M3 MacBook Air after a week | developer's machine
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- čas přidán 22. 05. 2024
- I used the M3 MacBook Air for software development. After 1 week, I find out - is MacBook Air good for programming.
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This was the video I was searching for. I am Java backend developer, in each macbook review they talk about audio/video editing and 100 other things, but no specific developer use. Thank you so much man.
Would really appreciate it if you can create a video on all the M3 macbook possible for developers. Right now I am confused between macbook air M3 16/512 and macbook pro M3 pro 18/512. On rare thought, just to save money what if I buy macbook air M3 8/256, and my use will include some personal web/mobile e2e development along with binge watching, etc.
Alex i always learn something on your videos ...pleaseee KEEP DOING IT , for me you are the best DEV youtuber content creator ...from south america
too kind 🌞
@@AZiskwould be nice if you add the max refresh rate for external displays the next time or in another video.
I have a M2 Air with 16gb/512gb that I use for web app development and having multiple VM’s running. Still a beast machine.
eeeeevery time a new m series chip comes out everyones like "wtf only 8 gbs?!!?!" and then apple does some techno wizardry and shows everybody that for some reason their 8gb is more like 16gb or something. I bought an m1 the week they came out, out of sheer curiosity before the things were too well known and everyone was having melt downs about the gb and swapping. idk what the heck apple does but they might be aliens because honestly these machines are insanity. I run heavy heavy stuff on Logic Pro and cannot make these m chips hit walls unless I'm purposefully trying to do it. oh yeah and the fans don't actually matter. I had an m1 mini with big old fans in it and when you hit a certain point the entire thing just gets hot regardless of how hard the fans are blowing, I think those fans are just there to make people feel more comfortable honestly lol.
Same here. Beast of a machine with an insane battery life. Feels like it will last a few years as well.
@@Anthony-kp7sf same here, i came from windows and got m1 macbook pro when it came out as my first mac, was amazed that i could do what i do daily with software development with just 8gigs, with a windows machine for equivalent experience i needed 16gb as a bare minimum
I was looking to get a laptop for software development, do you think this is a good computer in all realms of software development
You have always been the best Macbook Guides CZcams channel I have ever seen.
Alex, your channel is a breath of fresh air! Most youtube reviewers stick to just 2 use cases - "Gaming" or "Video Editing". Glad to see you benchmark on programming, virtual machines and more! 💪
I upgraded to this from a 2014 MacBook Pro i7. Went for the 15” midnight color, 24GB RAM & 1TB storage.
The jump in performance is huge, & it stays cool & quiet for almost all my tasks. My decade old laptop used to kick the fans when watching CZcams at 1080 or above.
Underrated channel. Informative, and to the point.
4:30 thank you for stating this. I’ve been doing research again as I prepared to help my friend get an air. He’s already informed me the amount of work he does in audio productions. This will do just fine even at base. Thank you for your help!
first time watching this channel, nice and clear comparison and explaination, especially on the resell value consideration part
Good video I was waiting for this. Please keep it up and stay determined!
More to come!
Absolutely.... I'm a python backend developer... This video nailed it for me. The points I would test a laptop for when buying. Most applications opened in vid are within my use case. I would prefer to get air model as heavier tasks I'll run on a server at home or on cloud.
Yet keep my laptop light and fanless is the reason I'm buying MacBook air.
I've watched many videos to get a good MacBook recommendation but you hit the spot with the perfect use-case scenario! Such a well-structured review Thanks, Alex!!
I’ve been doing a lot of research trying to figure out what’s the best option for me, and so far after watching this video is Cristal clear I need a pro model for my needs,….first time on this channel and I’m really impressed with the level of clarity and professionalism of this guy,….. Thanks
Excellent video! So glad I am subscribed to your channel. My M3 MacBook air 16 gb and 512 is perfect for me. Will be sharing you all over. Thank you.
Just picked up the M3 Air base model today for this exact workflow as a dev. It is a secondary dev workstation to use away from my desk and keeping a 2020 Macbook Pro Intel that is still heavily spec’d as my main driver for a little bit more.
Great video.
How has it been for you so far? I’m a web developer and learning mobile app developement for my company (xcode for SwiftUI and android studio for kotlin)
I got the m1 mac air with the base model last year at the start of December, exactly 3 years after it's launch. I'm a CSE student and I can say that it's perfectly fine for my use cases, in fact it's way better that what I might need. So for anyone who's willing to spend a bit to get a mac but on a budget, the base model m1 air will still be good enough unless you have some very specific use cases
i watched your lots of videos, i am following you since M2 launch. based on your video and my knowledge , i brough 2020 M1 macbook air from marketplace. My only use for this machine is development of node js and react based application. i am using docker for my deployments.
i have ROG G752vy since 2016, That machine is the beast even for today but due to its size it is not portable.
but since last 7 days i am enjoying development in this M1. Portability with power is the key for this machine.
its battery last for more then 10 hours which is enough for me.
Thank you so much for your work. Please keep it up.
Thanks for the info, this is the video that I was looking for
Glad it was helpful!
You are my favorite developer and Mac reviewer on CZcams, Thanks, men!!!
Good review. I'm looking to get a MacBook since I need to study stuff for mobile development. This video helped a lot. Thank you!
Great review. Very helpful. Thanks. “Live and let live, folks!” - so true.
Thank you so much, this was the guide who I was looking for!
Glad to hear it!
Copped my 15” M3 when it 1st dropped and love it so far.
you deserve more subscribers, you are the best, Thanks Alex
I appreciate that!
Stumble across your channel to choose a m3 Mac configuration to began on my html and css journey followed by JavaScript in future . Thanks man!!
Im 7 years into js journey and also picked this up. Good choice.
I’m a developer and find your reviews AMAZING. Very objective and informative with the facts that actually matter before making a purchase. Keep the good work!!
Thank you so much for this video. It is so nice to have an explanation like you presented.
Glad it was helpful!
Simply magic. This is exactly the infornation I needed. Not how good it looks or games i can play. Thank you cery very much!!!!!
Great review. I like subtle the use of the vision pro. I'm assuming you're using it for some of the floating labels.
Great video, Alex!
Thanks!
It's great, as always! Thanks!
Thank you very much, best review I've seen so far and I will go with the 15"/16Gb/1Tb variant because of you. :) Best regards Q
Simply the best dev reviewer
Love your content!
I appreciate that!
Happy to see that you brought m1 macbook pro to the table. I wonder how m1 pro compares against the m3 base macbook pro. A comparison video would be great.
Great video, really enjoyed this. I picked up the M3 Air with 8GB RAM for capturing game footage in OBS, editing it in DaVinci Resolve, and recording/adding audio recorded in Audacity, and the results are phenomenal. Video export times are so fast and, so far, I haven't felt the system slow down. Again, the format, delivery and info in this video is great. Thanks!
great to read! I'd love to save the C$450 if the RAM is enough for these tasks
Great video! Looking forward to the comparison with the M1 Pro 🔥
I was going to get the 15” M3 Air 16GB/512GB for development. But I went with the 13” MacBook Pro M2 24GB/1TB because it was on sale at Best Buy for only $1,299. I believe the fan will come handy while connected to a desk monitor.
People don’t realize the M chips begin to over heat while connected to a monitor. Imagine two monitors with the lid closed on the M3.
Thanks again for sharing developer related task.
Alex, You sound like an actor. How do you record voice in such good quality? Fantastic video! Keep up the cool work! Cheers!
great video, as always
I appreciate that
Great video, and very specific for Developers, awesome!!!!
Alex I loved this video! Can you make a video about ML with PyTorch and also TensorFlow on the M3 Pro MacBook Pro? Also about tapping into the neural engine for those tasks on that same Mac?
This is, by far, THE BEST review for a very long time. Period.
Please keep it up Alex! I’m so sick and tired of the generic reviews like “okay here’s the box in all its glory *ASMR opening* let’s put the device aside for a moment, there’s only a charger and a cable in the box which is a shame because at this price I was expecting my grandma’s wheelchair spare tires here. Anyway, back to the device it’s got a gorgeous retina display, 2 USB C ports, decent speakers, good webcam and mic. Geekbench this Cinebench that. Thanks so much for watching please like and subscribe!” I’ve been posting comments on every single new mac review about comparing it to an old intel mac but nope. “M3 is about 10% faster than M2 which is disappointing”. No one gives a damn about what viewers want, what pros do with their devices and what are the expectations. It’s only Geekbench, Cinebench, Performance per Watt, blah blah blah… I can’t care enough about the wattage under full load, I want to see how faster and smoother the experience is comparing to a potato based intel MacBook Pro base model!
Re: 8GB 'controversy' ... Idk, I still think paying over $1k for a laptop with 8GB of ram in 2024 (that doesn't have a touch screen or is a 2n1 etc) still just doesn't feel right.
Touch screen isn't use on laptop only thing laptop need is good performance and very good battery and cool tech
forget the "8GB" thing. Let's talk about how apple charges $200 just to upgrade for an additional 8GB RAM or 256GB storage space. It wouldn't be a problem if they just charge market value for RAM and storage space upgrade, considering the Mac machines are already crazily overpriced.
@@mrdzin1209 well, considering Apple/Mac doesn't have any competitors in this space (performance/watt) I think they can continue to charge what they want. Walled gardens not withstanding.
Then buy a model with more ram?
Well the battery backup is more than enough to convince me to go for Macbook
Great advice. It’s good to see a balanced review with solid recommendations rather than flexing the algorithms as many Mac reviews tend to do.
The M3, no shocker, is great and better than the M2 Air. Already £100 off in UK for the base 15-inch model which is my recommendation.
As for 8GB base, I agree, it is essential for OEMs to offer a cheaper variant to exploit the demand curve. People saying Apple should not do this completely miss the point and are totally wrong. I have been using 8GB for 40 years and know that it has served me well I like the option of getting a discounted base model going forward and saving what I can. I got my base MB Pro 13 M1 for £800 and still runs like a dream. I am tempted by the MB Air M3 15-inch but looking for £200 off in the next few months.
Keep up the quality videos.
I have an early 2013 MacBook Pro with 8 gigs RAM. 11 years later it’s still the base RAM. Crazy. I’m hopefully getting the true base model this year which is 1500 dollars for the 13” model with 16 gig RAM and 512gig SSD.
M3 seems to be in line with the M1 Pro and M1 Max according to Xcode Benchmark. Goes to show how far they've come in such a short period.
More on that later…. - just say it man!
Thanks for your thoughts and telling us what these are like in the real world !
I currently carry my work laptop back and forth from the office daily since I could be called for a server or application outage at any time. I've been leaning toward getting a MBA to run stuff like VSCode (I do light powershell development and Splunk app creation), teams, terminal, and outlook locally and remote into my laptop (that would be left in the office )or servers if I need to.
My portable device at the moment is an 11" M1 iPad Pro. I've been considering selling it, the keyboard and pencil to put toward the MBA.
Excellent detailed and very substantive video. I personally can't stand Apple machines, but you have presented some excellent, logical points from the perspective of a highly technical professional with extensive experience. Thanks for busting some assumptions and teaching me something new about the versatility of these machines - this was very enlightening.
Got a m3 air and using Logic Pro. Great machine ❤
The thing about the 8 gigs isnt that its an option in general. Other manufacturers mostly have a much lower upcharge for 16 gigs+. They sell an absolute barebones amount of ram as standard and charge an arm and a leg to get the ram to a usable size.
"Live and let live" - very well said.
I was waiting for a dev review and almost gave up- I think you are the only one who showcased Xcode with iPhone Simulator. PC-junkie devs like me who have raw horsepower from other computers need to know what we can get away with to develop for iOS!
