MacBook Air M4 | Hacker News Reader

MacBook Air M4

apple.com

716 pointstosh945 comments

My 4-year old Dell XPS 15 is up for replacement, but somehow no manufacturer aside from Apple is making laptop with decent specs nowadays? I want 2TB storage, a 4k (or close) HiDPI display, good build quality, and not a bulky gaming laptop. The XPS 15 was perfect, it had those specs, except it only had 1TB storage which is now full. I was expecting that to not be an issue 4 years later ... But now Dell discontinued XPS, and their new Pro/Premium models have worse specs in almost all ways. The only non-Apple thing that I can find that even comes close, is a bulky 16" ThinkPad.

And then there is Apple who pack everything I want in a sleek 14" or 15" device, plus a very fast CPU and battery life that is years ahead of anything else ... Why is there no competition here? I'm willing to compromise on battery life, and I don't need the fastest CPU, just a good quality work laptop where I can run `cargo build` / `docker pull` without worrying about filling up the disk, and mostly just a browser aside from that. Why is the gap so large?

There's nothing close, Apple has better talent and the vertical integration gives them an edge (especially on performance per watt on their chip designs).

Since the M series chips, there's been no other option if you care about quality. There are crappy alternatives with serious tradeoffs if for some reason you are forced to not use Apple or choose for non-quality reasons.

The leap from intel to the M series chips really left everyone else behind. I can't even use my 2019 Macbook anymore it feels so sluggish.

I have an M3 Pro and it blows all my old computers out of the water. Can handle pretty insane dev workflows (massive Docker composed environments) without issue and the battery life feels unfair. I can put in an 8 hour workday without my charging cable, I don't think I have turned it fully off in a few months, it just chugs along. It really embodies the "it just works" mindset.

My pet peeve is the trackpad

How on earth are there literally ZERO non Apple laptops with a trackpad as smooth as Apple’s?

This is an old technology. Surely someone must have reverse engineered this by now?

In my experience the Snapdragon X Elite is about the same as an M2. It's got slightly worse battery life but still a battery that blows the competition out the water.

Plus you get the benefits of loading out your laptop with 64GB RAM etc without paying Apples ridiculous prices

Snapdragon are just getting started. The Snapdragon X2 is coming out later this year with 18 cores

Apple does have some serious competition now

Is the performance gap so huge? Power efficiency yes, absolutely, but for peak performance last I saw the last AMD vs M3 benchmarks were a slightly slower single core, and a little faster in multicore. Doesn't seem as world changing as described.

M series really is amazing.

But if you don’t want Apple, or you want to be able to upgrade, check out Frameworks. [1]

Really satisfying combination of quality and value for high performance laptops.

[1] https://frame.work/

But it seems the parent's point is there's no reason Dell couldn't have kept making improved XPS models. Maybe they don't compare on a $/watt basis with Apple silicon, but you could presumably have still paid less and gotten something pretty decent.

No vertical integration is what did intel in because they both do fab and design. TSMC won because they aren't vertically integrated into anything.

Apple is better because of actual superior technology. The chips are custom made and no one can match the technology yet.

I thought this too but I think the amd mobile series chips have mostly caught up

What about Lunar Lake?

yes, it's apple and oranges. Apple is making a Veblen good. Dell/Lenovo are making lowest-cost/lowest-bid commodities

Can you upgrade the storage of your XPS laptop?

Maybe check out the Framework laptops? For example the Framework 13's new screen is 2.8k @ 256PPI apparently [1], which has slightly more pixels than the Macbook Air M4[2] (obviously pixels isn't everything), but you can get up to 8TB NVMe storage + an extra storage expansion cards if you're happy to sacrifice ports and up to 96GB RAM. [3]

[1] https://community.frame.work/t/framework-laptop-13-deep-dive...

[2] https://www.apple.com/macbook-air/specs/

[3] https://frame.work/gb/en/products/laptop-diy-13-gen-amd/conf...

EDIT: typo + formatting

Personally I've been a huge fan of my Framework 13, and am planning at some point to swap out the mainboard with the new one they released — it's pretty nice that you can do that (and they sell a desktop case to put the old mainboard in, so you end up with a faster laptop and a spare desktop afterwards!).

Battery life is the main downside, although it doesn't bother me too much — running manufacturer-supported Linux is very nice and worth having to charge more frequently. It uses USB-C anyway, so it's just one cable for all my devices — doesn't feel like that big of a deal.

The main problem with the Framework 13 at this point is underwhelming battery life. I have one of the newly announced models reserved in hopes that the new CPU improves that to a reasonable degree, but if reviews come out and that turns out to not be the case there’s a substantial chance I’ll cancel.

I'd say the primary problem of framework is security updates for bios etc

> Why is the gap so large?

I think it appears large for a couple of reasons. First is that Mac screens are much closer to 3K than 4K. You can find tons of really nice 14" 3K laptops so the gap is pretty much negligible there, especially if you consider how cheap you can get 3K OLEDs on Windows PCs nowadays. Second is that many companies try to limit SKUs for their off-the-shelf products and 2TB or 4TB apparently aren't moving units. People who really want that model can just go buy a bigger drive to drop into it.

That said, one last thing to consider is that while 14" Macbooks are very capable for their footprint, they are heavier and thicker than some other options. If weight is the concern there are 16" laptops that are thinner and lighter than the 14" macbook. The LG Gram Pro 16 2-in-1 weighs 0.5lbs less and is 0.10" thinner than an MBP14 and has two ssd slots.

> First is that Mac screens are much closer to 3K than 4K. You can find tons of really nice 14" 3K laptops so the gap is pretty much negligible there, especially if you consider how cheap you can get 3K OLEDs on Windows PCs nowadays.

You are discounting the quality of a Macbook screen without understanding how it differs from competitors. A Macbook is the only laptop on the market that accurately reproduces colors out of the box to an extent that is sufficient for color grading photographs or video. I'm a hobbyist photographer and primarily do editing on a desktop where I have LG and Ezio displays that are color accurate, but when I'm out and about there is no alternative on the market I can buy other than a Macbook, because while on paper the "resolution" of other laptops may be similar or even superior, in actuality they are somewhat between shit-tier and D tier in actual color reproduction and quality. Macbook displays are MASSIVELY better than anything any other laptop offers at any price point non-Apple.

I previously used a mixture of different laptops and have over the course of time shifted to using Macbooks for everything because the performance, battery life, power efficiency, display quality, software availability, and annoyance minimization advantages are so large for Apple that it makes no sense to use anything else, except perhaps Linux just to use Linux (which I do on a Framework 13 for personal tinkering projects). I don't see how anyone can honestly recommend that anybody purchase a non-Apple laptop in 2025 for any purpose other than tinkering with Linux, in which case the Frameworks are great.

There's obviously a cost to that superiority and not everyone can afford it, but that doesn't mean alternatives are /preferable/. They clearly are not, they are a trade-off in every single aspect. Even in the case of weight that you mentioned, that trade-off is in durability, the Macbook weighs more because it has an entirely metal chassis and most non-Apple laptops are cheap plastic monstrosities.

Seems like you haven't actually looked into it if that's the impression you got, because both Thinkpad (X1) and Framework (13) make a laptop that fit your requirements. The X1 carbon even offers a 4k OLED option if you want it.

Going from an X1 Carbon to a MBP felt like stepping 10 years into the future. The seamless lid close, battery life, operating temp, build quality and performance were all _huge_ upgrades.

I held out on Mac for 20 yrs, no idea what I was thinking.

I have a framework 13” and a few MacBooks. The framework is a really mediocre laptop, even for PC laptops. I don’t even think it really has potential to be honest.

The original post:

> everything I want in a sleek 14" or 15" device

The X1 carbon we have in our house has a 13” 16:9 screen, which I hate.

Last time I tried X1 Carbon, it got hot enough when actively using it for longer than 10 minutes to become physically uncomfortable to hold on my lap.

OTOH Macbook Air not only runs cool even when you build stuff on it, but somehow manages to do so without any fans.

I’ve been browsing the Lenovo (and others’) website for weeks, and the only two laptops it shows with 2TB storage and 4k display are the ThinkPad P1 and P16s.

The ThinkPad X1 and Framework 13 have a much lower resolution display. Also, I appreciate Framework’s mission, but it’s not the build quality that I’m looking for.

