The 13-inch M3 MacBook Air is down to an all-time low of $899

It’s not surprising that the M3 MacBook Air’s value is strengthening the longer it’s been out, but the laptop is becoming increasingly hard to overlook when compared to the 13-inch M2 model — especially since you can get a 13-inch MacBook Air with an M3 chip for only $70 more than the current sale price of the base M2 model. Right now, the base M3 configuration with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage is going for just $899 ($200 off) at Amazon and B&H Photo.

The 2024 Air is the most recent entrant in Apple’s lightweight laptop line, one that continues to offer all-day battery life, a sleek design, and excellent performance for carrying out everyday computing tasks. The performance bump over the previous generation isn’t major, but it offers moderate speed improvements for both the processor and SSD. When paired with meaningful upgrades such as Wi-Fi 6E and the ability to run up to two external monitors when the lid is closed, it’s a respectable progression.

Those are very specific and otherwise niche needs, however. Unless you need multiple monitors, you might find the benefits negligible, if not virtually indiscernible. You shouldn’t necessarily feel compelled to upgrade if you own an M2 machine, but it’s probably worth considering if you’re coming from an M1 or older Intel-based model.

The M3 Air will get all of the Apple Intelligence features coming to macOS Sequoia in the fall, too, which the company announced during its recent WWDC 2024 keynote. It’s uncertain whether future developments will eventually require the M4 chip’s neural processing unit that Apple introduced in the latest iPad Pro, but for now, the company has promised AI feature parity among all M-series silicon dating back to the M1, so it’s a relatively safe upgrade.