M4 MacBook Air Review: Almost Perfect

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The M4 MacBook Air is the best value for money laptop on the market now that it only costs $999/£999 and packs the M4 chip. What more could you want?

The Good

1. Excellent value
2. M4 chip offers more than enough power
3. Beautiful and robust build quality

The Not So Good

1. Not that much better than the M3 model

• User Ratings (403 Votes)
  4.7

Need-to-knows

• At $999/£999, it is the best value for money you’ll find in a laptop
• The M4 chip is a modest but welcome boost
• 16GB base level model is the right choice for most people
• Sky Blue colour is more muted than in photos

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I’ve reviewed the MacBook Air countless times since its design overhaul in 2022. Before that, I gushed relentlessly about the M1 MacBook Air, which turned out to be the swansong for the still-lovely tapered design the late Steve Jobs once unearthed from a manila envelope.

It therefore seems daft to review it again simply because Apple has chucked an M4 chip into its entry-level laptop.

The latest MacBook Air is nothing more than a spec bump in the chip department. The only other differences are the introduction of a new colour and the ability to drive two external displays with the laptop’s display on at the same time. Everything else is identical.

So, today, I thought I’d simply reveal why I think the MacBook Air is now categorically the best laptop money can buy.

No arguments.

Although there will be arguments, I know.

How I reviewed the M4 MacBook Air

Although this isn’t strictly a review of the M4 MacBook Air, it is important to note how I use it and, therefore, illustrate how I concluded that it’s the best thing since sliced bread.

The MacBook Air has, for the last couple of years, been my ‘home laptop’. I have a 14-inch MacBook Pro which travels with me everywhere for heavy-duty lifting out on the road, but the larger screen of my 15-inch MacBook Air has always felt perfectly suited to home use.

My use case is simple and, I suspect, very similar to most MacBook Air owners. I undertake email and various admin-related duties on it, but also a considerable amount of writing, research, and calls with my team. It rarely gets used for production work and I don’t game on it, either.

Specifications and price

Feature	13.6-inch MacBook Air (M4)	15.3-inch MacBook Air (M4)
Chip	Apple M4: 10-core CPU (4 performance + 6 efficiency cores), 8-core GPU (configurable to 10-core), 16-core Neural Engine	Apple M4: 10-core CPU (4 performance + 6 efficiency cores), 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Memory	16GB unified memory (configurable to 24GB or 32GB)	16GB unified memory (configurable to 24GB or 32GB)
Storage Options	256GB SSD (configurable to 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB)	512GB SSD (configurable to 1TB or 2TB)
Display	13.6-inch Liquid Retina, 2560×1664 resolution, 500 nits brightness, P3 wide color, True Tone	15.3-inch Liquid Retina, 2880×1864 resolution, 500 nits brightness, P3 wide color, True Tone
External Display Support	Up to two external displays with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz	Up to two external displays with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz
Battery Life	Up to 18 hours video playback, 15 hours wireless web; 53.8Wh battery	Up to 18 hours video playback, 15 hours wireless web; 66.5Wh battery
Camera	12MP Center Stage camera with Desk View, 1080p HD video recording	12MP Center Stage camera with Desk View, 1080p HD video recording
Audio	Four-speaker system with Spatial Audio, three-mic array with beamforming, 3.5mm headphone jack	Six-speaker system with Spatial Audio, three-mic array with beamforming, 3.5mm headphone jack
Ports	MagSafe 3 charging port, two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports, 3.5mm headphone jack	MagSafe 3 charging port, two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports, 3.5mm headphone jack
Wireless Connectivity	Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.3	Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.3
Operating System	macOS Sequoia with Apple Intelligence features	macOS Sequoia with Apple Intelligence features
Dimensions (H × W × D)	1.13 cm × 30.41 cm × 21.5 cm	1.15 cm × 34.04 cm × 23.76 cm
Weight	1.24 kg	1.51 kg
Colors Available	Sky Blue, Silver, Starlight, Midnight	Sky Blue, Silver, Starlight, Midnight
Starting Price	$999/£999(256GB model)	$1,199/£999 (512GB model)

5 Reasons why the MacBook Air is the best laptop you can buy

Let me make one thing clear: I’m not against Windows laptops. My Samsung Book5 Pro review is a clear demonstration of how far things have come on the other side of the fence. I used to be a heavy Windows user, in fact, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve appreciated how MacBooks just work. I think the M4 MacBook Air is the pinnacle of that form of mobile computing.

If you still don’t agree with me, here are a few reasons why it’s hard to recommend anything else.