Yep, there's no one else. It's a sad state of affairs in the laptop world outside of Apple.

Used to be primarily a Linux on the desktop user, but have been on macOS since the M1 air, and now typing this from a 14" M4 Pro MBP that will probably last me the next 5+ years easily.

I don't love macOS but it's usable, I pretty much live in the terminal anyway, and the ecosystem features are nice - I make heavy use of clipboard sharing between my laptop and phone, iMessage, and universal control with my iPad that's on my desk.

There's just no other laptop on the market that has this combination of aesthetics, performance, thermals (this thing is cool and silent), screen quality, top notch speakers and microphone for a laptop, and unmatched trackpad. Let alone anything that'll run Linux without some headaches.

I had hopes for the Snapdragon X elite laptops, but no Linux still, and they still don't hold a candle to the Macbooks.

I put a LOT of the blame on ARM chipset manufacturers. The reason you can't get a good ARM laptop that isn't a Mac is because the chipset manufacturers treat them like they treat everything else. They want to have a custom patched kernel that's already 2 decades old and they drop support for it next month.

It says a lot that probably the best in the space is the humble Raspberry Pi.

Gaming laptops aren't neccessarily bulky, my Razer Blade 14 is about the same dimensions as my macbook pro 14. They're about the same age and price (2022), the main difference is that the Razer is much faster (plugged in) but the MacBook is vastly more efficient. I do respect how fast MacBooks feel subjectively, but in terms of number crunching and graphics processing the Razer is a lot better. I guess my overall point being youre not going to beat a macbook on efficiency, but there are options out there that aren't bulky or tacky.

I use a razer blade 14 personally... My mileage varies. I love that I can run a lot of stuff on it, but I hate the fact the ram was soldered and the GPU definitely throttles. I recently ran a benchmark for some GPU code I wrote and found that my steamdeck outperforms the Laptop 3060. Its also got terrible battery life and doesnt help that my work laptop is a Lenovo Thinkpad P1 beast (FWIW the razer 14 has better battery life with linux than the lenovo) which is great for building code, terrible as a portable. For me the biggest complaint I have about Macs, is well the OS. With the razer at least I can replace windows with ubuntu and most things work. Im really hoping the AMD stuff catches up soon, otherwise I may have to upgrade to a new desktop + macbook air for personal work.

Good luck with the Blade, seven out of seven Blades between my friends and I got dangerously bloated batteries.

Sacrificing some of the Blade aesthetics for better thermals with Asus laptops was a game changer for me.

The way I see it is that Apple competitors have given up on premium portable devices. Apple tech is so far ahead that consumers looking for the best non gaming hardware will most likely choose Apple devices.

For competitors, spending a huge amount of money in R&D to try to compete with Apple, will be most likely at a loss. At least until some chip manufacturer (read: Intel) doesn't step up their game.

As a consequence, competition has moved to the middle-low quality segment, one in which they can still compete because of 2 main factors: Apple is not interested in that segment and most companies won't move away from Windows (even if they probably should).

Does it really require that much R&D? Slap one of the excellent AMD mobile processors with built-in GPU in there, standard cooling (they don't use much more power than they did 5 years ago. They surely have the blueprints for the last XPS machines), and a bigger NVME. It's all more or less commodity hardware in a name-your-preference shell.

I've been using LG Gram laptops running linux. They are fantastic. My current daily drive is 3lbs, 17" display, 32GB RAM i7 CPU, and I bumped the SSD to 2TB. It is lighter than my 13" Macbook air and cost $1200 at Costco. Oh, and battery life is 14-16 hours of use.

you have the choice to go with the AMD Ryzen AI Max processor which rivals the M4. And gives similar battery life and performance.

Or the Intel Lunar Lake processor.

Both have extremely good laptop options - the Lenovo Yoga Aura edition is pretty much macbook quality.

And runs LLMs (https://github.com/intel/ipex-llm/blob/main/docs/mddocs/Over...)

Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition is in fact lighter than the Macbook Air, has Lunar Lake, up to 2 TB storage, great battery life, and a 2880 x 1800 OLED display. It's pricy, though.

The asus zenbook pro is great. The 16inch version is not really bulky. It is 2.4kg, 2TB, 3.2k resolution, great design and build quality. $2200

The 14.5 inch version is 1.6kg, 2TB, 2.9k resolution, also great design and build quality. $1700

https://www.asus.com/laptops/for-creators/zenbook/zenbook-pr...

Can't be any happier with my Framework laptop.

Give it a read and do a simulation of how much it would cost you to replace the part that forced you to buy a new laptop.

I also have a 4-year old XPS15. The SSDs and RAM are super easy to upgrade. There are two internal SSD slots (one shipped empty). Dell charges not-quite Apple-scale arms and a legs for RAM/SSD upgrades, so I bought mine Dell-minimal and immediately upgraded them both and have bumped them up as prices come down for new parts. The upgradability was a major reason I went for the XPS15 instead of the XPS13 (my previous machine)

I always feel that the kind of laptop I want is a unicorn if I exclude Apple M-series laptops. Is there a laptop out there which is fanless (passively cooled), supports Linux reliably, has great performance per watt, has decent raw performance (anything better than a recent lower end AMD/Intel laptop processor), and has great build quality?

- Lenovo Yoga 9 (https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Yoga-Pro-9-16IMH9-lapto...). 3200x2000 display. Thickness 18.2 (M3 Pro 16.9). - Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 2024 (https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Zephyrus-G16-2024-rev...). display 2560x1600. thickness 16.4 (thinner than M3) - Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 2024 (https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Zephyrus-G14-2024-rev...). 2880x1800. thickness 16.4 (again thinner)

all these are likely cheaper per GB RAM and per TB SSD

I wanted an XPS15 for a while, but they kept getting relatively worse than my 2017 one. I ended up just replacing the battery on it and kept the 1080p screen that wasn't great anymore, but I was not going to buy a laptop with a worse battery for a higher price than what I got the old laptop for.

Later I bought a new Malibal laptop, but mostly for the screen, usb-c ports and lower weight,but had to compromise on getting an unnecessary nVidia GPU that I just blacklist right away because the right laptop just didn't exist. I like the laptop, but I can't recommend Malibal laptops though, they are a weird company and getting things to work alright took way more effort than on my old XPS.

The specs on paper do not do Apple justice. The screen alone is worth it. Your eyes are worth it

> Why is the gap so large?

Good question and probably worth an article or two. My thinking is that Apple is designing silicon that makes for great laptops (M4 in this case) and then building around that. You will be hard pressed to find an x86-64 chipset that does what the Apple chipset does, and without that no matter what laptop you build around it is not going to be competitive. Nimbler companies like Framework are working with more speculative silicon (like the AMD Ryzen AI Max) which people like Dell and Lenovo won't do (yet?) But even there you get closer but not really close to something like the compute complex in the Macbook Air.

> Why is there no competition here?

Mobile. A lot of games I played as a kid have mobile apps, and in some cases, I don't know if its the case for all of them, the userbase is mostly on their phones. I can only imagine this is the case for a lot of things.

> bulky 16" ThinkPad.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the thinkpad x1 extreme laptop. It was basically the lenovo/thinkpad response to the xps 15. It's way thinner than the ThinkPad T16/P15 lines.

they claim it's a 16" laptop but only because they made the bezel smaller enough to fit a larger display in the same space.

it's usually mostly on par with the dell xps but i'm not sure about the specs though... my personal laptop is a rusty thinkpad x270 (i'm torn between the newly announced m4 macbook air or the upcoming framework 12) and i've been issued a m3 macbook pro for work.

> But now Dell discontinued XPS

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/scc/scr/laptops/appref=xps-p... ?

Sure doesn't seem to be discontinued at all?

And just checking the XPS 14 it has both 2tb and 4tb storage options, and the 3.2k OLED screen is higher resolution than what Apple's 14" offering contains and it's 120hz.

You can decently build a 14'' ThinkPad that meets these requirements.

