubt that they're airing this

as an issue on their YouTube channel, is probably something that significantly contributed

to Apple making the change, because they kept getting bad press, and it made them look so stingy that they were doing this

that I think eventually they were like, okay, we're gonna get called out on this again

It's gonna be something that people continually clown on us and dunk on us for, like let's just go ahead and change this

because it probably cost them very little money. Holy cow! We got Hugo Last in with the $50 Super Chat

Oh my goodness! Hugo, I think Hugo makes a donation like every single show

He's single-handedly keeping us going here. He says, I'm making my first purchase

into the Cult Last, the Cut Last Company? The Cult Last Company

I'm guessing you spelled cult-cast wrong. This should get me my .0000

I'm not gonna read all those zeros. 1% company ownership. That better come with board voter rights

Bad news, Hugo, it doesn't. But I grant you your share, your ..

I don't know how many zeros are there. It looks like there might be 15. .0000001 share of Cult Cast

I grant you that ownership, sir. Thank you for your contribution. It comes with absolutely no rights

although once we have the Cult Cast Command Center fully built out, you will be welcome

to come use the pickleball courts in the steam room and perhaps the executive suite bathrooms

But thank you for that huge donation. LK will be very happy to see that go directly into his pocket

Let's see here. Anything else on that story, Griffin? I don't think so

We should actually vlog that. With the RAM thing, I think somebody graphed

how much Apple has increased the base RAM over time and it's been at eight gigabytes

for close to 10 years now