1. It’s Apple’s best-value laptop

The 13-inch MacBook Air costs £999/$999. If you fancy the big one, the 15-inch edition is £1,199/$1199.

This is extremely good value for an Apple product. Remember – this is the company that traditionally charges over the odds for stuff which you can get far cheaper elsewhere. Not so with the MacBook Air.

Yes, once you start speccing it up, it gets costly (I’ll get to that later), but the beauty of the MacBook Air is that most people don’t need to. Just buy that base model. It’s all you need, and the value you’ll get in return with years of faultless, joyful service will pay you back several times over.

Oh, and if you’re a student, it’s even cheaper.

Yes, there are cheaper Windows-based alternatives out there and, yes, if you delve into the second-hand market, you can grab an M1 or M2 MacBook Air for even less. But if you want a pristine MacBook Air with the latest chip and at least a year of manufacturer warranty, those entry-level prices deliver so much value.

2. The base spec is powerful enough for most people

I haven’t troubled my M4 MacBook Air yet. Although, to be fair, I’ve not really thrown anything significant at it. Despite this, I still have a lingering hangover from my days in Windows Land, where performance, even at the base level, was interrupted by occasional slowness, inexplicable crashes, and aircraft carrier-style fan noise.

I know things are different on the Dark Side of the Moon now, but the effortlessness of the MacBook Air and the knowledge that the M4 chip has so much headroom is a thing to behold. Regardless, I will be pushing it further very soon with some music production and DJ-related projects I’m working on (which I know it will smash).

I firmly believe that most people who buy a MacBook Air need nothing more than the base spec. As a reminder, that includes the M4 chip, 16GB of unified memory and 256GB of storage. At the most, you may want to upgrade the latter to 512GB, but having used a 256GB M2 MacBook Air with 8GB of unified memory for a long time now, I can tell you that the new base spec M4 will be killer for most people.

3. The design is top-tier and the keyboard smudges less

Ok, I admit – I’m still a fan of the original tapered MacBook Air design. That’s just me being an old fart, though – I appreciate that times change and that the MacBook Air needed a refresh.

That 2022 design refresh has left us with one of the prettiest, slimmest, and most desirable laptops on the market. I still maintain that you can’t get anything like the MacBook Air in Windows land. Sorry, Windows People.

There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, the MacBook Air feels more solid and durable than its thin frame suggests. Secondly, the trackpad and keyboard are the best versions on the market (no arguments). Thirdly, it remains the only laptop I’ve used which you can reliably open one-handed. Every time. Does that matter? Not really, but absolutely.

Additionally, anyone who has owned a MacBook of any kind for any amount of time will know that the keys lose their satisfying matte finish alarmingly quickly.

If you type even a moderate amount of text each week on your MacBook, you’ll find that the keys develop a rather unsightly sheen after a while. It’s permanent, too, and no matter how much you wash your hands and ensure you don’t use your MacBook keyboard while eating your lunch (trust me – I’ve tried everything), your MacBook will look like an IBM ThinkPad far too quickly.

I have no confirmation that this is true, but I have a feeling Apple has rectified – or, at least, vastly improved – Shiny Key Syndrome on the M4 MacBook Air. After a month of daily typing, mine looks as good as new.

It’s as though Apple has used some kind of anti-sheen coating. I hope they have. Although if they have, I’m not sure why they haven’t talked about it.

4. macOS is still better than Windows

I rarely make friends with Windows users, and this claim is unlikely to ingratiate me any further with them.

As noted earlier, I was once a Windows user. Admittedly, this was a long time ago. If my memory serves me correctly, I switched to the Mac in around 2007. Before then, I’d spent years building my own Windows-based PCs and using them for gaming and music production. I also had a long-term job which forced me to use Microsoft’s operating system.

Whether or not my past unfairly colours my opinion of Windows I’ll never really know (it wasn’t a particularly happy relationship back then – let’s put it that way). But, regardless, for me, macOS just feels so much more enjoyable to use. It never crashes. There are no remnants of past versions (look hard enough in Windows 11 and you’ll find dialogue boxes and user interface elements that appear to be stuck in 1998).

It just works.

I agree that window management is actually slightly better in Windows, but that isn’t enough for me to go back. For me, the brilliance of the MacBook Air’s hardware combined with the sheer joyfulness of macOS is the best combination out there.

I promise I’ll quit with the Windows People baiting soon, but I can’t escape the knowledge that the brilliance of the M4 MacBook Air and the way it has been so positively received, even by the likes of Linus Tech Tips, really annoys anyone who loves Windows.

Childish? Definitely.

Do I care?

Nope.

