Apple M4 MacBook Air review: I have no notes
64 comments
·March 19, 2025someperson
karmakaze
That might be my top inconvenience as well. I wanted the larger screen but didn't want the weight of the MacBook Pro so got the M3 Air. The other thing the article doesn't mention is the sound of the speakers. They might be ok compared to PC laptops but isn't close compared to those in the MacBook Pros--I miss it more than any other difference. I knew this going in so I'm fine with it and just tend to use earphones more.
whitepoplar
Personal wish list:
- Right-side USB-C
- Slightly brighter display
- Slightly wider hinge angle
- Option for nano-texture display, just like the MBP
- WiFi 7
sangeeth96
This has been my one wish as well, even if they stubbornly refuse to improve it in many other ways.
kisamoto
I am evaluating a new machine to replace my laptop & desktop for coding (Python, Go, React), data exploration, running containers and low resource business day-to-day (Microsoft Suite, Slack, light image editing etc.) - not necessarily all the same time but often.. I travel a medium amount so can't just use a desktop but running both seems cumbersome.
The M4 MacBook Airs are very tempting and I think the size & weight of the 15" is not as offputting as it once was. However I agree with the criticism in this article. A lesser quality display and lacking a little power (M4 Pro option would be nice).
A 14" MacBook Pro is the current draw. Slightly heavier but option for M4 Pro as well as more memory (up to 48GB) as well as nanotexture for out and about.
I love the idea of the Framework 13" machines with Ubuntu. Almost same weight as a 13" Air and with strong upgradeability. Disadvantages (to me) are the battery life on Linux is significantly less than an Apple device (although hard to find exact numbers), and even with the new Ryzen AI Max processors and the DDR5 memory, speed is much lower compared to the M-series soldered on a chip (although I'm open to counter points that this difference in speed is not worth it).
The Apple software ecosystem is a soft grab but to be honest there are options to Apple Photos which is the one I use the most.
pimterry
> I love the idea of the Framework 13" machines with Ubuntu. Almost same weight as a 13" Air and with strong upgradeability. Disadvantages (to me) are the battery life on Linux is significantly less than an Apple device (although hard to find exact numbers
As one battery life datapoint, I have a Framework with the previous gen AMD board and the 61wh battery, and in Linux Mint with no special configuration I get about 7 or 8 hours in normal use (with wifi+BT+average backlight, just doing normal browsing/file editing, not maxing out CPU rebuilding a massive project for hours). That's totally fine for my needs, it's effectively a full workday or an intercontinental airport + flight without power. I'm very happy with it and the upgradeability has been great (I upgraded mainboard, and now having the old mainboard running as a home server).
null
a3w
Lacking power? Below buying the very best Intel or AMD CPU which needs a new mainboard and RAM, I seem to never get any PC upgrades in the region of even an M3.
For mobile, this kind of performance is insane. I usually am happy if it is not a netbook CPU, since my 4th gen i5 dualcore+HT is still up to anything I want to do with it.
gessha
That’s something that I’m puzzled about. If we take a look at both PC and Mac Geekbench results which use the exact same Intel CPU as a baseline, Macs wipe the floor with any Intel or AMD professor. Am I reading it wrong or?
hobofan
That sounds about right. Of course depends on the workload, but e.g. when compiling Rust code, having a Apple M-series chip makes a huge difference. That alone would make it hard for me to consider switching to any non-Apple laptop.
Rohansi
Geekbench is biased towards Apple Silicon for whatever reason. Take a look at any other benchmarks, preferably ones that test real world workloads.
totalhack
I just went through this process and ended up getting the HP Omnibook Ultra Flip with a core 7 258v, running Ubuntu 24.10. Performance is excellent, battery life is the best I've ever had on an Intel running Linux. If you truly need more RAM than 32 GB it won't be an option though.
The air or an mb pro seems so nice until I remember the sting of dealing with the dev environment and docker on a Mac compared to Linux. No amount of battery life or marginal jump in performance (which gets lost through needed virtualization) will make up for that for me.
