Apple M4 MacBook Air review: More for a little less

The lower price point is a move aimed at luring in more customers

Apple's M4 MacBook Air is available at an even lower price for students and teachers. Photo: Apple

Apple Intelligence is now on the tech giant's most popular laptop: the MacBook Air. And the company also decided to make the new M4 version even more budget-friendly.

Apple is not the market leader when it comes to the computer market – it ranks fourth behind Dell, HP and leader Lenovo – but its dedicated followers always look forward to anything new, no matter how token the changes are.

With the new price-point, at entry-level iPhone territory, Apple is likely aiming to lure more users into its fold. The National takes a look at the device.

What is new in the M4 MacBook Air?

Compared to the souped-up iPhone 16e and the conservatively upgraded M3 iPad Air, the M4 MacBook Air is in the middle, with a number of key upgrades:

While staying put in terms of design, Apple added two cores to the M4 MacBook Air's CPU, in addition to now having the option of boosting its RAM up to 32GB. The last one is notable, considering the lower price points Apple is now offering for the device.

The main reason for these is the latest M4 chip. Obviously, it is an improvement from the M3, but the standout figure from Apple's newest silicon processor is the ability of its 16-core neural engine to crunch 38 trillion processes per second, which is a 111 per cent boost from the M3.

As for what you can see on the exterior, nothing has changed. The two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports and MagSafe 3 port remain on the left, while the 3.5mm audio cave is on the right.

Performance: What you would expect

According to Apple, the M4 MacBook Air is capable of spreadsheet calculations that are nearly five times faster, video editing up to eight times quicker and photo editing up to 3.6 times faster, in addition to web browsing up to 60 per cent faster.

Such improvements are widely expected when it comes to new devices. But, quite frankly, that's about it. We might be circling back to what we saw in the M3 iPad Air, which came with token upgrades, another go at Adobe Photoshop and Final Cut Pro, plus the Resident Evil 4 remake for good measure, to prove to ourselves what we expected: smooth graphics and rendering. We do appreciate the console-quality graphics while Leon Kennedy fights off hordes of infected foes.

Of course, Apple Intelligence remains a key selling point. It helps you go about your activity by improving your writing, organising mails and media, and generating images, among other uses.

How long does battery last?

Apple says the M4 MacBook Air's battery life remains at up to 18 hours, on par with all M models dating back to 2020 (but significantly up from the last non-M device, also in that year).

The Apple M4 MacBook Air comes in a new sky blue colour.

That's actually more than enough to go about your work, play and entertainment for the day. A good mix of use brought us all the way to early evening. In our one-hour YouTube-at-full-brightness test, the device lost 11 per cent, continuing an improving trend from the M2 and M3 versions.

Verdict

We've established for a long time that spec upgrades are big talking points for new devices. The Apple M4 MacBook Air does have that, but admittedly not much. The sometimes-overlooked factor here is the price – and that is the device's biggest draw.

Is it a big price decrease? It is Dh600 less than the M3 version, but looking further into the past, the price of the latest MacBook Air is down by about a fifth compared to the M2 version. This means that you can get a MacBook and an iPhone at prices not far from each other. It goes lower for students and teachers.

This is a move by Apple to lure in more users, plain and simple. And we reckon that, by extension, it may also entice non-iPhone users to make the switch.