Some have called it the perfect laptop. Others, including myself, have wondered who it’s for. I’m talking about the 15-inch MacBook Air, of course—the small yet large, powerful but fanless, middle-of-the-road MacBook. I always considered it a bit niche among the lineup of the best MacBooks, squeezing a narrow tier between the 13-inch MacBook Air and the 14-inch MacBook Pro.
But with the M4 model, the increase in performance and capabilities, paired with a lower price, make it feel like the 15-inch MacBook Air has finally come into its own.
A Blue MacBook!
Photograph: Luke Larsen
The design of the MacBook Air hasn’t changed since 2022, but people are still marveling at it. For those who haven’t seen the 0.45-inch thickness in person–or are coming from a much older laptop–they’re still in for a treat. In the past three years since this design originally launched (or two years for the 15-inch model), no other laptop has come along to take its sleekness crown. It’s still the thinnest laptop you can buy in its respective category.
For those who’ve seen this before, the only noticeable exterior change is the new Sky Blue color option. I’ve seen people call this underwhelming for how not-blue it is, but let’s not forget how much flack Apple took for its bolder iMac colors a few years back. I prefer this subtler approach. It mostly resembles a light silver, but in the right natural light, it sparkles with a unique bluish hue. I do have to pour one out for Space Grey, which has now been completely replaced. It will always be my favorite laptop color, and I’m a bit perplexed as to why it’s gone. RIP.
There haven’t been any changes to the 15.3-inch LED 60-Hz screen, the excellent keyboard and trackpad, or the overall shape and build quality of the device, so let’s go over what else has changed.
Photograph: Luke Larsen
The most important new feature this time around is support for up to two external displays. In what seems to be an added capability of the M4, the MacBook Air no longer requires closing the laptop to support two monitors like the M3 model. This allows Apple to position the MacBook Air as a more adaptable option for a broader range of buyers, which now includes small business owners and hybrid workers. People in this demographic might not need the improved performance or display of the MacBook Pro, but really need that second screen. You no longer have to pay an extra $300 to jump up to the 14-inch MacBook Pro, and that’s a good thing.
When it comes to ports, my only remaining complaint is that all the power connections are on the left side, including both USB-C ports and MagSafe. Only the headphone jack is flanked on the right side. For how few ports there are here, I would at least like to see one USB-C port moved to the right side for more convenient charging.
Leap Ahead
Of course, the biggest upgrade to this year’s 15-inch MacBook Air is the M4 itself. If you remember the MacBook Pro refresh last fall, the M4 provided a significant bump to both single-core and GPU performance.
As we’ve seen in the past, there’s no discernible performance difference between the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air, except the starting configurations. The smaller model comes with the option for an 8-core GPU and 10-core CPU, while the 15-inch starts with a 10-core GPU. This means there’s no longer an 8-core CPU option available, though that was always exclusive to the 13-inch model anyways.
Photograph: Luke Larsen
The main configuration difference this time is in RAM. Apple began selling the M3 MacBook Air starting with 16GB of RAM last year, and now, you can increase that to 32GB instead of being limited to 24GB. As always, Apple charges insane prices for extra storage. It’s $200 to get 512GB, $400 for 1TB, and $800 for 2TB. In most cases, you’re better off opting for external storage.
The M4 also gives the MacBook Air its AI boost with Apple Intelligence. The 38 TOPS of local AI processing through the faster 16-core Neural Engine makes the M4 MacBook Air closer to the 48 TOPS on Intel’s Lunar Lake chips and 45 TOPS of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips.
This is difficult to judge, because Apple Intelligence is very much still unfinished, but there are some new third-party apps that Apple is showcasing that use Apple Intelligence right out of the box in third-party applications, such as the note-taking app, Bear. You can now do things like automatically format text into tables or summarize a report. It also comes with Image Playground, the updated version of Siri with ChatGPT integration, and lots more. On the other hand, you’ve never needed fast local AI processing to get Apple Intelligence, as AI tasks on older devices just get run on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute system.
The raw performance bump you’ll see on the M4 MacBook Air over last year’s M3 is 22 percent faster GPU, 31 percent multi-core, and 18 percent single-core, as measured in Cinebench R24. That’s a really solid step up for one generation, particularly in single-core performance, where Apple Silicon continues to dominate the competition. In terms of the graphics, that’s also over double the performance from the M2. Whether you’re photo editing or doing 3D modeling, that’s enough to feel the difference if you’re coming from an M1 or M2 MacBook Air.