Loved ur video. Really insightful. I m a data scientist currently working on a m1 Air 2020. I m thinking of going for the M3 Air 16gb ram and 512 gb ssd. Will the ML models run smoothly on it ?
I bought an M2 Air (16gb/512gb, for web development) a few months back and have been nothing but impressed with the wee beastie. In fact I am about to start using a hub with it and get rid of my desktop as I don't feel that I am making the most of its performance yet.
Thanks for the review and recommendation. I have a 2018 Intel MacBook Pro with 32gb of RAM. I think I should get a M3 Macbook Air with 16gb of RAM after watching your video.
Hey Alex. Great video. I am confused between M3 MBA 16gb vs M2 MBP (refurbished) 16 gb. Most of my usage is around surfing, MS office and other light work. Also, i intend to take the 256 gb version for either one of them with an option of external SSD. Please let me know your thoughts.
Hi bro, I am first time watch your channel ❤ its rellay usefull for me, and i have a one doubt can i use autocad or catia v5 smoothly?
Pls reply for me 🙏
Please make more developer-focused videos about the Macbook Air M chips!
Good time to resell the M1 Air to college students majoring in things outside of finance or engineering. Lots of traveling nurses use MacBook Airs, so that would be a good college group to sell it too. Also, pre-law students and journalists.
Love the video. For video editing or podcast editing would you recommend MBA 24RAM vS mbp 16gb ram? Cant afford the higher ram on pro but not sure if ram more important
I'm on the M3 Pro MBP. I probably would be fine with the MBA, but that display limitation and the lack of an HDMI port is a deal breaker for me.
I like having two external displays and the notebook screen for unimportant stuff (mail, calendar etc).
My fans basically never spin up so the performance of the Air would be fine, but having to rely on a dongle, when needing to connect to a projector is terrible...
I got a mac mini 2018 with 16G ram back in .. well .. 2018.
After quite a while of OOM'ing the thing to death, the cost of a 64G ram upgrade was finally plausible, and that has been working fine for many months now.
My experience of the past decade balks strenuously over your findings that 8G ram is fine while describing my normal workload.
Do you have any explanation of why I don't get your results?
Thanks!
Upgraded from m1 air 13" to m1pro 14" instead of going to the m3 air... price wise would be very similar but this way I get the gorgeous display and the performance is much better for sustained workloads! It's been a pleasure!
bad call you should have def went to m3 air lol all u need is thermal pads to fix it or a dock w fan / pref both
Also considering this instead of air 15” m3 coz at the same spec, they’re almost the same price in my country.
I have 30,000+ RAW photos from my African safari. My 2014 iMac 5k is frustratingly slow. I’m looking at a M3 MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM. Or maybe a Mac Mini M1 with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD.
Your thoughts?
You should try doing something like stable diffusion, so that we know that it takes 40s minutes on an m1Pro, but seconds on an mvidia gpu
are you still working on the m1 pro vs m3 pro developer usage video? love your channel!
This is super helpful. You’re one of the only ones looking at the 8gb model. If I’m looking at it for data analysis (SQL, Python, Excel), it sounds like the 8gb 512 would be a big improvement from my 2019 16gb Pro model?
Thanks for this!
I’m torn between the M3 air 13” and the Pro 14”
I value portability but don’t care much about the weight. I’m a mobile and web dev so that would be 90% of the time.
I wonder if 13” is enough for comfortable coding sessions on the go or if it should be 14”. Also de 14” is supposed to be brighter and overall a way better display.
In terms of performance, the Air 18 RAM 1Tb SSD looks good enough for most times, but I’m also keen to do some video editing and even check the progress of gaming in the years to come.
Ideally I would buy this machine and it lasts for at least 5yr.
If I go for the Pro, I’d want to just get a high end option, as in the highest Pro (not Max) and 36Gb RAM.
This puts the Air in around $3000 AUD and the pro in about $4300 AUD. I quite a bit difference, but if the Pro with high specs is 100% a longest lasting machine, I’d consider it.
I plan to travel a lot and work on the go the coming years, so battery life is quite important as well.
