MacBook Air update arrives with lower starting price & M4 performance boost
Apple has updated the MacBook Air line with a new lower starting price, plus the 13-inch and 15-inch models given a bump in performance thanks to the inclusion of the M4 chip.
New blue color in M4 MacBook Air, photo credit Apple
Arriving after many rumors of an update, the New MacBook Air is largely a spec-bump update for the well-established notebook line. In its early 2025 refresh, Apple has given its entry-level notebook range a bit more performance to work with.
"MacBook Air is by far the world's most popular laptop, and today we're giving everyone even more reasons to love it," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing in a statement, "including a big boost in performance with the M4 chip, a new Center Stage camera, and a beautiful new sky blue color."
As well as the new Sky Blue color, the MacBook Air is also available in the same Midnight, Starlight, and Silver colors as before.
New M4 processor
The main change consumers will care about is that processor upgrade. Gone is the M3 chip with its eight-core CPU and either eight or ten-core GPU, in favor of the entry-level chip of the M4 generation.
Now, the MacBook Air's M4 has a ten-core CPU, with four efficiency cores and in comes the M4 with its ten-core CPU and again an eight or ten-core GPU. There's also higher-bandwidth 120GB/s memory, with storage allocations from 16GB to a new high of 32GB.
The display continues to be a 13.6-inch or 15.3-inch Liquid Retina Display, depending on the model. A pair of Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports are on the sides, with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 handling wireless duties.
This new MacBook Air also now supports up to two 6K displays, alongside its own Liquid Retina Display.
Center Stage
Apple has updated the MacBook Air camera to be a new 12MP one, that supports Center Stage. This is the feature that has previously been limited to the MacBook Pro, and automatically repositions the subject in the frame as they move during video calls.
The same feature also gives the MacBook Air the same Desk View feature as the MacBook Pro. This lets a user seemingly switch from a face-on view to a top down one of their desk, without having to physically rotate the camera.
Prices start at $999 for the 13-inch model, and $1,199 for the 15-inch edition. Both models can be pre-ordered now, and will ship to customers beginning March 12, 2025.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
16GB is probably fine, but I wish the memory upgrades were a little more reasonable. $200 is 20% of the base model price.
But you do just three free months of Apple TV+ with the purchase of the MacBook Air, so that’s good.
Although I just redeemed three free months of Apple TV+ the other day with no purchase necessary, lol.
Incidentally, I never really gave Apple TV+ a good try before. But when I found out that Ronald D. Moore had a show on it (For All Mankind), I activated the trial and started watching. It’s an amazing show!
Apple TV+ has this great show created my absolute favorite sci-if TV writer… and it’s been on since 2019… and I had no idea.
You need to look at the product category as a whole. Apple is offering the base model at less of a profit specifically to entice new and more buyers. There's a reason why Apple only sells the base model RAM configurations at stores instead of only having the maxed out RAM options available.
The bottom line is whether it works for your needs. I can find a much cheaper Windows notebook but that doesn't work for my personal needs regardless the amount of RAM installed.
I would be surprised if going from 16 to 24 for $200 makes sense for anyone at a practical level--except for people with a fixed allowance on how much they can spend on a computer.
Just to be clear, I’m not calling anyone else a stupid-idiot. Just me personally. I’m the stupid-idiot. That’s how I feel when I hover over the +$200 configuration box, lol.
(Actually +30,000 yen. I’m in Japan, but I’m typing the prices in USD since not too many in the comments section are from Japan.)
I’m honestly thinking about a Framework laptop. Something that I can literally replace any and every component in it. I do like what Framework (the company) is trying to do. That Framework 12 that the company introduced a week or so ago looks really interesting. “12” for 12 inches. I do prefer small laptops. Man I miss that MacBook Air 11”. What an amazing laptop that was (for its time).
I don’t think a price has been announced yet for the Framework 12, but I’ll be keeping my eyes out for it for its expected April preorder date. It’s annoying that Framework still doesn’t ship to Japan yet, but I can order one and pick it up that next time I’m Stateside.