As with all MacBook Airs, it’s a completely fanless machine. That feels incredible at certain points, especially when you’re in heaving applications like a game. I whipped out Baldur’s Gate 3, and while it’s far from ideal performance, the utterly silent system means you won’t even need headphones to play. But at 1200p, medium settings, and upscaling, it wasn’t too hard to find a balance of performance and image quality that felt enjoyable. Achieving that performance without fans is something that can’t be done on any other laptop right now.
The downside of being fanless, of course, is you’re not getting quite as much out of the M4 as you would on a system with active cooling, namely the 14-inch MacBook Pro. The Air’s system has to throttle frequencies down to prevent a meltdown, and even still, I recorded CPU temperatures as high as 102 degrees Celsius. Fortunately, the surface temperatures never got unbearable in my time with it, even while running under full load.
Photograph: Luke Larsen
As for battery life, the MacBook Air remains among the best. Apple claims the M4 MacBook Air can last up to 18 hours but doesn’t specify under what conditions. That’s the same claim as was made on the M3 MacBook Air, so you can expect very similar battery life. In my testing, I saw it last over 20 hours in local video playback, but obviously, it can drain much faster depending on the circumstances. For example, while installing a large game in Steam, the battery drained at a rate that would only last for around 4 and a half hours. On a full day of work for me, I got through a full day away from the wall without breaking a sweat.
Clearing the Lineup
The performance and features of the M4 MacBook Air are good on their own, but they’re even more impressive when considered in their new context. For the first time since 2020, Apple has completely reset its MacBook Air lineup, with the M3 and M2 having been discontinued and the new M4 model replacing both of them.
For the 15-inch model that I reviewed, it also comes in at $100 more than the 15-inch M3 MacBook Air, creating some more space between it and the 14-inch MacBook Pro, which has almost dangerously close starting prices. In the past, I usually recommended the 14-inch MacBook Pro, thanks to its far superior mini-LED screen and broader port selection, especially if you dabble in content creation. But now, the more meaningful separation in price makes the 15-inch MacBook Air far easier to recommend.
You’ll still likely be able to find refurbished versions of the M2 and M3 models at third-party retailers, and Walmart will still be selling the M1 model for its low price. But in my mind, the M4 MacBook Air makes for a much cleaner and simpler lineup for buyers to parse through. In theory, this is good for both Apple and us.
Photograph: Luke Larsen
Meanwhile, the choice between the 13-inch and 15-inch models remains the same. Performance and battery life aren’t discernibly different, but there are two main upgrades that the 15-inch model provides. The first is the screen itself, which might sound obvious, but until you’ve seen these side by side, you might not realize just how much bigger it is. Despite being incredibly thin, the 15-inch MacBook Air remains quite deep and long to accommodate its 15.3-inch screen. It even has a significantly larger footprint than the 14-inch MacBook Pro.
That extra screen real estate is huge for those who work primarily off just a laptop. Side by side split screen is considerably easier, and if you have trouble seeing, the additional space to display larger text is essential. The 15-inch model achieves this without giving sharpness either, as Apple always scales up the resolution for the larger screen.
As someone without a television in their home, I can attest to the fact that it makes for a far better machine for watching movies or shows than the 13-inch model. The six-speaker audio setup also plays an important role there, which is a significant improvement over the 13-inch model. It’s not been changed over the M2 or M3 versions, but it remains an added bonus for the $100 upgrade to the larger size. It’s still not quite as bassy as the 14-inch MacBook Pro, but it’s superior to the vast majority of laptop speakers out there.
Overall, the M4 15-inch MacBook Air is a clear winner. In my mind, this laptop’s most fierce competitor is the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition. The Snapdragon X device gets great battery life, and while the performance doesn’t quite match the M4 (especially in graphics), it comes with a 120Hz refresh rate screen, more ports, and is slightly cheaper. I still consider the MacBook Air to be a more well-rounded option though, thanks to the better speakers, webcam, and thinner chassis.
It’s hard to complain when the 15-inch MacBook Air improves upon the previous model in noteworthy ways while also dropping the price.
