Apple’s MacBook Air line is fantastic for basic productivity work. I own a MacBook Air and I’ve never found myself longing for a Pro—it’s an amazing laptop. If you’ve been looking to buy one, I have some good news for you—they are now cheaper, and they now have Apple’s latest M4 chips.
Apple has just announced its latest revision to the MacBook Air, which is now powered by the M4 chip. As is the case in other models Apple has debuted the M4 chip on, the company is promising insane performance gains. Apple claims the M4-powered MacBook Air is up to 2x faster than the M1 model and significantly faster than older Intel-based MacBook Airs. The chip itself features a 10-core CPU, up to a 10-core GPU, and supports up to 32GB of unified memory. It also includes a powerful Neural Engine, which Apple says is up to 3x faster than the one found in the M1 MacBook Air.
Despite the performance increase, Apple maintains that the new MacBook Air models offer up to 18 hours of battery life. The battery life is probably the part I like the most about my MacBook Air, and it’s good to see that it continues to remain a top priority. Otherwise, the laptop has not really changed from its previous design. We still have the same exact design we’ve seen since the launch of the M2 MacBook Air. This is not necessarily a bad thing—if something works, there’s no need to change it. The only change we have here regarding design is that a new “sky blue” color option, a metallic light blue, joins the existing midnight, starlight, and silver finishes. All color options come with a color-matched MagSafe charging cable.
The new MacBook Air features an upgraded 12MP Center Stage camera. This camera automatically keeps users centered in the frame during video calls, and supports Desk View, which can simultaneously show the user and a top-down view of their desk. The M4 MacBook Air, thanks to its new chip, is also finally lifting an important restriction from its predecessors. It can now drive up to two 6K external displays, in addition to the built-in Liquid Retina display. Previous MacBook Air models supported only one external display in addition to the laptop’s own display, so the fact that you can now plug in two is pretty outstanding.
The M4 was previously debuted on the iPad Pro, of all devices, before making its way slowly but steadily to other Mac computers. The new chips have been present in the MacBook Pro range for a while, and we’ve wondered when Apple would be announcing their arrival to the MacBook Air. Now, the day is finally here.
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Now equipped with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chipsets, it’s ready to run circles around nearly every other desktop computer.
Perhaps the more interesting part, though, is not related to the actual specifications inside, but to the fact that it’s now cheaper. The new M4 MacBook Air starts at a mere $999 for the version with 256GB of storage and 16GB of RAM, as well as $1,199 for the 15-inch version. The original Apple silicon MacBook Air, with the M1 chip, started at $999 back in 2020, but Apple raised the starting price to $1,099 with the launch of the M2 range. With the M4, we’re going back to $999. Pretty neat.
You can pre-order the new MacBook Air now from the Apple Store, ahead of its official release on March 12. It should show up at other retail stores around that time, too.
Source: Apple