I’d appreciate any opinions on this!! Thank you!!
m1 macbook air is still a beast, but i think this is at the point where i will wait for this to get maybe refurbed and go for it
(use case: some dev stuff, light video creation, backup to my main system)
I splurged and went for 13" Air 24/1000. 16GB would have been fine but I wanted some cushion for future needs. I’m sidegrading from a 16” M1 Pro MBP 16/1000, specifically for traveling light. 🌏✈️💻🎒I’m only a general user and Xcode hobbyist (and soon retired! Woohoo!!!!).
Hey man, is it ok for me to design a logo for your CZcams channel as a gig to help me get a hard drive or SSD to help me back up my 2012 15 inch MBP so I can have more space to create stuffs to help me get back on track to improve my life and one day get the latest Mac to create even more contents? :-)
My budget is close to the Macbook Air M3 base model, but I am afraid of the 8GB RAM in terms of future updates coming from Apple. Also, my main use for it will be to develop IOS applications in the Swift programming language and the Xcode app. I am a beginner in this field and have never used a Mac device. I can say that you are the only one who can help me with this choice because you are a developer and have used this device
Hey Alex can you please tell me what arm monitors you are using please?
Exactly the video I was looking for, thanks for the good work! But is it possible to keep the lid of M3 Air open while being plugged to 2 monitors? Let's say I want to listen to music through macbook speakers without covering them with laptop screen.
Wanted to get the base M3 Pro but settled for a refurbished maxed out M1 Max for around the same price. Just too good of a deal to pass on and for my use case (local LLM), 64gb ram does it for me.
I still managed to trade in my base M1 MBP for $600 at Best Buy after all these years.
Apple tax? Sure but you also get to trade in your laptop at the end. Most other brands goes straight to landfill…
by the way, they have the 13.6 MBA M3 with 16 GB and 512 SSD for 1349 at the Microcenter stores, if you happen to live near one. That is a 150 dollars discount...
yep, I’ve also bought preowned ones at microcenter for pretty big discounts
Great video! Developer here very close on pulling the trigger on a M3 Air (for dual monitors). The Pro version seems a bit too bulky for me and because I won't do any really heavy dev projects I think I'll have a better time overall, not only with coding stuff, with an Air. Have you tried any of the passive cooling stuff available for Airs such as the very overpriced Svalt Cooling Stand?
i tried a pad with fans (forgot what it’s called), but it was useless.
thx again
Even though I have a M3 MacBook Pro 14, I surprisingly prefer my 13 inch MBA M1...you know, the wedge shaped one.
Alex, the problem is not that MacBooks start with 8GB and 256GB SSD in 2024, it is the insane price Apple charges for the upgrades. 200$ is too much for RAM upgrade, that means if you want to future proof yourself, you have to pay 600$ extra.
yup, if they had 16gb ram and 500gb storage as the base at $1200 they would sell so many machines.
i don’t disagree. they do charge an arm and a leg
They know what they're doing 🙂
That’s why it’s just best to get them refurbished, where they only cost like $800
Upgraded my wife's 10 year old macbook pro to M3 MBA with 16/512 config. I was debating on getting a M2 MBA 16/512 but it was only around a $300 difference even after additional work discounts. All the retailers in Canada don't seem to carry 16GB M2 or M1 MBA variants.
Same in Mexico, everyone here is selling the 8 gb version, the only way to get a 16 version is via online or going to the Apple store
Great video and comparisons! I've watched lots of your videos, still not certain about the right model for me. I am going to do data science projects, so which model would you advice to get? I'm struggling between m3 air 16/256, m3 pro 18/256 and maybe other old pro models? It would be great hear from you! Thanks in advance!!
between those two, id go for the latter
Hii Alex, love or your each content❤,
How much performance increase you have seen from m2 air to m3 air in programming/developing work flow?
i only noticed it when timing the builds. otherwise not really
Would you sell any of those Macbooks? I'm interested in the M2
Please follow up with a review using a cooling block for the MacBook Air
This was the video I was searching for. I am Java backend developer, in each macbook review they talk about audio/video editing and 100 other things, but no specific developer use. Thank you so much man.
