Apple MacBook Air (M4) review: A go-to suggestion, even bluer and more powerful

A year ago, we had said that with the Apple MacBook Air with the M3, the “definition has changed”. Not just in terms of countering the AI PC march by Windows PCs, but also finding performance to the level where a MacBook Air is closer than ever to a MacBook Pro . That basis doesn’t change with the new M4 powered 13-inch MacBook Air. It is even faster. There’s more memory from the base spec. And it’s a little blue-er too.

In fact, there’s more value perhaps to be found, particularly with the baseline spec, which now holds a sticker price of ₹99,900. A year ago, it compared with ₹1,14,900. In essence, it’s generationally more of a laptop, for lesser money being spent. In an era where price increase is almost the norm, this rarity is refreshing. This pricing was also warranted by the goings-on in the Windows PC ecosystem, basing a lot of its momentum on artificial intelligence (AI) or Copilot+ PCs as they are called, and the new Qualcomm chips. This year’s Asus Zenbook A14 which is priced ₹99,990 onwards, is an example.

As is perhaps the rather gentle take on the blue colourway, which adds some spark to a MacBook Air chassis design that’s now into its third generation (it was the M2 refresh, back in 2022, which introduced this to replace an iconic tapered design). There are of course Silver, Starlight, and Midnight colours alongside the Sky Blue. Just between us, it is the newest Sky Blue which I’d recommend. I’ve already termed it as a “gentle” shade, and that blue hue is more apparent at some angles as light reflects off the MacBook Air, determined by physics. Little has changed in the number of ports (two Thunderbolt 4 ports, 3.5mm headphone jack and MagSafe) — but aren’t we past those arguments about how many ports are ideal for how many users? There’s never a correct answer.

In terms of the headline changes, aside from the M4 generational leap, is a 1080p FaceTime camera with motion tracking Center Stage that brings it on parity with the newest MacBook Pro line-up, the iMac with an M4 chip and the brilliant Studio Display. For power users, this may be relevant — the MacBook Air can now support two external displays (up to 6K resolution each), whilst the internal display remains active too. Not to be underestimated is the option to configure memory to 32GB, with the default specs topping out at 24GB.

Aside, the MacBook Air’s fundamentals remain as solid as you’d expect them to. The 13.6-inch display is rated at a comfortably luminous 500 nits brightness (perhaps there is a case for nano-texture being an option in the future), the keyboard carries forward the layout as well as consistency, while the fan-less design makes this sort of performance a benchmark that Windows laptops still aspire for even with the newer generation chips available in that ecosystem.

The big generational chip difference between the M3 and the M4, are the two additional efficiency cores that now bring the total number of cores to 10 (that’s 6 efficiency cores and 4 performance cores). That’s up from 8 in the M3. The13-inch MacBook Air with M4 keeps this config consistent, and depending on the variant you pick, the difference would be between an 8-core GPU or a 10-core GPU.

There were no complaints with the M3’s ability to stay cool and hold performance in a fan-less design, and that continues with the M4 too. You will not feel this slowing down. In some of our real-world tests, the only time a beachball momentarily appeared was due to Google Chrome struggling to tame the 35 open tabs. That sort of load replicated on Safari (Chrome was purely experimental stress testing; Safari is ideal on a macOS machine) alongside Bear 2, three spreadsheets on Microsoft Excel, Adobe Lightroom and a bunch of other apps open in parallel, delivers smooth and stutter free responsiveness.

The MacBook Air with M4 doesn’t get hot, either on the underside or around the trackpad. One of the reasons why passive cooled innards are able to hold performance as well, is also because there is much more memory headroom to work with — 16GB is certainly better than 8GB, and 24GB is ideal for most heavier workflows. Certain synthetic benchmarks indicate the M4 in the new MacBook Air, when compared with M3 from an year earlier, is about 25% faster with multi-core performance, around 15% quicker with single core processing and about 20% faster GPU. In the real world, you’ll have to really strain the new MacBook Air, to notice a difference over an already brilliant M3 powered 13-inch MacBook Air.

Battery life, on most days, would return with around 35% charge remaining after 9 hour workdays. This would, in my book, be around 10% more stamina than the M3, all things considered. Even if your day includes a few video meetings on Zoom or Microsoft Teams (video calls drain battery comparatively much faster), you’d still be in a good position to get through a workday without having to reach for the charger. For most users, this may get close to the claimed 18 hours battery life — and if you are careful with app load and screen brightness, even surpass this number.

Apple Intelligence, which is the artificial intelligence (AI) suite that’s still being pieced together, has a foundation of a 16-core Neural Engine that it capable of doing 38 trillion operations per second (TOPS). This brings Apple’s AI efforts closer to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips (45 TOPS) and Intel’s Lunar Lake chips (48 TOPS) — but simply don’t base a better or worse on just these numbers, because underlying operating systems and AI tools, have considerable bearing on the experience. But for now, judging either the AI hardware or Apple Intelligence is too early, because its still work in progress. Perhaps that’s the only real criticism of a broader AI approach.

By reducing the entry-spec price of the MacBook Air, Apple has added a tasty dollop of value to the prospect of buying one. The reconfigured specs on the three default variants for the 13-inch MacBook Air should be good enough for most users, without getting into any complexity with upgrades. For first time Mac buyers, and those who are still holding on to an Intel-era Mac or using the MacBook Air with the M1 chip, this is more than a serious performance foundation to build with. If I may say so, this is about as good a laptop, as it can get.