5. It will retain its value and performance for a long time

It still surprises me how well Macs retain their value. It’s one of the most commonly raised points in the comments sections of my YouTube videos. Whenever I offer buying guidance for any Mac, people are always quick to point out that resale value should be top of mind for those making purchases. 

Buy the right MacBook Air now, and it’ll be both easy to sell and surprisingly wallet-filling further down the line.

The same goes for performance. The Apple silicon era has brought with it an ownership experience that doesn’t have to settle for slowly degrading performance. At least, not for a long time.

A case in point: my M1 MacBook Air is still in use – my girlfriend is using it to undertake a three-year acupuncture degree, and it never misses a beat. On the odd occasion, I need to use it to check something for her, it still feels as fresh and as smooth as the day I unearthed it from it’s box – nearly five years ago.

There’s a reason people hang onto their MacBook Airs for so long.

5 things I don’t love about the M4 MacBook Air

I’ve done it, ok? I’ve sat down and made a list of the things I don’t like about the M4 MacBook Air. It took a while, I’ll be honest, but I’m pretty happy with the results.

This is where I win back – sorry, win back – the affections of Windows People.

1. Upgrade pricing

I cannot defend Apple’s upgrade pricing for the Mac. It is ludicrous.

Every incremental increase of unified memory or SSD storage is met with a £200/$200 bill. It’s a sealed unit, too, so you have to commit, which brings with it all kinds of concerns about buyer’s remorse (this is one of the most common topics in the comments sections of my Mac YouTube videos).

This is also where the arguments for “just buy a MacBook Pro” enter the fray, and I can understand why; spec up an M4 MacBook Air, and you quickly find yourself in MacBook Pro territory. I still maintain that they are very different laptops, but it makes for a confusing and frustrating buying experience, regardless.

My advice remains: just buy the base model M4 MacBook Air, because it’s more than enough for most people and represents the best value. Thankfully, the 16GB of unified memory starting point makes this a lot simpler (and you can add external storage later if you need it).

2. The blue colour

It isn’t blue.

Well, it is. Technically. But in reality, like so many tech colours these days, it is incredibly muted – to the point where it looks silver 99% of the time.

This is annoying, because the iMac exists, and you can buy Apple’s all-in-one desktop in a variety of very lovely colours that genuinely ‘pop’ as soon as you unearth the computer from its packaging. This means that somewhere deep in Apple’s spaceship campus, there’s a department – or person – with enough clout to push such bold colours onto the shelves.

Why didn’t this happen with the new MacBook Air, Tim?

3. Continued Apple Intelligence over-advertising

I won’t drone on too much about this here, because I’ve done so numerous times this year, but I’m still dismayed to see the ‘Apple Intelligence’ plastered everywhere when you buy a MacBook Air.

At the time of writing, it still isn’t a selling point. At most, it should be a bullet point beneath the rest of the specs.

Please don’t buy an M4 MacBook Air because of Apple Intelligence. You won’t be disappointed, because it’s the best laptop money can buy, but you will feel a bit let down.

4. Two big misses

Time to win a few more Windows People friends.

Every time I review a Windows-based laptop, there are two things I deeply want to transfer to my MacBook.

The first is facial recognition. Why haven’t we got FaceID on the Mac, still, in 2025?

The second is the touch screen. I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea – particularly in the “don’t you dare touch my display!” world of MacBook ownership, but once you’ve sampled it on a Windows laptop, you realise it makes sense. For some reason, the MacBook Air feels more suited to it than the MacBook Pro. And, no, I have no idea why.

5. Where we go next

This is a selfish one.

The M4 MacBook Air is so good, I can’t think what Apple can do to it next (beyond the two requests above). Where does it go next? What will I have to say about the M5 MacBook Air?

I can’t just crown that the best laptop ever, again, can I?

Who am I kidding – that’s probably exactly what I’ll do. I’m a tech YouTuber.

There’s a serious point to be made here, though. As much as YouTube seems to reward the same video being made again and again, I do rather like new stuff to talk about, and I’m concerned that we’re reaching the end of that era for the MacBook for the foreseeable future.

This is a great problem for Mac fans because normal people don’t sample every generation of their favourite Mac. But for reviewers, it’s a bit of a conundrum. It also means we need to get more creative with our content.

Maybe it isn’t a bad thing, after all.

Conclusion

The M4 MacBook Air doesn’t need to be reviewed by someone like me. If you’ve followed me on YouTube or read my words for any amount of time, you’ll know I’m a huge fan of it.

Apple would have to do something monumentally stupid to stop me from recommending the MacBook Air. It is still the best new laptop you can buy. If you don’t agree with me, or if you just want to add some of your own gushing thoughts, please get involved in the comments section!