With the new 13″ and 15″ form factors finally sporting the latest M4 Apple Silicon chip, the new MacBook Air enters slightly more powerful territory – joining the likes of the Mac mini, MacBook Pro, and the M4 iMac. This latest chip features faster clock speeds on both performance and efficiency cores over the base M3 chip, a faster GPU frequency, faster memory bandwidth at 120 GB/s, making the jump up to LPDDR5X-7500 at 3750 MHz. With the exception of the M4 Pro and Max chips, this is the fastest speed ram in any Mac to-date.. in a MacBook Air!
Long gone is the familiar wedge shape introduced with the original MacBook Air, a design which carried all the way through to the M1 model. The A2681 and A2941 were a monumental shift in design, and the screen is just about a 16:10 rather than a Late Intel’s/M1’s 16:9 screen aspect ratio. Moreover, Apple claims the M4 MacBook Air is twice as fast as the M1 MacBook Air.
Apple Intelligence
macOS Sequoia and later supports Apple intelligence on any Mac with Apple Silicon. This feature is also available on most iPads with an M-chip, as well as iOS devices running 18 and later with an A17 Pro chip or better (iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max, or all iPhone 16 models+). While device capability has increased over the years, it’s theorized by some that older devices don’t have enough RAM to properly run Apple Intelligence.
What You Need to Know
- If you’re someone who’s transitioning over from an Intel Mac, or will be using Intel Mac apps, Apple has an app called Rosetta 2 for Apple Silicon Macs. Once installed, this isn’t something you directly interact with. Rather, you may simply open an Intel app, and it’ll open. Rosetta 2 does an Intel to Arm “ahead of time” translation, using an instruction set in the M4 chip. The first time the Intel app launches it’ll be noticeably slow, as Rosetta caches and stores code. Once this process is done, the App should work just as normal.
- The M4 Air introduces a brand new color called “Sky Blue”.
- Clamshell mode is improved over the last year’s model. Previously you could use two external displays with the built-in display closed, now you may have two external displays plus the internal all on.
- The M4 chip features 2 more efficiency cores and faster RAM versus the M3 Air.
Closed Lid Mode: All ‘Books support “lid closed” (or clamshell) mode, which leaves the built-in display off and dedicates all video RAM to an external display or two. To use closed lid mode, your ‘Book must be plugged into the AC adapter and connected to an external display and a USB or Bluetooth mouse and keyboard (you might also want to consider external speakers). Power up your ‘Book until the desktop appears on the external display and then close the lid. Your ‘Book will go to sleep, but you can wake it by moving the mouse or using the keyboard. The built-in display will remain off, and the external monitor will become your only display.
To resume use of the internal display, you need to disconnect the external display, put the computer to sleep, and then open the lid. This will wake up your ‘Book and restore use of the built-in display.
Battery life is claimed to be 15 hours of wireless productivity, 18 hours Apple TV App movie playback for both the 13″ and 15″ models.
Details
- Announced March 5th, 2025
- Available March 12th, 2025
- Model Identifier: –
- Model: A- (EMC -)
- Order Number: – (-)
- – (-)
- – (-)
Mac OS
- Requires macOS Sequoia 15.1.1 (Build 24B91) or later
Core System
Legend: L1i = L1 Instruction Cache, L1d = L1 Data cache, SLC = System Level Cache
Note – All M4 chips have this memory configuration for their cache in their CPUS:
- L1 Per-performance core: 128KB L1i, 128KB L1d
- L1 Per-efficiency core: 128 KB L1i, 64 KB L1d
- M4 base chip specifically – L2 – Per-performance core: 16 MB, Per-efficiency core: 4 MB
. - M4 10-Core ($999): 10 Cores, 4x 4.4 GHz “M4” High Performance Cores: 768K L1i, 512K L1d, 64MB L2, 8MB System Level Cache
- 6x 2.85 GHz “M4” energy efficient cores: 768K L1i, 384K L1d, 24MB L2, 8 MB SLC
- 16-Core Neural Engine
Memory
- 16/24/32 GB 3750 MHz LPDDR5-7500 SDRAM
- 120 GB/s Memory Bandwidth
- 24 GB Memory (+$200), 32 GB Memory (+$400)
Video
- 8-Core GPU ($999) 13″ only: Integrated Apple M4 with Metal 3 Hardware Accelerated GPU
- 10-Core GPU +($100) option on base ($999) 13″ M4 MacBook Air
- 10-Core GPU is standard on all other models, ($1199) for a 13″ 512GB, or a 15″ 256GB.
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- 13″ ($999): 16:10 13.6″ TFT IPS LED-Backlit LCD, 2560 x 1664 @224ppi, 500 nits
- P3 Color
- True Tone
- Support for 1 Billion colors
- Simultaneous support for 2 external displays plus the built-in display at native resolution plus
- 2x 6K60 simultaneously
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- 15″ ($1199): 16:10 15.3″ TFT IPS LED-Backlit LCD, 2880 x 1864 @224ppi, 500 nits
- P3 Color
- True Tone
- Support for 1 Billion colors
- Simultaneous support for 2 external displays plus the built-in display at native resolution plus
- 2x 6K60 simultaneously
Drives
- Drive Bus: 256GB PCIe SSD ~3.3 GB/s, 2x 128GB NANDs in Parallel
- Configurable to: 512GB (+$200), 1 TB (+$400), and 2 TB (+$800)
- Upgrade price is the same on 13″ and 15″ models starting from 256 GB.
Expansion
- 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6E
- Bluetooth 5.3
- Two USB-C style Thunderbolt 4 Ports
- Support for: USB 4 (up to 40 Gb/s), USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s)
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- Up to 15-18 hrs battery life
- 53.8 W/h Li-Ion battery (13″)
- 66.5 W/h Li-Ion battery (15″)
- Touch ID Sensor
- Magsafe 3 for charging
- 1080p Facetime HD Camera with/ Advanced image signal processor
- 3x Mic array w/directional beam foaming
- 4-speaker sound, support for Spatial Audio, Dolby Atmos
Physical
- 13″ size: 0.44 x 11.97 x 8.46″ (1.13 x 30.41 x 21.5 cm)
- Weight: 2.7 pounds (1.24 kg)
- 15″ size: 0.45 x 13.40 x 9.35″ (1.15 x 34.04 x 23.76 cm)
- Weight: 3.3 pounds (1.51 kg)
- Power supply: 30W USB-C charging Brick (Only comes standard with base 13″)
- Configure to order:
- 35W 2x-USB-C port Power brick (+$20)
- 70W USB-C charging brick (+$20)
- MacBook Air M4 is fast charge “capable” with the 70W brick.
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