Here is what I am using right now from my fastfetch:

Display (SDC4193): 2880x1800 @ 90Hz [Built-in]

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 7840U w/ Radeon 780M Graphics (16) @ 5.13 GHz'

GPU: AMD Device 15BF (VGA compatible) @ 0.80 GHz [Integrated]

Memory: ---- GiB / 58.51 GiB

Disk (/): ---- TiB / 1.82 TiB

You can even go cheaper and get a slower CPU as far as I know. And for that price apple doesn't give out that much RAM.

What requirement you have is not meet here?

I bought a Thinkpad P16s because I wanted to use Linux but got used to the beautiful Macbook screen. So far I'm very happy with it.

Surface Laptop 7? While they don't technically sell a 2TB config, they do use a 2230 M.2 SSD and there are 2TB versions of those. As a bonus it's WAY cheaper to do it that way than from the factory. The Surface Pro tablets are another option if you can live with the form factor. Even easier to swap the SSD in those too.

Well, my ThinkPad P14 Gen5 is pretty much this. Small, lightweight, 64gig RAM, 2TB SSD, and a pretty darn good screen. But yeah it's black and has a coating and you won't feel like a genius machinist when you touch it, plus no apple logo, so I guess Apple wins again. How do they keep doing it?

I am quite happy with Asus and Thinkpad pro graphics laptops, wihout being bulky gaming laptops, and I get more tech per buck with the nice Win32/DirectX and CUDA ecosystems that everyone is "emulating" nowadays.

Why get the lesser copy, when I can get the original at better price?

The thing that irks me, is the premium price for storage. Everyone has a cloud storage package to sell, so the air model that has amazing features but small storage will cost you in the long run. Storage should be easy to replace and plentiful!

You can put whatever nvme drive is available today on any thinkpad or professionnal laptop from Dell or HP.

I believe all brands offer some laptops with hidpi screens.

The only part where Apple is unmatched is in battery life but you mention it is not a strong requirement.

> My 4-year old Dell XPS 15 is up for replacement, but somehow no manufacturer aside from Apple is making laptop with decent specs nowadays?

Panasonic Let's Note. Your welcome.

It's repairable, upgradable, and has a *removable battery* (unheard of in 2025).

I think there are good ThinkPads out there.

P1, P16s, T16, P14s

Most of which support:

- Up to 96 GB RAM

- 8 TB SSD (Dual slots)

- Upgradable memory and storage

- 4K OLED displays

- Excellent build quality

What more is needed?

I'm not sure why you want 4k resolution with a 14 inch screen to use commandline tools and a browser.

My hunch is that relaxing this seemingly arbitrary requirement will result in many suitable notebooks

> I'm willing to compromise on battery life, and I don't need the fastest CPU, just a good quality work laptop where I can run `cargo build` / `docker pull` without worrying about filling up the disk, and mostly just a browser aside from that.

I know this isn't your point but this is exactly why I don't use docker--but I'm a bit surprised to hear you mention `cargo build` as something that might fill up the disk. I've been a vocal critic of Rust on Hacker News in the past, but the one thing I always thought they did very, very well, was Cargo and the tight executables it produced for me.

Gen question: why do people care how bulky a laptop is?

I buy gaming laptops because they're the only powerful laptops and their size has never bothered me when traveling

First time I've heard someone say a thinkpad is bulky

I have the same question. My only answer is that making a sleek product such as the Mac Air really is a lot harder than it seems, even in 2025.

I'd get a 14 inch Thinkpad with an upgrade to an Oled screen. A 14 inch X1 Carbon is lighter than a Macbook Air by a large margin.

The framework series are about as good as you get in non apple land in my experience.

Still MacBook is a better product for most use cases.

Are the Precision Workstation laptops not made any longer? They're beasts.

Does a framework laptop not meet some of these asks?

My HP Elitebook is six years old and has a 4K display.

Happy with the build quality.

In my experience Clevo (sold by e.g. Metabox) are really good

Have you looked at the new crop of arm-based windows laptops?

I bought an XPS 16 recently. 4K screen, 64 GB RAM (+8 GB VRAM), 2 TB storage (4 TB was an option). It cost about 3/4 as much as a similarly specced MBP.

I know many people still love MacOS, but it lost me a few years ago. I've also, frankly, had much better milage out of Dell machines than Apple ones over the last ten years.

You can replace that with a 2TB SSD yourself.

I think it's always been that way. The choices for a "flagship" laptop were always MacBook, ThinkPad, or XPS for at least the last 15 years.

There's a lot of misinformation in your post!

Dell XPS 13 isn't discontinued, its rebranding will be fully rolled out later this year

In the meantime Dell XPS 13s are currently available with 2TB and 64GB RAM (with a better screen than this Air I might add) and with a Snapdragon X Elite chip (which there are very few compatibility issues with in March 2025 even with gaming)

If its a 14 inch laptop you want XPS 14s are currently available with upto 4TB. They will also be rebranded later this year. They're on Intel chips and I'm hoping they will switch to Snapdragon on the rebrand to get the Apple like battery life

Why not a surface laptop 7?

https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/laptops/microsoft-surfac...

Wtf is with the downvotes? It literally hits every requirement he had, and the surface laptops are some of the best windows/nix laptops on the market.

Akhm... Framework... Or Lenovo/Thinkpad.

I really wish Apple would make a MacBook Air variant with display quality on par with the iPad Pro or MacBook Pro (ProMotion/120hz and XDR/HDR, at least). The screen quality is the only reason I currently use the Pro despite its chunkier weight, since the local compute/memory of the Air is already plenty for me (and most users).

The iPad Pro proves that weight and battery life is no excuse here for the lack of state-of-the-art display tech in the MacBook Air. And as for cost — the base 14” MacBook Pro M4 (at $1600) isn’t significantly more expensive than the 15” MacBook Air M4 configured with same CPU/RAM/SSD (at $1400).

It’s really quite a shame that the iPad Pro hardware is in many way a better MacBook Air than the MacBook Air, crippled primarily by iOS rather than hardware.

I know Apple wants to differentiate ProMotion as a Pro feature, but even non-tech people I know are wondering why Android phones run smoother than iPhones. Stuff that would be completely unheard of purely because of how noticeable 60hz vs 120hz is.

Actual reputational damage is going on because of these poor decisions, I’m not surprised iPhones are struggling to obtain new market share. They just look like old and slow phones to most normal people now, “look how nice and smooth it looks” is such an easy selling point compared to trying to pretend people care about whatever Apple Intelligence is.

>I really wish Apple would make a MacBook Air variant with display quality on par with the iPad Pro or MacBook Pro

>The screen quality is the only reason I currently use the Pro

Well why should they, you already bought the more expensive one.

I wish for that machine too; and the price delta between the Macs is why I expect this will never happen. And unfortunately, I'd rather spend the extra bucks than go back to 60hz.

Apple seems quite content with making 120hz a feature of "Pro" models across the line (iPads, iPhones, Macs).

As others have said, they do this on purpose. It's the same with memory. I'd probably switch from a Pro to an Air if I could get 64gig ram (for LLM work) but they'd rather charge me $4800 instead of ~$3200 (guessing the price given the top end 32gig Air is $2800)

It's frustrating because I'd prefer a lighter device. In fact, even the Air isn't that light compared to its competition.

I'd happily pay +$500 ($5300) for Macbook Air PRO if it was effectively the same specs as Macbook Pro but 1.5lbs lighter.

It's actually quite crazy that we need to get those bulky pro models just to get the basics like better screens and more memory. The performance between the Air and Pro is anyways pretty much the same, except for long running tasks where pro benefits from active cooling.

Wonder if we are going to see some changes here with the upcoming M5 models.

Hell, I would be happy if Apple at least enabled the virtualization instructions that are already available in the Mx chips inside the iPads, and allowed e.g.: something like UTM in Apple Store with Hypervisor support. It would be a good differentiator between the cheaper iPads running Ax chips vs the more expensive iPads running Mx.

Considering the powerful hardware, the form factor and the good keyboard (I have a used Apple Magic Keyboard paired with our iPad Air M2), if I could virtualize an actual Linux distro to get some job done in the iPad it would be great. But no, you are restricted to a cripped version of UTM that can't even run JIT and because of that is really slow because of that.

This is why I haven't bought an ARM Mac. Air screen is up to snuff and Pro is too heavy.

