Features and Design

• The M3 MacBook Air offers a dual external display support feature, but only with the laptop lid closed, marking a relative improvement over M1 and M2 models which supported only one external display alongside the built-in screen.
• Despite attempts to reduce fingerprints on darker models through a special coating, effectiveness seems minor, challenging the perception of significant improvements in this area.

Performance and Upgrades

• Although the M3 chip introduces enhancements, the performance gains over M1 and M2 models appear modest, leading to discussions on the value proposition of upgrading for users with current models.
• Criticism centers on the base configuration starting with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage, with the cost of upgrading these components deemed unjustifiably high.

Pricing and Value

• The pricing strategy for upgrades and the base model configurations have been contentious, with suggestions that for many potential buyers, especially those on tighter budgets, previous generation models (M1 and M2) may present a better value.
• The narrative around the necessity of more than 8 GB of RAM is challenged, suggesting that for many typical users, the base configuration is ample for several years of use.

Gaming and Use Case

• The M3 MacBook Air, though fanless, supports modest gaming, capable of running demanding games at lower settings and more comfortably handling lightweight titles.
• Apple’s marketing highlights AI capabilities, specifically mentioning the running of LLMs and diffusion models on the M3 MacBook Air efficiently, despite not using NVIDIA's CUDA.

Hardware and Display

• Key components like the screen and keyboard remain unchanged, maintaining high quality; the screen reaches up to 500 nits brightness but is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate, a specification possibly used by Apple to differentiate between pro and base-level products.