Obnovení MacBooku Air 2024 M3 od společnosti Apple: Co můžeme očekávat
Apple koncem loňského roku aktualizoval řadu MacBooků Pro čipy M3, ale MacBook Air zatím novým hardwarem osvěžen nebyl. To by se mohlo změnit již koncem března, kdy se podle zvěstí chystá akce zaměřená na iPad a Mac.
Očekáváme nové verze MacBooku Air a v tomto průvodci najdete vše, co o chystaných strojích víme.
Velikost a design
Od loňského roku je MacBook Air k dispozici ve dvou velikostech namísto jedné. Apple vyrábí 13,6palcový MacBook Air a 15,3palcový MacBook Air, takže si zákazníci mohou vybrat mezi upřednostněním přenosnosti nebo velikosti obrazovky.
Apple se chystá obě verze MacBooku Air obnovit. Vzhled MacBooku Air byl naposledy aktualizován v červnu 2022 a ani tentokrát se nepíše o žádných designových změnách. Apple bude nadále používat stejné ploché tělo ve stylu MacBooku Pro, které bylo představeno v roce 2022, s černou klávesnicí Magic Keyboard plné velikosti, velkým trackpadem Force Touch, dvěma porty USB-C, Touch ID, nabíjením přes Thunderbolt, displejem s tenkými rámečky a hliníkovým šasi.
Jediným rozdílem mezi oběma modely z hlediska designu bude velikost displeje.
V současné době je MacBook Air k dispozici ve stříbrné, vesmírně šedé, hvězdné a půlnoční, což je nová tmavě modrá barva. Mohli bychom se dočkat tří standardních barev a další speciální barvy, nebo zcela nové barevné řady.
Aktualizovaný čip M3
Vzhledem k tomu, že se neplánují žádné změny designu, bude hlavním bodem osvěžení aktualizace čipu. Současné modely MacBook Air používají čip předchozí generace M2, přičemž Apple plánuje stroje modernizovat čipem M3, který byl poprvé představen v MacBooku Pro.
The M3 chip is built on Apple's next-generation 3-nanometer process, which basically means that it offers better performance and power efficiency than the 5-nanometer M2. For context, there are 25 billion transistors in the M3 chip, up from 20 billion in the M2.
CPU benchmarks indicate that the M3 is approximately 17 percent faster than the M2 when it comes to single-core tasks, and 21 percent faster at multi-core tasks. GPU performance is up approximately 15 percent, but there are other GPU improvements that give the M3 chip a notable boost.
The M3 chip has a new GPU architecture that uses Dynamic Caching, which basically means that tasks use the exact amount of memory that they need and adapt in real-time for maximum utilization. The result is improved performance for GPU-intensive apps and games.
For games and 3D software, the M3 chip supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing and mesh shading. Hardware-based ray tracing is faster than software-based ray tracing, so any game or app that uses ray tracing will perform better. Complex lighting effects won't take up as many system resources, speeding up rendering times.
It is worth noting that almost all Mac games do not support ray tracing, so for gaming, this is a feature that will be useful in the future rather than immediately. For 3D tasks in apps like Blender, there will be speed improvements.
There's a new media engine in the M3 chip that supports AV1 decode. AV1 is a video codec that streaming platforms are using for higher-quality video content at a low bitrate. AV1 is becoming increasingly popular for 4K and 8K videos, and AV1 decoding is another good future proofing feature to have even for those that don't need it immediately.
Other Upgrades
The next MacBook Air models are likely to get Wi-Fi 6E support, allowing them to connect to the 6GHz Wi-Fi band offered by compatible 6GHz routers. There's a good chance battery life will be improved thanks to the upgrade to M3 chip technology.
Worth Updating?
If you have an M2 MacBook Air, it's not going to be worth updating to the M3 version because the improvements aren't notable enough. You won't see design changes, and while the M3 is better, it's not that much better.
Most people who have an M1 chip may not want to update either, but there's more to gain with the M1 to M3 upgrade both in terms of performance and in design. The M1 machines used the prior MacBook Air design, so updating to M3 gets you the sleek new look.
For those coming from an older Intel-based MacBook Air or another Intel-based machine, the M3 will be a radical improvement.
Launch Date
We're expecting to see new M3 MacBook Air models introduced sometime in March or April, and signs right now point toward a launch at the end of March. We don't yet have details on a potential Apple event, but we should be hearing more in the next few weeks.