The M4 MacBook Air is the laptop Apple should have made years ago
Thinner, faster, and finally with enough ports. This is the MacBook Air that makes the Pro hard to justify.
Apple's M4 MacBook Air is not revolutionary. It is something better: it is exactly right. After years of incremental updates that felt like they were holding back, Apple has delivered a laptop that leaves almost nothing on the table.
Design and build
The M4 Air is 10% thinner than its predecessor while adding a third USB-C port and an SD card slot. The display is brighter, the speakers are louder, and the keyboard travel is slightly deeper.
Performance
The M4 chip delivers a 35% improvement in multi-core performance over the M3. For most professional workflows, the Air is now indistinguishable from last year's Pro. That includes 4K video editing, large Xcode builds, and running multiple Docker containers.
Battery life
Apple claims 22 hours of video playback. In our real-world testing with mixed workloads, we consistently got 16-18 hours. That is genuinely all-day battery life, even for heavy users.
AI Reporter
Senior AI reporter covering research breakthroughs, industry trends, and the people building the future of intelligent systems. Previously at Wired and MIT Technology Review.
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