Price drop

Double the ram

And yet a complaining comment makes its way to the top. This blows my mind! People will literally complain no matter what

I have considered going back to Mac after about 5-7 years on Windows/WSL, but the storage premium is just too much to swallow. If the $999 was a base 16GB RAM and 512GB storage, I'd consider it. I just added another 32GB of RAM to my 2020 built desktop for $50. You can get a 1TB crucial M.2 drive for $70. I know I'm comparing apples and oranges, but the storage cost is too much, and 256GB is much too little.

Edit: to go to 32GB RAM is $400. To go to 1TB SSD is another $400. That is essentially doubling the $999 cost. $400 buys me between 4 and 6 1TB M.2 drives or 2-3 2TB M.2 drives.

  > storage premium

I wanted to make a nice comparison chart: (prices are very rough but from NewEgg)

  DDR5 RAM (Single Stick)
  Memory  Apple  Desktop Laptop  Server
    16      -     ~$40    ~$40     ~$60
    24    +$200   ~$200   ~$50    ~$100
    32    +$400   ~$80    ~$80   ~$100-$200
  2 Sticks
    64      -     ~$200   ~$170  ~$150
   128      -     ~$115   ~$310  ~$250

  Storage  Apple  NVME (Gen 5)  NVME (Gen 4) SSD     HDD
  256GB     -         -           ~$50       ~$20   ~$20
  512GB   +$200       -           ~$60       ~$30   ~$40
   1T     +$400     ~$150         ~$80       ~$60   ~$50
   2T     +$800     ~$200         ~$150      ~$100  ~$60
   4T       -       ~$400         ~$280      ~$200  ~$80

Side Note: I recently bought a 11T HDD for $120...

You can AT WORST buy the storage OUTRIGHT for cheaper than it is to UPGRADE. But in most cases you can buy more than double what Apple is offering for cheaper than it is to UPGRADE.

I boycotted Apple for years because of these issues, but unfortunately I think this battle is lost. I gave up. I have a macbook Air. It is nice, but it is a glorified SSH machine. They must know this, because I'd prefer to get an iPad pro with a keyboard but run an actual fucking desktop OS. But then again, the fucking iPad isn't even good at the one thing it is supposed to be good at: writing... The 3rd party apps are leagues ahead of Apple Notes.

What I can't figure out is:

  - Why are there no good competitors? 
  - Why are there no good linux laptops with good battery life?

The whole point of Apple's pricing strategy over the past few years is that since they have a monopoly on storage/RAM upgrades, they can price base model computers at margins below what they'd normally be comfortable with, and then gouge users on the upgrade costs to claw back some of those margins. That's how they're able to charge $400 for an extra 16GB of RAM.

I'm in another, bizarre camp. I'd pay double whatever they're charging for if I could run linux on it utilizing all of the hardware. Also, if notch went away, but that's another story. Unless someone knows of laptop hardware that comes close to both performance, comfort, and battery which can run linux.

It's true that seeing that number next to $400 next to 16GB is agony, but a 32GB 1TB 15" M4 Air for $2k is a hell of a deal. I have the upgraded M1 Air and after using it for a few years, (1) I still have no reason to upgrade and (2) it's worth more to me than whatever paid.

I think you are crazy. The performance difference between MacOS and WSL is like night and day. I was just shopping for a Linux laptop and I have found that the top end models from Microsoft, Lenovo and Dell to be as or more expensive than Apple (with the exception of having user replaceable SSDs). There is nothing in the PC world that compares to Apple Silicon. If the price is too much, look at the refurb or used market where you can get really significant discounts.

Of course. Apple wants you to purchase their iCloud offerings and put your documents on iCloud Drive.

I just buy lots of storage on my desktop and access it remotely. Tailscale makes it easy to do so.

There are kits to upgrade the mini and studio to max out storage for reasonable prices. I've watched YT videos on the process and it doesn't look too hard.

As for the laptops, probably not feasible.

I will say that unlike laptops/desktops I used to buy before I went Apple, I use them for a really long time. When I ran Windows, I'd upgrade every few years. I had my Mac Pro 2012 for 9 years before upgrading to a Studio. Yes, I maxed out the storage, and it was annoying how expensive, but amortized over 9 years? Not as bad.

EDIT: if I was purchasing a Studio now, I'd likely do the 3rd party upgrade to 8TB (what I saw in a YT video). That's double what my M1 Studio maxed out at.

Not sure about your use-case, but nowadays i don't do anything fancy with my laptop.

So far I've decided that going forward I'll likely be getting a cheap baseline laptop (curretly eyeing a 16gb/512gb macbook air m4 or the upcoming framework 12) and then get some beefier desktop to remote into. i don't even need a gpu, the heavy stuff i do largely revolves around running virtual machines.

I did most of my work in a screen session running emacs on a 48cpu/192gb ram machine in a previous job, and I did some tests and remote desktop nowadays is pretty good (way above the "usable" threshold).

> That is essentially doubling the $999 cost.

yeah, it sucks.

With thunderbolt 5 you can use fast external SSD enclosures. They end up working nearly as well as internal SSDs. And much cheaper.

You're comparing desktop prices to laptop prices. Yes they're ridiculous but you're not the target market.

The purpose of a professional machine is that it pays for itself when you make money using it. If that's not your case, then why do you need professional equipment?

This is amazing, yet silly to state "Up to 23x faster performance [4]"

[4] against, 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based MacBook Air

You’re making it seem like they’re hiding that information under a footnote. The real text on the page, which is quite visible, is:

> Up to 23x faster than fastest Intel‑based MacBook Air

And right next to it:

> Up to 2x faster than MacBook Air (M1)

The footnotes are there to expand on the conditions of the measurements.

So not exactly misleading. On the contrary, it seems to me they’re quite clearly saying “if you have an Intel or M1 MacBook Air you have reason to upgrade. Otherwise, don’t”.

https://i.imgur.com/pEWPXzK.png

As someone that migrated to the M1 Macbook Air from a Mid-2014 Macbook Pro... the Intel customers are still the ones they're trying to target, amusingly.

If they'd just give me onboard mobile connectivity, I'd upgrade to the next Air sooner, otherwise this thing will run until it dies... and maybe some day they'll start comparing performance against their original M1.

To be clear:

1) Apple releases incremental upgrades! Why won't they make huge strides every year so I can upgrade!

2) People who upgrade every year are sheeps!

3) Apple support devices for longer than Android, that's nice! (yes, not Windows though).

4) God, why do their benchmarks compare devices that are 3-5y old?!

Apple is marketing to people who have devices that are old, because they are old.

"Hey, you noticed things are slow? Well, this thing is a lot faster" is pretty good marketing if it's true, nobody except the very wealthy are dropping thousands of euros/dollars on a new device for 10% performance gains, however if it's twenty-three times the performance of the Mac I currently own? Maybe it's enough to convince me or someone like my Mum to splurge on a new device.

Maybe my current Mac is not "good enough" anymore when 23x is the number on the box if I buy new.

It's fair to compare with devices that you expect actual people to actually upgrade from, there's a lot of Intel macbook airs in the field.

Heck, even some professionals are still on Intel macs: https://www.production-expert.com/production-expert-1/25-of-...

Ten million times faster! (Compared to the Apollo 11 guidance computer)

It makes sense because that's who's upgrading.

I've got an M1 Air and there's still no really compelling reason to upgrade. MagSafe and a nicer camera don't really justify it, especially when Continuity Camera is better than on the M1 or M4.

Everyone who has been around since at least the Snail ads should be used to Apple's fluff and promptly ignoring it until benchmarks are released.

Haha. Well, I guess it kind of makes sense in some way, Apple doesn’t want to say anything negative about any generation of “M” processor, maybe?

Up to 23x faster. Of course, the fastest Intel MacBook Air is pretty old. But 23X is pretty crazy, right? I wonder what they are comparing against. Int-8 matrix multiplications or something else that’s gotten acceleration lately, maybe?

That’s roughly the Air I have still. I hate using it (prior to recently adding the cooler shim mod, it would thermal throttle constantly) but between a Hackintosh and my work Mac I haven’t felt the need to upgrade. I think sometime in this M4/M5 gen is when I’ll pull the trigger and retire the Hackintosh to gaming rig only status.

I don't think it's silly to state. That message is probably for intel macbook air users who may be considering an upgrade.

