The new MacBook Air made me wonder why do I keep buying the MacBook Pro.
I keep telling myself that the laptop is the most powerful tool I use daily, and that I should get the best one. But honestly, the new 15-inch MacBook Air, which Apple lent me for a few weeks, has put my 16-inch MacBook Pro to shame in so many ways that I'm wondering if I should just switch to the Air the next time around.
Apple M4 MacBook Air: Price and specs
Let's start with the most pleasant surprise: The new MacBook Air is cheaper than before. The 13-inch variant starts at $999, while the 15-inch variant starts at $1,199 – a hundred bucks down from last year's price. Apple doesn't do this often, so enjoy it while you can.
As for specs, the most important changes on the new MacBook Air are the new M4 chip with a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU (the 13-inch version starts with an 8-core GPU), 16GB of starting memory (the last year's version started at 8GB), the new, 12-megapixel webcam, and the new, Sky Blue color. The new Air also supports up to two external displays, even when you're using its own display. The Air still starts with 256GB of storage.
The softest of blues
Despite its size, the 15-inch MacBook Air is reasonably light and thin, making it a lot more portable than my 16-inch Pro. The new Sky Blue color is incredibly subtle, and can only be appreciated in a certain light. I'd like it to be more vibrant, especially given all the other colors are also some variant of grey (Starlight, Silver, and Midnight), but it's the Apple way. The MagSafe charging port is matching the Sky Blue color, so everything is good with the universe.
I haven't had any time with the new 13-inch MacBook Air, but it's a very similar machine, only smaller and lighter (it weighs 2.7 pounds vs. the 15-inch Air's 3.3 pounds).
I'm the type of guy who'd gladly lug a larger, heavier laptop around for the increased screen real estate, but some folks may opt for the smaller Air for the extra portability.
Silent power
Outside, the new Air is pretty much the same as the last one. Inside, there are a couple of important changes.
First, the new Air has Apple's M4 chip inside. Apple's M-series of chips aren't huge upgrades year-over-year (which is why Apple often compares new chips against much older variants in marketing materials), but the first one, the M1, was so good, that most users probably wouldn't notice the difference between that chip and the latest one.
Still, the new M4 MacBook Air is impressively powerful. I put it through GeekBench's CPU test and got great results: a 3,778 single-core score, and a 14,992 multi-core score. That's considerably faster than any earlier Mac when it comes to single-core operation, and roughly on par with an M2 Max when it comes to multi-core operation.
To illustrate just how good this is, let's put it into context. This M4 MacBook Air only has passive cooling, so it emits nearly no noise. Of course, if you push it hard, it will get hot; it only took 20 minutes of Dota 2 at the highest settings for the Air to get pretty hot to the touch above the keyboard. The laptop's bottom also got warm, but not so much that it felt unbearable in my lap.
This is not a gaming laptop, by the way, but it will do for games that aren't very demanding. For example, Dota 2 was glitchy at the highest settings, but when I pushed the visuals slider away from "best looking" it did fine, maintaining FPS count above 60 most of the time.
One thing I worry about is whether the MacBook Air will be able to handle extreme heat which is common during the summer on the Adriatic coast where I live (100 degrees Fahrenheit or more). I guess playing a game in a non-air-conditioned room would cause some throttling, but I can't test that right now.
The device Apple sent me had 16GB of RAM, which is the starting amount, and I never felt like I needed more (you can also get the Air with 24GB or 32 GB of RAM, for $200 or $400 extra). As for storage, the Air starts at 256GB but it can also be had with 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB of storage (for $200, $400, and $800 extra, respectively). My unit had 1TB which was obviously more than enough for a week of use. The extra memory and storage could be cheaper, but given that the Air used to start with 8GB of RAM, it's hard to complain here.
Display, keyboard, trackpad
This is the easy part, because the display, the keyboard, and the trackpad on the new M4 MacBook Air haven't changed since the last generation.
The keyboard is still excellent, though I do prefer the depth and the feeling I get on my MacBook Pro's keys. Apple's trackpads are near-perfect and have been for a while. And the display is plenty bright and gorgeous...when it displays a still image. Grab a window and start moving it around on the screen, and you'll notice the shortcomings of the display's refresh rate, which only goes to 60Hz. If you're a gamer or if you just want a silky smooth 120Hz display, you'll have to look elsewhere.
Webcam, ports, and surprisingly good sound
The new MacBook Air has a new, 12-megapixel front camera, and it's a big upgrade. Compared to the old, 1080p webcam on my MacBook Pro, the image is sharper, a bit brighter, and more detailed. You still won't get selfies nearly as good as you would on a newer phone, but you'll look a lot better in video calls.
As for the ports you get...it's the same as last year, which means – not great. You get a MagSafe port for charging, two Thunderbolt ports on one side, and a solitary headphone jack on the other. Given that this machine can support two external displays, it'd be nice if additional ports existed as an option, at least.
Sound on the 15-inch Air is pretty good, loud without too much distortion, bright and clear. Compared to the sound coming out of the 16-inc MacBook Pro, it's a bit brighter and thinner, with less bass, but it's still pretty great. Note that the 13-inch only has 4 speakers compared to the 15-incher's 6-speaker configuration, so it likely won't sound as good.
Battery life
The 15-inch M4 MacBook Air is rated by Apple as capable for up to 18 hours of video streaming, and up to 15 hours of wireless web browsing. We've put the new MacBook Air to our standard test of streaming a looped 1080p video (Tears of Steel), and got just over 10 hours of battery life which is in line with what we've got from the M3 MacBook Air using the same test. As for my personal experience, I felt that this machine could easily last me through a full day of work.
Is the new, 15-inch, M4 MacBook Air worth it?
Yes. Absolutely. The new MacBook Air is cheaper than before, and runs Apple's most powerful chip (well, its basic variant) while being dead silent. The webcam is better, the battery life is great, and just about the only negatives we can think is low number of ports and the fact that the display's refresh rate only goes to 60Hz.
Topics MacBook