Rohansi
> even with the new Ryzen AI Max processors and the DDR5 memory, speed is much lower compared to the M-series soldered on a chip
Are you referring to memory bandwidth specifically? Yes, that difference is not worth it. Even if you fully load the CPU and GPU on Apple Silicon you will not come close to using all that bandwidth [0]. You're better off comparing real-world benchmarks instead.
[0] https://www.anandtech.com/show/17024/apple-m1-max-performanc...
wiredfool
Mine came yesterday. It's nice enough, and exactly what one would expect from a minor speed bump. Doesn't feel any different than my work M2 Air, though it's faster? It feels a bit snappier than the M1 Air it replaced, and for the same spec it's cheaper these 3+ years later.
The subtle blue is nice, it's like a colder sliver look than what it was. I'd still like one in the blue that the series 6 watches came in.
I wouldn't have upgraded, except that I'm in need of a hand-me-down for a kid's laptop.
Oddly, using Migration assistant -- display and internal/external keyboard settings didn't transfer over, but Apple Intelligence remained off. Chrome reset it's search engine.
ksec
No WiFi 7. I am guessing it will come next year when Apple have their own WIFi Chip going in this year iPhone 17. Hopefully with 320Mhz instead of a crippled 160Mhz.
Trackpad slightly too big that causes false positive which was non-existent on older gen MacBook and Keyboard is new scissors that as less Key Travel than old scissors.
No 120Hz Screen. Some people want OLED, personally I prefer LCD. But I could see how it could be thinner for lid. Quality Face Camera is not solvable yet though.
May be Vapor Cooling Chamber. Still fan less but gives more longer peak workload.
May be Silicon Carbon Battery in the future.
Other than all these it is about as good as it get. Most of the solution above are ready today if Apple is willing bump the price up.
I am thinking if Apple will drop the current M4 MacBook Air to $899 and release the M5 at $999.
throw0101d
> No WiFi 7. I am guessing it will come next year when Apple have their own WIFi Chip going in this year iPhone 17. Hopefully with 320Mhz instead of a crippled 160Mhz.
What are you transferring such that 320 channels solve a problem that 160 ones do not?
At least 6E gives access to 6 Ghz bands, which tend to be more less congested (and have more available channels).
ksec
With 320Mhz you could get about 3Gbps Real world or roughly 300MB/s. Basically max out the 2.5Gbps Ethernet port.
It is useful at times when you are transferring between NAS or on a 2.5Gbps Internet. I think it hit the sweet spot of having enough headroom that when I need it, it is there.
kubb
I just wish they could run Windows games. Many games could comfortably run on this hardware, they just don't for software nonsense reasons. For example Octopath Traveler 2 - a game which isn't graphics intensive at all. It runs on Windows and Linux via SteamOS, so why can't I have it on my MacBook.
akyuu
I agree. But regarding this specific game, it seems to work through Crossover (emulation) and Parallels (virtualization). You can also try Whisky and VMware Fusion as free alternatives.
p_ing
Windows and Linux are running OT2 in the application's native instruction set, for one.
But if you want to try, you can use Whiskey.
wklauss
If it runs on Linux, it should be fairly easy to run it on MacOS through the Game Porting Toolkit. Crossover (or Porting Kit if you don't want to pay for Crossover) should handle it.
Gazoche
Running modern games on Linux requires Vulkan, which has iffy support in MacOS at best (and MacOS isn’t officially supported by Valve’s compatibility tools).
wklauss
It is iffy but serviceable. In this case, seems like Octopath Traveller 2 Windows version works well with GPTK. I haven't tried but Whisky, or Porting Kit should be able to handle it. Reddit has some people running it at good fps.
MVissers
Geforce now is amazing these days if you like gaming and only have a mac.
atypeoferror
Agree - playing Path of Exile 2 at the moment. I think they are co-located with the Geforce Now servers for my region (Frankfurt) as I have 1ms ping from Nvidia->PoE. 20ms from my house to Nvidia, so I’m not sure my experience is much different from what one would get with a gaming rig.
And if you do the math on what one would cost - by the time the subscription cost catches up, it’s time to upgrade the rig.