(Anyway, I just ordered one for my wife, a soon-to-be-ex-intel-mac user. She'll probably be pretty happy about this, especially since she doesn't have an intel air as powerful as that one.)

People don't upgrade every year. I still have an Intel MacBook Pro (2020 I think?) that I don't plan on upgrading anytime soon because it still works great.

And the benchmark is probably jut using one hw instruction that didn't exist on that model and now exists, and is not representative of anything at all.

Also to note, a typical macbooks' life span is more than ~5years - so are the target audience

M4 2x faster than M1.

M3 1.6x faster than M1 (1 year ago).

= M4 1.2x faster than M3.

not bad, but Moore's law is dead for CPUs.

I love how even fair and justifiable critique of Apple needs to be hedged with the "Apple is great" prefix, such is the terror of the Apple downvote mafia on HN.

/typed from my Macbook Pro M4 — Love Apple — This is great!

The first thing I noticed in all of these announcements is that every main comparison is against M1. Why are they comparing with hardware 2-3 generations ago? I don't care whether my Intel i9 has 50x the performance of a Pentium processor from the 90s, it seems like a disingenuous attempt to make the numbers as high as possible.

After getting the initial M1 Air, I am still struggling to find a reason to replace it. Still going strong with no hiccups!

With M1 Air, Apple had to blow us away. People, including me, had hard time believing Apple's claims and many people were coping by looking at the Keynote charts and assuming that Apple must have tricked everyone by not giving proper scale metrics etc.

When people put their hands on the real device, it was slaying almost everything on the market and soon it was clear that this thing is a revolution.

You don't one up this easily. Apple claims 2X performance improvement over M1 Air and I am sure its mostly true but that M1 Air was so ahead that for a lot of people workloads didn't catch up yet.

At this very moment I have 3 Xcode projects open, Safari has 147 tabs open and its consuming 11GB of my 16GB Ram and my SSD lifetime dropped to 98% due to frequent swap hits and yet I'm perfectly fine with the performance at this very moment and I'm not looking for immediate replacement.

Same. Each year I tell myself I'll get the new one. Each year when the new one comes out I notice that for what I use it for my M1 Air is still completely fine.

This is where I am, too. I have an M1 Pro and I have never loved a computer more. This thing is a beast and just about anything I throw at it is fine. I can't imagine how much better the M4 is. Unless this computer gets stolen or doused with water, I'll probably have it for at least another 3-4 years. Absolutely amazing value for my money.

Nor should you have a reason to replace it. The device is barely 4 years old. There was a time until very recently when laptops would be expected to last 10+ years minimum with minor RAM and SSD updates.

I'm still happily using an 8GB M1 running Firefox in OSX + Firefox/VSCode/NodeJS in a Debian VM. Lots of tabs open. Both OSX and Debian can use compressed RAM.

Yeah that. I only got rid of mine because I wanted the nice mini-LED screen on the 14" MBP. No plans to replace that one any time soon!

My M1 Max Mac Studio also feels very good even though it's probably full of dust and cleaning it isn't reasonable.

agreed, which is awesome, the only thing that worries me is that they will drop support for it earlier than they have to when they want to force people to upgrade eventually. I hope to get 10 years out of my M1

Everyone I know that got an M1 cheaped out on the 8gb model and are now struggling to use a browser with heavy sites and multitasking(zoom) at the same time.

But also apples upcharge on RAM is disgusting, so it's hard to blame them for picking the lowest spec model.

After getting my 2015 macbook air 11' I am still struggling to find a reason to replace it. Still going strong with no hiccups!

They don't always hit the mark but I sort of miss the times when Apple would innovate more boldly with their devices.

Apple Intelligence isn't it - it's just playing catch-up with a market that tries to slap AI onto everything it can think of.

The hardware upgrades are always nice but there's nothing 'out there' like a touch bar or even a 'dynamic island'. Just more safe iterations.

The last time they "innovated" on macbooks we got a touch bar (ignoring M chips). I'm good with incremental improvements if we can avoid those gigantic blunders.

I think the M1 was a pretty huge innovation. It's the first time a laptop felt portable and without compromise. I can get a full day of work out of my laptop without plugging it in. It's pretty wild.

Before this laptops were simply things that were small enough that you could carry one from point A to point B, but they were still effectively tethered to a wall and desk for any non-trivial usecases.

I don't want innovation on Macbook hardware. It's perfectly good as it is.

The only thing I'd want is something that'd make it last even longer like waterproofing the top keyboard layer.

Apple’s innovation strategy is not to take risky moves. They are more of a fast, competent follower company. Even iPods were a slightly conservative implementation of MP3 players, which were already becoming a thing at the time (you could even get mp3 players with solid state, albeit flash, drives while Apple’s iPods were still spinning rust).

Of course iPods became very popular because they put it all in a package that gave it a UX that non-nerds wanted to use. The flash drive style MP3 players… had tiny capacities, they had to be “managed” by the users. iPods, just dump your whole hard drive on the thing. That solid state memory is much better in a mobile device… I mean, my Sandisk player, I’ll give it an A+ on reliability. C- on capacity. Apple always gets a B in every field.

Their next thing was supposed to be VR. But nobody could find an application for VR, so Apple’s gimmick of taking something with a perfect idea and making a copy that is almost as good at the thing it does right, but which doesn’t have any massive downsides, didn’t work.

They are in a tough spot now, the tech sector seems to have lost its dreamers and so nobody is making these A+/C- devices for them to level out.

What innovation is there from a laptop these days? Apple Silicon chips were the innovation we needed (better performance for better battery).

Last time people cried for Apple to innovate they added the touch bar to laptops. Computers (and phones) are a mature product category where I don't want innovation, I just want them to be functional.

It's been a while since they made a bold choice. When I bought an iPhone a couple years ago, even the apple store employee kinda shrugged his shoulders when I asked if the new 14 phone was better, besides the camera, than the cheaper 13.

This is what happens when you put the logistics guy in charge of the whole thing

For me as a professional, that's just fine; I never used the touch bar, but the fingerprint sensor was a great addition. Not worth upgrading for on its own, but a neat upgrade.

I think a macbook with a much better front facing camera would be good, teleconferencing is a multiple times a day use case for us. They did an in-between with the system that allows you to use your iphone camera(s) which do support more wide angles, but that doesn't work on my current work laptop as it's locked down and I'd have to lock down my personal iphone as well if I want the two to connect.

what do you mean? they cut prices, improved battery life and improved performance, like they do almost every year. every few years they do something big like a new form factor or a new CPU architecture!

Anyone can comment on how Apple Silicon (M) MacBook Airs deal with heat?

It’s fan-less design, so how does it compare with MacBook Pros with same M chips?

Does it throttle often? Can you have it comfortably on your lap in summer? Or unless you’re running 1-hour long 4K rendering or machine learning training sessions - you’d never notice?

UPDATE: what I am getting at - if you are developer and don’t care about screen or battery differences - should you go for same spec macbook pro instead of same spec macbook air.

> - if you are developer and don’t care about screen or battery differences - should you go for same spec macbook pro instead of same spec macbook air.

If you are doing normal developer things, the MacBook Air is 100% fine. I use mine daily (M3 Air 13in, 24GB RAM), it handles Rails + Postgres, it handles JS (Next.js + React), it handles Flutter (for desktop and mobile), it handles IntelliJ and RubyMine and DataGrip, it handles Android Studio and Xcode for iOS apps -- including Android/iPhone software emulators. I can load up large Docker projects with 12+ containers, totally fine. I occasionally play with LM Studio, no issues.

Under all of the above, no throttling, no heat issues, works fine on laps, etc. Half the time, it's barely warm to the touch.

---

The only time it gets hot for me, is running the CPU + GPU max'd out hard, for long periods of time. If I try to run FF14 or Warframe via Crossover/Codeweavers for an hour or two, for example, it gets warm and throttles a bit. (Still works, no crashes, no issues, but it does get warm and throttle).

99%+ of developers are fine with a MacBook Air.

I have M2 Air and using it for rails development, sometimes with multiple docker containers, but the most hungry usually is just chrome with 500+ tabs. It usually does not throttle at all and is barely warm. Unless in direct sunlight (it's black) or unless I put it on top of a blanket without an air gap below for half an hour. I'd say that's coolest macbook I ever owned, no burns or anything near it even on bare skin, unlike some older intel macbooks.