Would really appreciate it if you can create a video on all the M3 macbook possible for developers. Right now I am confused between macbook air M3 16/512 and macbook pro M3 pro 18gb/512. On rare thought, just to save money what if I buy macbook air M3 8/256, and my use will include some personal web/mobile e2e development along with binge watching, etc.
I'm wondering what the actual use case for a 24gb ram MacBook Air would be ....would it be just if you like to use multiple non-intensive apps all the time?
100% agree
I use m1 8GB for dev.
95% time no perf issues.
if you run lots of docker or emulator then only you feel slow
Does it run at cooler temps than the M2?
Great review as always!
Agree on 16GB + 1TB as a comfortable minimum for the development machine. I can survive with 512GB, but the comfort of 1TB is worth the price.
What I’m having issue with geek bench and the like is now we have heterogeneous cores and they don’t test them separately. I don’t know what type of core’s singlethreaded performance score I’m looking at. One way to do it would be to fire up a VM with only performance cores or efficiency and do a geek bench on it.
I have a work laptop (M1 MBP) provided by the company I work for where I do all my serious development, but I want a personal laptop for doing web development tinkering a few times a week. Just building small demos for the sake of learning and experimenting. Things I'd probably be doing include running Create React App, VS Code, and spinning up Laravel projects with Laravel Sail (which uses Docker). Do you think I'd have any issues with the 8GB RAM model? I can swing the extra $200 but part of me doesn't want to "waste" money lol. As for storage, I'd get at least 512GB. Thanks in advance!
Would be nice to have some benchmark around traditional web dev flow (transpiring/building/testing)
You can upgrade internal storage now. Not at Apple but some offer to do it apparently in China and USA. For MBAs out of warranty or in need of a battery replacement anyway, might be a worthwhile option... depending on how much it costs.
really? how? want to know more. might even try it
@@AZiskLuke Miani's video might be the best semitechnical on on the topic. "UPGRADING an M1 Mac mini SSD from 256gb to 2TB!!" - I'll post the link separately because CZcams does silly stuff with them sometimes.
That’s what I needed! Finally a guide on what to get when coming from an intel MacBook Pro. I Was kinda torn between the M2 Air and the M1 Pro MB Pro. Will definitely get an used M1 Pro 🫡
Hey Alex, I have a great question for you. I am planning to buy a Macbook Air M3 with 16GB's of RAM but I am having some hard time trying to choose whether to get the 512GB or 1TB model.
I will study CS (or something computer related) next semester and I am kind of unsure about what to do. I want to build a few apps this summer and then focus on AI maybe but like I said I am not sure. Would you recommend going for 512 + external ssd or 1tb just in case?
Also I know it's kind of off topic but would you recommend CS or CE for Bachelor? Like I mentioned, I want to get into AI or write the code of some machines for automation or maybe not even those and just mobile apps and games and software.
Btw, I know MB Air is won't be enough for intensive works but I am just looking for a device that can carry my work for 2-3 years for the beginning as I am a beginner overall.
I love your videos and the way you explain things.
That pizza intro lol. Alex doesn't miss
You’ll find the same developer tools in Safari 😊 Besides that, great video! Amazing quality in image, sound and editing 😊
Next time also test JetBrains IDEs
Great video Alex. About the 24GB RAM option, do you not see it perform better in your tests? Do you think it would make a difference in a developer workflow (non ML or game)? Keep it up your content is super high quality!
16 v 24, i don’t really see the point in 24 unless you’re doing something very specific
@@AZisk what is very specific ? if you are developing perf. tests. or do perf. monitoring of the app , even without docker, 16gb is the limit. Me as QA tester, i need to find out the limits of the app. And ever 50 chrome tabs are not a problem.
The sweet spot is between 8 and 16. macOS' memory compression makes the extra 8 over 8 go a very long way.