WOTERMEON
Try whisky and kegworks winery. I’m playing assassin’s creed unity on a m1 with decent frame rate
heraldgeezer
Yes, hardware is amazing. Shame about the OS. This could run most semi-modern games and emulators like PS2/DC maybe even PS3/Switch unlocking so many games if it ran Windows or Linux.
sussmannbaka
It can run those emulators on macOS.
tosh
I wonder if I'm imagining it but the keyboard on the M4 Air feels better than the one on the M2 Air. Travel feels "better" (I can't pinpoint how to describe it though) and the keys feel less slippery but that might just be how a clean, new keyboard feels.
I could not find anything in reviews about the keyboard being improved other than that the M4 Air keyboard has a strike-through on the speaker icon on the F10 key now.
ksec
Interesting let me try this in Apple Store. The reason why you cant find it in reviews is because not a single reviewer in modern days actually cares about the small details anymore. And even if they do most dont care about keyboard.
My instinct would be while the Key travel could remain the same ( IIRC 1mm Key travel ), but actuation force increase as it was previously something ridiculous like 35g.
Even if they bring it half way back to New Magic Keyboard used on the Desktop which I believe is 1.3mm Key Travel would have been much better.
null
vachina
Quite meaningless to talk about keyboard feel.
wiredfool
Might be a difference, with the M4 marginally crisper, or a bit more haptic feedback. Or it might be that my M2 is on a stand and the M4 is on the desk.
Also, the screen is totally clean. No dust or smudges.
rwc
When I owned an M1 Air the keys felt "thin" and "hollow" when bottoming out, versus the Pros which have always felt slightly softer without losing responsiveness. You can hear the difference between the keyboards at full speed typing. The M1 Air sounded cheaper to me. Can't speak to M4 Air.
DrillShopper
Have they removed the stupid globe key from the keyboard (or moved it)? I'm getting pretty annoyed at hitting it when I very clearly mean something else, and the menu it brings up by default is a waste of time.
chuckhendo
FYI you can very easily disable that key in keyboard settings (and remap entirely using a 3rd party tool like BetterTouchTool)
bookofjoe
I love the globe key which I've mapped to emoji
CaRDiaK
What I find disappointing about this revision is that the Air is portrayed as Apple's most portable machine, yet it still lacks the nano-texture option. I understand that this distinction between the Air and the Pro is intentional, but it seems somewhat counterintuitive.
jmull
The nano-texture isn't really that useful in my experience... not really much better than the anti-reflective screen and you still end up adjusting angles. The best reason to get it is just because you prefer it.
api
I'd like a 64GiB RAM and a 4-8TiB SSD option, but that might actually be problematic in the Air form factor. I'm sure board space is limited. Also increases power consumption a bit since that's more hot silicon.
sgarland
It would also cut into MBP sales, I’d think. They’re always going to want to maintain product differentiation.
api
For MBP give me one with 128GiB or even 192GiB RAM that I can run big local LLMs on.
I have an M1 Max MBP with 64GiB and I can run decently sized local models but 128GiB or more would run more serious ones.
martijn_himself
I owned a M1 MacBook Air and I was similarly impressed by everything mentioned in this review.
MacOS coming from Windows, not so much. A menu bar 'orphaned' from the application window? A 'File Explorer' (Finder) lacking basic functionality. Dragging a file download onto the Applications folder to install software (what?). Plugging in a 2K monitor to find it is unable to display at native resolution without installing third party apps. MacOS feels like it is some relic from the past.
EDIT: judging from the comments here, I accept it may be part unfamiliarity. Maybe I should give it another go. What resources would you recommend for someone new to MacOS?
postexitus
Menu bar "orphaned" from application window is a feature - not a bug. It's intentionally in a fixed location on the screen so you can find it every time you look for it. (I am an original Amigan - Workbench had the same approach, but only visible when you right click - oh I miss my Amiga)
While Windows approach of attaching the menu bar to application window was popular for a while, I am now crying just looking at Chrome window and seeing no menu at all. I don't even mention Ribbon blasphemy.
p_ing
> It's intentionally in a fixed location on the screen so you can find it every time you look for it.