I have a M4 128GB RAM MacBook Pro -- it gets very hot after playing Civ VI or Civ VII for a couple of hours. If I limit the fps to 30 it's stone cold.

Nothing else seems to make it sweat. Just games and presumably mining Bitcoin or other very intensive tasks.

Devs/Gamers should always go for a Pro machine.

If you’re doing continuous tasks that max out the CPU/GPU it will eventually throttle. That’s when you need a MacBook Pro

Have an M2 Air. Never think about heat. In my experience it‘s just not an issue.

Ran the Mac native copy of No Man’s Sky on a 16GB m3 Air last year. 1080p and on default visual settings

The laptop never got hot, game never stuttered (beyond NMS glitching engine which exists on windows too). Slight bit of increased warmth, but my phones gotten hotter browsing bloated websites.

I don’t blame Microsoft for looking at bailing on consoles. iPhones will be more powerful in a couple more cycles.

When I tested a 15” MBP with an i7 and touch bar vs my M1 Air the Intel Mac throttled down 30% immediately and the M1 barely throttled towards the end. The test was a 4K transcode in handbrake and the M1 air was only 10-15 minutes behind.

I’ll try to replicate the test with an M3 13” vs the 15” touchbar intel. Don’t have my MBPs at work.

> UPDATE: what I am getting at - if you are developer and don’t care about screen or battery differences - should you go for same spec macbook pro instead of same spec macbook air.

Depends on how much you care about the last bit of performance and how often you expect running into throttling. In my experience, it takes the M2 Pro multiple minutes of full load before the fan starts. I do a lot of Rust programming on smaller projects and I think the air would have been fine for me. Compilation takes at most a few minutes on the first run. For doing larger projects like LLVM, the pro is a better option. MLIR took 10 minutes to compile each time I pulled in new commits on main. Then throttling becomes an issue.

I have a 2020 Macbook Air M1, use it for xcode, it struggles to build a basic react native based app with watch-widget, but man it is slick, I love thin laptops. I have a carbon X1 too

Struggle as in the build takes 3+ mins

In general though it's cool, maybe when charging it gets warm but I use it on a desk mostly

A general gripe I have switching devices is the keyboard layout ha cmd+c vs. ctrl+c

Stick to an ext keyboard I guess

Edit: 16GB RAM is what I have I sometimes get the "out of application memory" message

Anyway I use my computer for freelancing/working on multiple platforms, it was a good buy (used), alternatively I could have went with a mini but that screen is so good on a mac (although I develop with an ultrawide external monitor).

I have an M3 Air which I occasionally use for AI (image gen & LLMs), gaming, and light dev work, and it never heated up enough to become uncomfortable, exactly as described in reviews. In fact, this was the main reason why I got Air over Pro - the latter apparently can get uncomfortably hot in some cases (although still far less often than your typical Intel laptop), and I wanted something that would truly be a laptop.

I went from the 2019 16" MacBook Pro (Intel i9) to 2023 16" MacBook Pro M2 Max.

It's basically the same without the fan noise, it's a lot cooler, and it seems to handle whatever tasks I throw at it just fine.

I would probably go with the Air if I was a project manager, development manager, or someone that did not have to do much work with code.

I have an M2 air. It gets a bit warm when I compile iOS apps, but otherwise I never notice any heat. If I open a few too many tabs or apps, though, I notice a bit of slowdown since I only have 8 GB ram.

However, it is surprisingly functional and I don’t strictly need any additional ram, which was surprising to me.

As a developer, I say Air all the way.

Never noticed any thermal issues at all. It barely gets warm for me.

Make sure to get at least 16GB RAM.

I can't speak to the Airs, but I went from an Intel Pro to a M3 Pro in a previous job and the battery life improved massively. I used to be able to heat my study by running a linter, but after the switch I remained chilly. I'm now on a M2 and have broadly observed the same.

From what I’ve experienced, the only thing that will cause your M-Series warm/hot is using the GPU.

So if you’re not gaming nor have tons of UI windows open (since macOS UI is rendered with GPU) - you’ll never experience your M-series getting hot.

I play Football Manager on my M1 Air and I've never felt heat. This is a game that used to turn my Intel MacBook Pro into a testicle roaster with 2 hour battery life.

I have an M2 Air and it's a pretty capable mobile dev machine. I do not notice any heat issues whatsoever.

My M2 Air doesn’t even get hot. But I’m not running intensive computing on it.

I'm a web dev with both a M2 Max (in a Pro) and a M3 (Air).

Never heard the fan come on a single time with either machine while developing. Heat has never been an issue. Battery life is superb on both. Pro has better screen but is way heavier. Air is much nicer to bring to a cafe.

The only time I've ever heard the fan come on is when playing 3d games, especially non-native Apple Silicon games.

If I were getting one only for development, I'd get an Air. If it were meant to be a desktop replacement workstation for work and gaming and movies and such, then the Pro.

Both are easily more than fast enough for web dev. Not sure about other stacks (especially with heavy compiles or virtualization). I have a few services in Docker and that's fine (on both machines).

It's just so so much better than the shitty old Wintel days that I don't even worry about it anymore. Lightyears ahead of any ThinkPad or Latitude, etc.

it throttles when not limited to bursty tasks; some people mod theirs by simply placing a thermal pad between the bottom of the laptop and the heatspreader to get performance identical to the MBP - but then you can not have it comfortably on your lap

Nice to see a $1000 Air again in spite of inflation. For comparison, M2 Air was released in 2022 at $1200 with 8 GB RAM.

The 13” model is only $300 more than the M4 Mac Mini whether comparing the base models or the 32GB RAM options. That’s a pretty good value for a battery, screen, webcam, trackpad, and keyboard. The main thing you give up is the ability to connect a third large display when at your desktop, a few ports, and support for higher than 60Hz refresh rate on an external display.

I think it's highly unlikely that the M4 mac is actually limited to 60Hz for all external displays. I'm running a 1440 ultrawide at 100Hz on an M2 right now. Instead this is likely the maximum px*Hz configuration supported, and smaller or fewer monitors are supported at higher Hz.

I don't know the refresh rate, but my M2 MBA is plugged to a 70" TV with no problem. Perhaps it's not at the highest resolution possible, but I can't see pixels from where I sit.

I would go for it but the subpar OS I'm forced to use with the computer puts me off completely. But I understand the logic behind it and that you don't make margins like Apple just peddling good hardware, that's a quick recipe to end up like IBM.

Try Asahi Linux

The best thing about "Apple intelligence" so far is that it made Apple eat their shoe and upgrade their base model's memory to something usable

Nice to see they're finally supporting dual external displays even out of clamshell mode on the Air!

Apple Intelligence is a complete dud in my view, but fortunately it doesn’t bother you if you don’t use it, and it’s all worth it for Apple to start shipping base configurations with a decent amount of RAM.

But once you activate AI, then you are not able to uninstall this AI crap from your computer.

Joined a new company and requested a MacBook Pro, but they declined and instead issued me a brand-new ThinkPad X1 running Windows.

So, I went ahead and bought a MacBook Pro myself, set up all corporate apps (since the company runs M365 and mostly SaaS apps), and everything works seamlessly. My productivity is great—I don’t have to deal with the frustrations of Windows.

Now, once a week, I power up the ThinkPad X1, install patches and updates, then shut it down. The rest of the time, it just sits in the corner collecting dust along with all my other older Intel based MacBooks.

Out of pocket couple of grand, but the boost in my ability to deliver work more than makes up for that.

Thinkpad is great. At-least you know your job is safe for next 28 years.

I think the most exciting thing is that the M4 model is $999 and not some older model.

Yep. $999 for the latest M4 with the full 10 CPU cores and 16GB of RAM is a pretty good deal in Apple hardware terms.

Do you think the base model is still worth it at 1249€?

Been using Airs since 2011, 2012 model lasted me to 2018 upgrade (Retina finally) but now I snagged the m4 pro Mini and it’s so small I brought it to the birthing inn with me and (with the help of a universal remote) just used the room TVs as a monitor. It’s so small that I can just throw it in a bag with a mouse/keyboard/HDMI and even a PS5 controller which I do appreciate my wife tolerating Jedi Cal joining us in the postpartum wing over PS5 streaming from the console at home, quite doable and the Mini’s built in speaker is quite a charmer all things considered! I ran it from inside a drawer under the baby “kiosk” and it definitely outgunned the in-room speakers that were clearly gimped (similar to putting your phone into the right enclosure amplifies the sound).

