Updated March 3: article originally posted March 2.
If you’re looking for a new MacBook, now is not the time to buy the latest MacBook Pro laptops. Apple has something much better waiting in the wings.
With the advent of the M3 family of Apple Silicon chipsets, Apple has delivered another significant increase in performance, along with improved battery life and higher processing power. That benefit is visible across the full range of the MacBook Pro portfolio. For those who need these high levels of performance, where saving seconds matters whilst rendering video or developing apps, the computational gain outweighs the significant extra cost of a MacBook Pro.
For everyone else, the prowess of Apple Silicon makes the decision on “what macOS laptop I should buy” far easier than those facing a similar choice with Windows hardware. The vanilla M3 chipset offers more than enough power for the regular user; while an entry-level MacBook Pro offers this, the real value is expected to arrive later this month in the MacBook Air.
Update: Sunday March 2: While the exact launch and release of the new MacBook Air is not yet known, we do know that Apple will not be treating it as a blue ribband product launch.
Writing for the Power on newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman notes that Apple will not hold a traditional choreographed online launch event with team leaders introducing shiny videos of the new products. Instead, Apple will “launch by press release” with key details communicated to the press alongside promotional videos on YouTube for consumers.
Gurman suggests that the devices will arrive “sometime in March or April.” It remains to be seen i f Apple will launch the MacBook Air mid-March and then open a round of pre-orders, or wait until the aforementioned window to open and move straight from reveal to retail.
The MacBook Air was one of Apple’s first ARM-powered laptops, launching alongside the M1 chipset in late 2020. It was a paradigm shift in the power that Apple could offer in a consumer laptop, and it easily outclassed the previous Intel-powered MacBook Air, so much so that those who had been pushed to the MacBook Pro to do light editing, content creation and basic development, no longer felt forced to move up to a MacBook Pro.
The argument that the Air was all many needed was reinforced with the M2 MacBook Air offering around a twenty percent uplift in performance, and you can expect to see a similar step up when the M3 macBook Air is launched.
One of the other areas where consumers felt forced to use the more expensive Pro laptop was for a larger display—the MacBook Air never exceeded 13 inches. That changed in 2023 with the launch of a 15-inch M2 model. Although it was 12 months after the 13-inch M2 had debuted, it proved to be a critical hit.
This year, both the 13-inch and 15-inch models will be launched together. Thanks to the M3 chipset, there’s no pressing need, performance-wise, for consumers to look to the MacBook Pro model. There’s a very very specific argument that the extra I/O ports on the Pro laptops add value, but the price premium is significant, especially when you compare that price difference to a USB-powered multiport adaptor which offers the extra USB and Thunderbolt porst, SD card readers, and HDMI connections.
Apple Silicon allowed the MacBook Pro to be the true laptop for professionals. For eveyone else the MacBook Air matured into an all-rounder suitable for the consumer market. The upcoming move to M3 will offer more power to consumers without pushing them towards a Pro-level laptop.
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