UPDATE: Mar. 6, 2025, 9:30 a.m. EST This story has been updated with additional preorder listings at Amazon, Best Buy, and B&H Photo.
Apple continued its "Air" week with the announcement of the M4-powered MacBook Air Wednesday. The latest iteration of the popular notebook comes in a new sky blue finish — but most notably, it starts at $999 and $1,199 in 13- and 15-inch sizes, respectively, making it $100 less than the previous M3 model.
The M4 MacBook Air is now available for preorder through Amazon, the Apple Store, Best Buy, and B&H Photo ahead of its formal launch on Wednesday, March 12. Paid members of the My Best Buy program (Plus and Total tiers) save $50 when they preorder any configuration.
That M4 chip has a 10-core CPU, up to a 10-core GPU, and support for up to 32GB of RAM (compared to an 8-core CPU and up to 24GB of RAM for its M3 counterpart). In its press release, Apple said this makes its refreshed MacBook Air up to two times faster than the M1 model from 2020 and up to 23 times faster than its bygone Intel-based models, making a clear appeal to longtime upgrade holdouts.
The new MacBook Air has the same 18-hour battery life as the M3 model and a virtually identical design, save for the addition of a new 12MP Center Stage webcam and support for up to two 6K external displays with its lid open. Besides the new sky blue colorway, it still comes in midnight, starlight, and silver, but no longer space gray.
Its price is really the big story here. By selling the 13-inch M4 MacBook Air at $999 to start, Apple is matching the last selling price of the M2 model from 2022 and beating the final MSRP of 2024's M3 model by $100. (Both older MacBook Airs are no longer available in the Apple Store following the M4 announcement, for what it's worth.)
At a time when a lot of tech is getting more expensive, not less, a $999 price tag for a brand-new MacBook Air is both a pleasant surprise and extremely competitive.