At home when not at my desk I’ve been using screen share to remote in from the 2018 Air, this is the first time since 2018 I bought a new computer and it’s oddly nice having it not be a laptop, don’t have to worry about the precious built-in screen or keyboard.

Caveat may be if I wasn’t working remote perhaps it would be different but not sure, using the 2018 Air as a client for the M4 Pro has been pretty solid for my current purposes and it’s nice still having an Intel Mac for the edge case backwards compatibility development needs.

Whoops didn’t mean to make a blog post in here…

I love that the base model starts with 16GB of RAM here. The value of these computers is incredible - I purchased a Macbook Pro in 2021 and it's still powering through every task I throw at it. Before Apple started making their own chips, I felt like I had to upgrade every 2-3 years to prevent my laptop from becoming a hurdle in completing every day tasks (remember when tab management was a thing?). Really happy with these machines.

AI is finally forcing them to do it

It’s not enough of an upgrade from my M2 Air. I’m happy to wait for the next generations. But I wouldn’t consider any other personal laptop than this one.

I'm in the same boat and trying to suss out how much of a jump it'd be to the M4s, or if it's worth jumping to the pro.

They completely got rid of the M1 or M2 whatever baseline MacBook Air, and instead having the latest M4 at $999.

That is along with their recent upgrade which bump All Mac model to 16GB Baseline. In Apple's History, the M4 Mac mini and M4 MacBook Air are perhaps the best value for money in the entire History of Mac. I actually dont even record anything that came close.

Since the M-series, they are also honestly best value for money for laptops, really.

I'd be tempted, but the MacBook Air M1 still kicks ass. I don't care if this is 2x faster. The M1 is still very fast.

I need them to get rid of the notch. It's so obnoxious. I'll run my M1 Air into the ground until they get rid of the notch.

same here. it even runs most of my demanding ableton projects just fine.

i need more compute? using a saas solution i need more storage? tiny external ssd or cloud storage

the 8gigs of ram also aren't holding me back, i think most people just cry based on principle and would be fine with it in a double-blind test

Man, Apple laptops even with all their quirks are light-years ahead of the median. I have a reasonably modern ThinkPad and MacBook Air M3 with similar specs, so I can feel the difference.

Why wouldn't they, when the pricing is ahead of the median, too?

In summer 2022 I picked up an M2 Air (24GB/1TB/10-core GPU) for 1939USD with edu discount. Today the M4 equivalent is 1479USD, and the M4 (aside from being faster) can go to 32GB RAM instead of 24GB, and has Wifi 6E instead of just 6 (why not 7?).

I said I'd buy the next Air as long as it had 6GHz wifi support (6E, eventually 7) but now that it's out it's just not enough of an upgrade for me (a lot of money for 25% more RAM, CPU performance, and 6GHz wifi).

Was hoping for the rumored 24 hours of battery life, but it looks like the M4 couldn't squeeze that. Still 18 hours stated, like the M3 Air:

https://www.apple.com/mac/compare/?modelList=MacBook-Air-M3,...

Looks like the only arguments for the M4 Air are:

- 32GB RAM option

- 2 more CPU cores

- 100GB/s vs 120GB/s memory bandwidth

The CPU stays the same, it's the GPU cores that are upgradable on the baseline 13".

There's a BTO 24GB RAM option.

I really was hoping for nano-texture on MacBook Air. The cynic in me thinks this is intentional as I'm now purchasing the 14" MBP with nano-texture. It's 42,000 JPY ($282 USD) more then a near equivalent MacBook Air. But the matte display is the killer feature for me.

And this is to finally replace my trusty 2025 MBPr. It's had an extremely good run. May this one also be a ten year laptop.

I agree a matte screen is necessary. I haven’t updated my 2013 mbp, but also not been using it for like 5 years, either. I don’t like Apple trying to upsell me just to have non-mirror screen, and the mbp is pretty heavy too.

I think I’ll pass..

Everything is cool although it's too bad they had changed the Air design. I have MBA M1 and I have to admit I'm a big fan of that design.

16 GB RAM included in base model. For $200 more i can bump it to 24 GB RAM, So that i can open Chrome and firefox at the same time.

There's something seriously wrong is you can't open Chrome + Firefox even with 8GB of RAM...

Apple should bring back the 12" MacBook and put the M-series processor in it. Miss that form factor a lot.

I'd upgrade immediately to a 17" MacBook Pro with a full-sized keyboard...

Most crucial improvement in this one per my scoreboard is that the new MBA supports 2 external screens AND the builtin one at the same time. Only reason I bothered with a Pro.

If you have an Air and use Intellij IDEA or any other Jetbrains IDE can you let me know how the performance is?

This really looks like an amazing computer if it can handle long IDEA hours on medium projects.

I use a 13 inch M3 Air (16 GB ram) with goland and pycharm. It's the best dev machine I ever owned, everything is a breeze, and the machine is super lightweight. I don't really notice thermal throttling... but then again i dont run LLMs locally or anything like that.

I used[1] jetbrains tooling quite a bit on my m1 air and never had problems, though I did opt for the 16gb ram version. The newer models are presumably at least as performant if not better?

([1] These days my daily driver is an m1 mbp of some whizzbang 32gb variety, which only replaced the mba because my spouse wanted a travel machine and the mbp came for the low low cost of being caught in the late 2022 startup crash. For day to day ordinary backend dev work there really isn't a noticeable difference in my experience, except I guess the mbp is more awkward when working-from-couch. arm vs x86 was sometimes a little awkward around launch, but I can't remember the last time it was an actual hassle.)

It’s totally fine, so long as your build doesn’t take so long (10+ min to throttle)

Using Rider on an Macbook Air M2 (24 GB RAM) -- admittedly, pretty small/simple code-bases for the most part. Great performance. Only issues come when I need a lot of docker containers running too, especially if they're not ARM images. With that I don't notice performance issues - but the battery drain is noticeable at that point.

I have an M1 for reference, with only 8GB RAM which is the real limiter here. I *can* use Jetbrains IDEs and I *can* build/develop software on it. It's a bit sluggish but doable. I try to not code on that machine, but sometimes it's the only machine I have available when I need to look at something.

Using RubyMine on an M2. Performance is great.

What is the memory bandwidth to the main CPU cores (not the "neural engine")? Is it really 120GB/s like they say in the spec sheet[0]? That's 20GB/s faster than the top dual-channel DDR5 desktops, which makes me think there might be some fine print I'm missing.

[0] https://www.apple.com/au/macbook-air/specs/

It uses HBM. It’s faster because it’s millimeters from the CPU/GPU and has a wide bus. If you think 120GB/s is high you should look up the Max/Ultra chips’ specs.

Memory bandwidth for M series goes up to 800 Gb/s for Ultra (in e.g. Mac Studio). That, combined with the ability to get it loaded with a lot of RAM, is what makes it so desirable for LLMs.

Yes, it is.

Official post: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/03/apple-introduces-the-... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43266521)

Looking at this entire Apple product launch day, I'm struck by how Apple's silicon strategy keeps extending in both directions.

No Nano-Texture Option. I actually returned an M3 Macbook Air I got for xmas because I find it too reflective, waiting and hoping for a non-reflective Macbook Air.

If Apple had made it clear they weren't gonna release a non-reflective screen for the Macbook air, I might've just kept the M3 or perhaps gotten the heavy Pro. Now I don't feel like getting any of these.

Get a high-quality (well-reviewed; not cheap) matte glass. Mine has no noticeable degradation of the image quality, and it's the best portable screen in my house (my OLED TV is a little better, but of course).

I know, I know, it doesn't feel nice to stick glass in front of it -- but seriously, try it. I didn't believe it at first, but it's great.

I guess Apple has moved enough production out of China to supply US customers without needing to fear tarrifs, given the price cut.

Apple hasn't priced in tariffs yet, if the 20% tariff in China stays, then it will definitely affect their prices eventually. If they just have to move final assembly to another country though, they should be able to recover in a year or so as FoxConn opens up a factory in Vietnam (assuming Trump doesn't get specific about Chinese made components, but those should pale in comparison to South Korea/Taiwan's supplied products).

