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M3 MacBook Air Supports More External Displays Than M3 MacBook Pro

iStorm said:
That's because you have the Pro chip. They are comparing the new MBAs with the base M3 chip on the 14" MBP.
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Ahh yeah I forgot about the non pro chip in the new pro MacBook 🙃 thanks.
 
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oofio2461 said:
Tim, isn't the "Pro" model supposed to be better than the "Air" model? I think you need one of these,
jobs-grid-6c.jpg
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Excellent point sir!
 
tobybrut said:
I disagree. People seem to forget there are more pros who would be more comfortable with an M3 MBP than with an M3 Pro or Max version. Not every pro works in Final Cut Pro and Blender or processes thousands of photos simultaneously in Photoshop. Most pros are people like secretaries, program/product managers, marketing/sales, corporate executives, none of them needing the power of an M3 Pro. They would love to have the additional ports, such as HDMI, the ever-preset port required for most PowerPoint/Keynote presentations in conference rooms. Most business executives would be happier with something like an Air if it only had a card reader and HDMI port. For them, the M3 MBP is perfect while an M3 Pro MBP would be overkill. I think tech websites tend to distort the impression of who a pro is when most pros spend their time in email, calendar, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Salesforce, etc, with perhaps a light touch of iMovie or Photoshop Elements.
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Fair - some good points on ports, I should know better as I regularly use the SD card slot on my MBP! I still prefer the simplicity of the MBPs starting with M3 Pro, but I guess it does make sense for some :)
 
rorydaredking said:
They are b*******

We all knew it, but to release the same machine in a thinner shell and enable more displays is just a complete piss take. Unless of course they release a firmware/OS update to enable it on the 14 inch too.

My first gen retina MBP ran 3 external displays, it's a farce that they claim their state of the art SoC, worlds best blah blah blah doesn't support 2. And of course now it does support 2.

Oh dear it gets worse. 2 displays only with lid closed. They really take the biscuit.
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Well, this is an update to the M2 Air, not a modified 14" MBP M3, to fit into the Air case.
I do think they should release a firmware update for the 14" MBP M3 that enables this clamshell mode as well - would be good publicity (and functionality for the users). There is a chance it's a change in hardware - but I suspect it's something that is set in firmware.

Your "first gen retina MBP" was a high end system with a separate GPU chip (even if it was the base 15" model) - Official specs are that it supports 1 HDMI and 1 Thunderbolt Display (if you daisy chain Thunderbolt displays you can do 2 Thunderbolt displays - so kinda supported, but most users would have not had this hardware available - much cheaper/easier to add an external display using DisplayLink to a new Air) with maximum 1920x1080 on an HDMI display and 2560x1600 resolution on a Thunderbolt Display - connecting an external display automatically kicked in the dGPU (the integrated graphics was only used with the internal display alone).
Even the M series Airs support up to 6K screens for it's external screen - looking at the specs for the new M3 Air - one at 6K, then "Close the MacBook Air lid to use a second external display with up to 5K resolution at 60Hz" - so there does appear to be some bandwidth issues with the base M series. 1080p is about 2 million pixels, 2560x1600 is just over 4 million pixels - 6K is just over 20 million pixels (5k is just over 14 million pixels, 8K over 33 million pixels) - so the new models while limited in number of displays - can handle 10x as many pixels being displayed on them.

To me the worse thing is - the base memory has barely changed in 12 years - the 2012 Airs started with 4GB ram, the 2012 MBPs started with 8 GB of ram - now it's Airs with 8 GB, and the bottom M3 14" Pro only with 8 GB of ram, the rest of the models 16 GB. (Maximum ram in the same time period has increased by 8x - of course you are paying a high premium for that)
 
Can we put a port on the same side as the microphone port? One of the things I hate about my M1 Air is all the ports are on the left side, and I never use the microphone port. Would have thought in next generations they would improve that.
 
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14” mbp Supports 2x6k just fine
 

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magbarn said:
You guys are missing something important.

I don't think Apple is purposely crippling the MBP M3 14.

The built in HDMI port that's likely hardwired to the SOC and taking up one of the display ports at all times on the MBP. That's missing on the MBA models, hence more display support on MBA.
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You might be on to something there. Even if not true, I think your thinking is correct. This additional feature is a step in the right direction, not the wrong direction; and given Apple's tendencies to 'double down' on things that are right, wrong, or indifferent, I for one am glad to see an improvement in this area.
 
dmylrea said:
If that's the case, why can't one use the HDMI port and one of the thunderbolt ports on the MBP M3 and get 2 displays with the lid closed?
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Good question! It seems the MBP models lack a "MUX switch" of some sort as none of their models get additional display option by closing the lid, while MBA improves display support when closing the lid, by being able to disconnect the SOC from the internal display.
 
coffeemilktea said:
One 6K display, or two 5K displays? I think the real question is how many cheap 1080p displays can I hook up to this? :p
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It has to be either one 6k display, or two 5k displays. I only have a single 5k display and now I'll probably have to wait for M4.
 
vertsix said:
This image right here is the stark contrast of what Apple used to be versus the complicated mess it is now with the product lines.
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The "Pro Desktop" is now three separate lines - the Pro, the Mini (which debuted in 2005) and the Studio. Fail to see how this is some "complicated mess"
 
I have been running triple displays with my MacBooks for the last 10 years. Here's one of my setups with an M1 13" and three 27" displays:

M1-Air-with-three-27's.jpeg
 
darngooddesign said:
You misspelled “Some people speculate”
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You misread.

Apple just confirmed they're gonna release a firmware update enabling it on the latest Macbook Pro that was restricted by design. Which, for this feature, is hardware wise the same for the M1.
 
dmylrea said:
I'm with you. It's Apple disabling features of lower priced Macs to push people to buy the more expensive product.

I've always thought the 1 external monitor was an artificial limitation and now I know it's true. One has to wonder about the M1 and M2...can they actually handle 2 external monitors but are artificially knee-capped to allow only 1?
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It isn't an artificial limitation. The hardware can only drive two physical displays. You could say that they should have budgeted the silicon for an extra display driver in the SoC, but it isn't some software flag.

Some software or hardware change in the new Air allows it to drive two external displays when the lid is closed, or one external display when the lid is open and the built-in display is on. It still has the same two display limitation.

Note that this is only a limitation on directly driving physical displays. A hardware device that 'joins' two displays together, USB display link, sidecar with an iPad, all allow for more screens. They just aren't using the displayport/hdmi hardware to do so.
 
v3nt said:
But doesn't the MacBook M3 pro support 2 external displays? My low end MacBook M1 Pro does.
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There is now a 14” MBP with an M3 NOT M3Pro chip. That machine only supports one external monitor.

Your M1Pro is comparable to the M3Pro chip which does support 2 displays.
 
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