A publicity shot published by the BBC for Lucy Williamson's report inside Al-Shifa Hospital in November 2023. (Photo: BBC)
A publicity shot published by the BBC for Lucy Williamson’s report inside Al-Shifa Hospital in November 2023. (Photo: BBC)
As expected, Apple has officially refreshed its MacBook Air lineup with its M4 chip, the same silicon we've already seen in products like the MacBook Pro, the iMac, and the Mac mini. And in most ways, it's a straightforward update, with no major changes to the laptop's physical design, screen specs, keyboard, or ports. The most important update is the price. The 13-inch M4 MacBook Air will start at $999, a $100 price cut compared to the M3 Air and the same price that Apple set for the M2 Air last year when the M3 models came out. The 15-inch model will also get a $100 cut, from $1,299 to $1,199. These baseline configurations still come with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, plus the 8-core version of the M4's GPU. The M2 version will continue to be sold as a budget model in some countries, but the US isn't one of them. Apple will also continue to sell a cheaper version of the M1 MacBook Air through Walmart, which it has been doing since March 2024. There are two other updates of note: the first is the 12 megapixel Center Stage camera, similar to the one introduced in the iMac and MacBook Pro last year. Like the other Center Stage cameras, it will digitally shift around to follow people as they move, and also supports some background removal and replacement effects that older webcams don't. Apple is also adding a new color option for the first time in a while, a Sky Blue color reminiscent of (but a little less saturated than) the Sapphire blue color that Microsoft uses for Surface PCs. That finish has always been my favorite of Microsoft's Surface options, and Sky Blue may be my favorite of the Air's three lighter-colored finishes. Silver and the gold-tinged Starlight are the other two; Apple still offers the dark Midnight finish but Space Gray is gone.
Like past MacBook Air models, the M4 version doesn't have a cooling fan inside, which will likely make its M4 slightly slower than the other versions we've encountered so far. But it still has a 10-core CPU (four P-cores, six E-cores), "up to" a 10-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine. The base models come with 16GB of RAM, which is upgradable to both 24GB and 32GB. The 32GB RAM option is a first for the Air, which was capped at 16GB in the M1 generation (and most of the Intel years) and 24GB for the M2 and M3 models. The new MacBook Airs can also support up to three displays at once—two external 6K displays, plus the laptop’s internal screen. The M3 could only drive two external screens if its internal display was turned off. The new MacBook Air models are available to preorder today and will be available on March 12. Apple will also launch updated versions of the Mac Studio on the same day, with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips.