- Apple adds the M4 to its MacBook Air
- The laptop hosts the central scene
- There is a new color, while another shade is withdrawn
Apple’s MacBook Air, probably the most popular Mac and a laptop that is regularly at the top of our list of the best laptops, finally obtains the M4 chip, a piece of Apple Silicon which appeared for the first time in the iPad Pro last year and later the MacBook Pro. It is also, quite surprising, to see a drop in price.
Although fundamentally the same laptop as MacBook Air M3 from last year (and the M2 of the previous year), there is a handful of upgrades and even an aesthetic change. In addition to the M4 chip, Apple improves the facetime 12MP camera with a functionality in the center of the scene, and the laptop now has two Thunderbolt 4 ports.
These ports offer roughly the same flow as the Thunderbolt 3 port from last year (up to 40 Gbps) but with a notable difference. The MacBook Air M4 can now drive two external screens via these ports while feeding the main liquid retina display of the laptop. It’s true, the laptop remains open.
There is also a new color to consider: Sky Blue. He replaces the gray space and joins Midnight, Starlight and Silver.
These updates take place on the 13 -inch and 15 inch models, which now, a little remarkably, are $ 100 cheaper than last year. The 13 -inch MacBook Air M4 starts at $ 999 with 16 GB of memory, and the 15 -inch model starts at $ 1,199.
Dig
The M4 chip brings more energy in the form of a CPU with 10 cores and up to a 10 -core GPU. You can also specify up to 32 GB of unified memory.
In practice, that makes the MacBook Air M4 a better system of creativity and business. Although I could not try laptops for me, Apple showed me impressive live demos.
We watched the editor-in-chief Pixelmator Pro, which Apple bought last year, leaning in the 12MP central camera, took a head of the head, then used backgrounds and other presets to take a passport photo quickly.
The M4 supports Apple Intelligence, and the MacBook Air puts it wisely. We have seen Apple Intelligence quickly draw numbers from a disorganized document and instantly create a useful table. Writing tools have been used to generate a summary from a long document.
We have seen some Apple Intelligence integrations in third -party applications. In a case, we have selected an image game button to quickly generate a colorful image of a backpack in a forest. Apple’s generative image work leans even more towards cartoon than realism.
Apple then went to Blender, an open source 3D application that was optimized to natively operate on Apple silicon. With him, we could make a complex image of the Arctic Ice Scape in just 18 seconds.
The powerful 16 -core neural engine of the M4 is not only for Apple’s IA tools. In a case, we went to Companion de Webai, a large language model with 22 billion parameters, and, using the application of the application that connects third -party applications to Apple Intelligence capacities, we have started to enter prompts on a document that we had opened.
Companion responded to the prompts and even opened the native messaging application to send a report.
Apple worked hard to convince the world that the Mac is ready AAA, so I was not surprised to see Wuthering waves running on the MacBook Air M4. The gameplay was smooth, with zero tear, stuttering or visible loss.
Perhaps the most surprising was that everything Apple showed me ran at the same time. It was a beautiful demonstration of the raw power of the M4.
Apple claims 18 hours of autonomy and showed us how the MacBook Air demo was not even connected, another demonstration of how performance would not change if you are not attached to a wall outlet.
A fixed design
In addition to the price and performance, the MacBook Air M4 13 and 15 inches are identical to the M3 units.
In my very short time with them, they seem and felt the same thing. The 13 inch is still 2.7 lb. and the 15 -inch model is 3.3 lb. They still feel thin and light.
Aside from this high -resolution central camera, the screen specifications are unchanged. The two offer liquid retina screens with 2560×1664 resolutions and 500 brightness. The notch, which welcomes the ID Face camera, remains. It is a magnificent screen with vibrant colors and clear images. Unfortunately, he did not obtain the nano-texture glass delegated by the reflection of the MacBook Pro.
The keyboard, which includes the touch -up button, is unchanged and feels as well as on the M3 MacBook Air. Oh, and the almost pastel sky blue is charming.
There will be a little bit of mix when the MacBook Air M4 enters the market. The M2 and M3 models will be interrupted, the M4 model being the only officially available MacBook Air, although as the MacBook Air M1 OG, some retailers can continue to sell M2 and M3 models while they erase their stock – and I hope they get decent price reductions.
Given the well -established and generally pleasant design, the M4 quality power and a more attractive price, the MacBook Air M4 has a good chance of going up our list of the best laptops.
You can pre -order the MacBook Air M4 in 13 or 15 inches today, and it is shipped on March 12.
