I have been using the MacBook Air with M3 for more than a year now, and while I absolutely love the portability and performance speed on daily tasks, I’m excited to review the MacBook Air with M4. The MacBook Air with M4 is touted to be at least 2x faster than the M1 chip, and coming from the M3, there are a few key differences that I’ve observed by using the MacBook Air with M4 for about a week.
Overall Look & Feel
The MacBook Air with M4 comes in both 13-inch and 15-inch sizes, in 4 gorgeous finishes, and I got my hands on the 13-inch Space Grey unit that is perfect for me. The Sky Blue was definitely tempting, but the aesthetics of the Space Grey remains most practical for me (and my lifestyle).
Holding it for the first time affirmed that the MacBook Air with M4 weighs the same as M3. I’m definitely thankful that the weight is kept the same, as the 13″ MacBook Air is easy to carry around for external meetings and shoots. Looking at both machines side by side, both MacBook Airs (M3 & M4) looks identical.
Display
The new MacBook Air can be hooked up to a multi-display setup easily, and now supports up to two 6K external displays, in addition to the built-in Liquid Retina display. This makes working on a ton of things at once, that much easier. Working on a bunch of spreadsheets while running other crucial work apps is easier on the eyes now, and while I love the portability of the 13-inch MacBook Air, I definitely appreciate the external display support. As compared to the M3, the MacBook Air with M4 offers a slight improvement in terms of visual output – but I noticed that watching shows and gaming on the M4 looks just a touch more crisp. Graphics are a tad more vibrant on the M4, that’s for sure. The only wish here is that future MacBook Airs will ramp up the display a lot more to be more comparable to the Pro lineup.
Performance with M4 Chip
The new MacBook Air with M4 supports up to 32GB of unified memory, and for this review, I’m using the one with 16GB of unified memory. Even on the 16GB unified memory machine, the new MacBook Air is a dream to carry out daily tasks. In comparison to the M3 chip, the improvements are slight, but noticeable through the rate at which I’m able to multitask.
Having Notes, Safari, Reminders, Apple TV+ and a bunch of other apps open and running at the same time, plus with a game in the other window was a breeze. There was virtually no lag time when cycling through the different apps, and the M4 chip is able to support a lot of active and dormant apps open at the same time. This is particularly helpful especially when working on different tasks all at the same time.
Battery Life
I use the MacBook Air mostly while on-the-go, and while being out and about for different meetings and appointments throughout a work day, the machine could last for two whole days without charging. That’s about a whopping 16 hours of usage, with about 31% battery left when I finally get home, without charging – typical daily tasks and nothing too intense or crazy. Officially, the MacBook Air with M4 can last up to 18 hours on a single charge.
12MP Centre Stage Camera
This is by far, one of my favorite features on the MacBook Air. It may seem a bit creepy to have the camera track your exact movements on screen when you first use it, but as time goes by, you’d find that this is incredibly helpful. I tend to fidget a lot on work calls, and I’d occasionally reach outside of the screen to grab something – and with the 12MP Centre Stage Camera, it conveniently tracks my fidgety self perfectly, keeping me in frame even as I multitask on calls.
Desk View
Apple introduced Desk View with MacBook Air with M4, and boy, is this super helpful especially when you’re trying to show people on your calls something on your desk. Quite literally. You can easily tilt the MacBook Air to capture anything on your desk – like your iPad, or even a physical product that you need to demo to your clients. It does takes some positioning of your item on the desk to get it right, but it’s fairly straightforward.
This would come in very handy for educators, business owners, and students. I definitely will be using this feature especially in video meetings.
macOS Sequoia
When macOS Sequoia was introduced, the feature that I found myself using the most, is iPhone Mirroring. It’s particularly useful especially when my iPhone is not physically by my side, and allows me to use my iPhone on my MacBook Air while my iPhone remains locked.
Working on Safari is faster now too, and reading copious amounts of documents are a breeze with the new Reader – which helps to summarize chunks of texts. I find myself using Window Tiling a lot more to quickly snap windows to the screen grid without having to manually shift and resize windows, which gets quite annoying.
Yay or Nay?
If you already own a MacBook Air with M3, there may not be a need to upgrade to the M4, given that the improvements are quite minor. I would definitely recommend upgrading to the M4 if you’re coming from the older version of the MacBook Air, like the M1 chip. As compared to the M1, the MacBook Air with M4 is overall up to 2x faster in terms of performance – and the difference will definitely be much more significant. This is a nay for me personally, only because the M3 chip works adequately for my daily tasks. I’d consider switching to the M4 if it came with more Pro features. However, I’d say that this is a good entry level MacBook for anyone who is switching from other brands. After all, the MacBook Air lineup has always been a comfortable entry point into the Mac ecosystem.
Pricing & Availability
The new MacBook Air with M4 comes in two familiarly portable sizes: 13-inch, and 15-inch.
The 13-inch MacBook Air with M4 starts at S$1,499, and the 15-inch MacBook Air with M4 starts at S$1,799. Both models are available in Sky Blue, Midnight, Starlight, and Silver. Oh, did I mention this? The MacBook Air with M4 is now $100 cheaper than the previous Air generation – for both sizes.
You can order the new MacBook Air with M4 today.
If you’re looking for more Pro features, I’d recommend going with the MacBook Pro with M4.
