Does the MacBook Air M3 have a fan, and does that matter for sustained work?

Regarding the MacBook Air: No, it does not have a fan. It relies on passive cooling, so for sustained heavy tasks like video rendering or running multiple VMs, the chip will throttle and performance can drop 20-30% after a few minutes. For short bursts or light tasks, it’s fine. If you need consistent performance for hours, get a 14-inch MacBook Pro with a fan instead.