Which is a disadvantage when working with multiple applications as it forces an application switch before you can access the menu, rather than in windows where if you have your app windows staggered, you can immediately click into the other application's menu.
WillAdams
An elegant OS for a more civilized age to paraphrase Obi-Wan.
The menu bar allows for an infinite size target when flinging the cursor at it using the mouse.
What functionality do you find missing? Usually a right/context-click or command click will get what one is not finding.
By way of contrast, the Sidebar will accept an arbitrary number of files/icons, and they stay put, and if one drags into a file dialog window, it updates where it is pointing rather than performing a file copy operation (what happens if one cancels?).
Anything else one wants can be handled via AppleScript.
Similarly, there is drag-drop into Terminal windows, and check out how the commands pbpaste and pbcopy interact w/ Unix pipes and so forth.
FWIW, I miss the (NeXT-derived) Miller-column Filebrowser on Windows, and the "Unix Expert" checkbox on Mac OS, and the right-click pop-up main menu which made some commands gestural on either.
Installing via drag-drop on a disk image into an Applications folder shortcut avoids the need for a special tool to manage app installation and makes uninstalling as simple as dragging into the trash.
The 2K monitor thing is a hardware/firmware/driver issue I'd imagine --- was it sold as supported by the Mac OS you are using it with?
martijn_himself
Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
I love the integration with iOS and so I should probably try again and expect a somewhat steep learning curve due to muscle memory coming from Windows.
TBH I expected the monitor to 'just work' so I was a bit surprised it didn't- but apparently monitors in a certain PPI range are less suitable and make text and interface elements look blurry.
WillAdams
For my part, I'm saddened that I can't put up w/ iOS and its limitations, so use Windows on a Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 since the closest thing to a successor to the Axiotron Modbook is a MacBook paired w/ an iPad and I hate the Apple Pencil and Sidecar not being as good as Duet enrages me.
Maybe Apple doing a folding MacBook à la the Lenovo Yogabook 9i will finally get me back (bought a 128K Mac when I was younger, and still miss my NeXT Cube).
z2
I find it perplexing that Apple seemingly refuses at the OS level to support DisplayPort MST (multi-stream transport), which is such a common, standard, widely adopted protocol. The biggest impact is that non-Thunderbolt, non-DisplayLink docks can't use more than a single monitor. Back on Intel Macs, the hardware clearly supported this as MST worked great when running Windows.
bnastic
Macintosh has always been application-centric, instead of window-centric desktop. Hence the top application menu that controls the 'application'. There is nothing inherently wrong with that approach.
And I'm not sure why anyone would complain that installing (most, not all) applications is just dragging an icon into applications folder.
alpaca128
The only real pain point for me is the slow one-second animation for switching workspaces. It also adds a second of delay to entering and leaving fullscreen, making the fastest computers feel sluggish. And not even accessibility settings can get rid of it. Animations are great for visual feedback but when they stand in your way it gets old fast.
Meanwhile the "eject drive" button in Finder has no animation or other immediate feedback at all when hovering or clicking.
> Dragging a file download onto the Applications folder to install software
I think that's quite intuitive. My problem with it is that seemingly app developers have to implement this correctly, but some don't and so the program just can't be installed that way. For example with openSCAD you just get an empty window without Applications folder.
d3nj4l
Apart from sub-Retina resolution monitors being unusable without BetterDisplay, these are all just Apple-isms. The inverse feels just as foreign when you go Mac to Windows, and as a long time Apple user I find the Windows ones strange.
Closi
Dragging downloads into the applications folder is 100% amazing imo!
It's because conceptually everything is supposed to be a standalone executable.
The windows alternative is random installers that put files all over your machine and then questionable uninstallers that still leave half the files discarded everywhere.
sagacity
Except a lot of applications aren't standalone executables, they leave a bunch of configuration data that doesn't get uninstalled.
nvgeele
Interested to know what the basic features are which Finder is missing?
Using both Windows and macOS I feel that Windows has only recently started to catch up with Finder.
null
I wish they'd add a USB C port on the right-hand side of the Air. Even moving one of the two on the left would be nice.