Now that the devices are shipping in the US, they are indeed marked as being made in Vietnam.

Once you bump the RAM and disk, it's not too much of a leap to a Pro.

13" M4 Air, 24GB, 512GB - £1,399

14" M4 Pro MBP, 24GB, 512GB - £1,779 at Costco.

For that you get amazing speakers, way better screen (with correct scaling), more performance, better chip, better battery, better mics, TB5 ports and HDMI/SD ports.

Can you clarify what you mean by "correct scaling"?

Is there any linux based laptop which comes close to macbook reliability and performance?

> And with groundbreaking Private Cloud Compute, Apple Intelligence can draw on larger server-based models, running on Apple silicon, to handle more complex requests for you while protecting your privacy.

Most interesting part of it.

Wonder if someone can verify this?

This doesn't have anything specifically to do with the new hardware. They've had the ability to securely offload operations to their cloud-based LLM since the launch of Apple Intelligence.

> if someone can verify this?

See the section headlined "Verifiable Transparency":

https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/

I just bought the m4 mac mini at Costco about a month ago. I have been slightly irked I didn't wait for this so I can walk it away from my desk sometimes. I really hate the idea of a return since I'm still in the window but....

costco returns are notoriously generous, no questions asked. electronics might be a shorter window but i think it's very accepted to return

I wonder if this macbook air will finally come with "replaceable" storage, like the m4 mac mini did.

I absolutely love my MacBook Air M3 15”. Of course I’d love it to be faster but I’ll probably upgrade to an M5 or M6 at this point as the marginal improvement isn’t sufficient to warrant upgrading this soon after purchase.

I wish the M4 Macbook Air models would have a nano texture display option.

Why are we back to MagSafe? I liked just having the usb-c on my air.

Yeah, while I don't mind MagSafe, I'd 100% want an extra USB-C port instead.

magasafe saved my laptop several times in the last 10 years

You can charge with both. The USB-C stuff is due to EU regulations and MagSafe because people love it as a charging cable type.

You're very welcome to not use it. I am glad Apple stopped being so gung-ho, and started offering some options.

Both work fine for charging, so seems like best of both worlds to me.

I see that the maximum amount of ram is capped at 24 GB.

32 or 64 GB would have been really a bless, as much as setting the base model at 16GB instead of 8.

I think the old airs maxed out at 24, the M4 can be configured with 32gb of ram.

Why does an extra 16 GB of memory add $400 to the price?

They add additional markup to storage and memory upgrades because they know you don't have a choice.

Because it's GPU and CPU ram.

Is this the first Macbook Air to support multiple monitors? I'm kind of surprised that's not highlighted instead of buried down in the page.

The M3 series was able to support two external displays with the laptop closed.

M4 can do two external displays with the laptop screen active as well.

Nope, M3 did too.

> Support for up to two external displays

In the base model. Finally.

This is actually reasonable.

I just brought 2 laptops in the last 12 months, so I'm not rushing to buy this, but it's a great deal for the typical person.

"Up to 23x faster performance"^4

4: Testing conducted by Apple in January 2025 using preproduction 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air systems with Apple M4, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and 32GB of RAM, as well as production 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based MacBook Air systems with Intel Iris Plus Graphics and 16GB of RAM, all configured with 2TB SSD. Tested using Super Resolution with Pixelmator Pro 3.6.14 and a 4.4MB image. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Air.

What a garbage piece of marketing, I can't believe they posted this on their official website. I used to like Apple, but virtually everything they've done over the past few years has made me despise them more and more. Excited to ditch my iPhone.

People will defend this kind of intellectual dishonesty forever.

"But they should compare to ancient laptops in case anyone is switching between these specific models!"

10 years from now I'll be reading the same justification for 200x speed increase benchmark.

> Up to 23x faster than fastest Intel‑based MacBook Air

Comparing it to a 6 year old laptop.

> Up to 2x faster than MacBook Air (M1)

Comparing it to a 5 year old laptop.

Love these comparisons.

> Love these comparisons.

It's great it resonates with you! Rather compelling to realize their target upgrade cycle is only every 5+ years instead of a 1 or 2 year treadmill.

Other than battery mass and screen size, is there a significant difference between the new Macbook Air and the low-end Macbook Pro?

Compared to the M4 MacBook Air, the base M4 MacBook Pro has

- Larger display with higher resolution and DPI

- Brighter display (1000nits vs 500nits) with mini-LED backlight, local dimming, and HDR

- 120Hz display

- 24hr battery life vs 18hr

- Active fan cooling vs passive cooling

- 6 speakers vs 4 speakers

- 3 TB4/USB-C ports vs 2

- HDMI port

- SDXC card reader

https://www.apple.com/mac/compare/?modelList=MacBook-Air-M4,...

There are quite a few little differences like screen brightness, number of displays in can drive, faster unified memory, etc...

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/macbook-air-vs-macbook-pro/

The better screen and better keyboard are probably the most day to day practical reasons to upgrade. But that’s countered by the extra weight and thickness of the Pro, too. So it’s really a choice of mobility versus usage ergonomics.

The Pro is also fan cooled, but with Apple Silicon I’m not sure that matters all that much at this performance band. If you need fan cooled performance you probably want to start thinking about a Pro level SoC, at which point you’re all in on a Pro machine anyway.

120hz display

Active cooling on the pro.

I have a MacBook Pro from 2017 2.3 GHZ, and I am considering an upgrade. Is it worth it?

The biggest difference between this model and the M1 is that ...

All* software now has native Apple Silicon builds.

* Except abandonware**, of course, but Rosetta is so good you need not notice. That said, I personally recommend never triggering Rosetta which helps you avoid accidentally running legacy drivers etc.

** For some reason, including Steam's installer, even though the games it wraps are universal/native ARM.

The jump from Intel to M* is huge.

Whether that's worth it for you - hard to say.

You can get a good deal on a refurbished or used M* MBP and try it out. My 2021 M1 Max MBP is still going strong; so strong I just can't justify a new one.

Biggest thing to note is how many external displays you want to drive. I got the M1 Max to drive my 2-4.

Absolutely. I had a 2017 machine and any Apple Silicon machine will run circles around what you already have.

night and day @ noise and battery life

Lets hope this isn't like the M1 version which has been dropping like flies.

What are you talking about?

I hope apple starts adding more colors to the lineup, the blue looks great

The price point seems quite interesting, a framework laptop costs more...

You can't upgrade the MacBook.

For all the talk of the "Apple Tax", point me to a comparable laptop from another company at this price point. I don't think there has been one since Apple started the M series.

20 years ago, when I helped cover IT hardware including AAPL for a large investment bank, our analyses consistently showed that Apple products were comparable in price to competing products with comparable specs.

I agree that Apple Silicon has given Apple an additional leg up on the competition, even aside from the more-than-competitive price.

I don't think you can find anything in this form factor that would match the single core performance of M4.

is there an active linux support for the hardware?

Active Linux support has grinded to a halt. Hector Martin (the developer of asahi Linux) has ceased development. Umid temper your expectations. M3+ will likely never be supported https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/

Not for M3/M4, as far as I'm aware.

Just go for anything with the latest AMD

The trackpad on my Macbook Air stopped working after 2.5 years. The Apple warranty in only 1 measly year. Apple wanted nearly £500 to fix it. Caveat emptor.

Glad to be in Australia. M1 Air motherboard failed after close to 3 years. Went to the store, muttered the words "Australian Consumer Law" and "not of acceptable quality", repaired for free with no question.

The M4 Air is A$1699 here, when you subtract the 10% GST (our prices include GST), that converts to US$967. So we're not even paying a premium (although Apple hedging against US tariffs may play a part).

Most if not all consumer laptops have a baseline 1 year warranty. If it's too expensive to repair from the manufacturer, repair it yourself? $80 from ifixit.

Did I upset the Apple fan boys?

the latest intel ultra chips are also pretty good, and so are the laptops using them, such as the asus zenbooks

Lunar Lake is pretty good, yeah. But generally, even premium Windows laptops feel less complete. Speakers sound worse, trackpad isn't as nice, usually worse thermal design / fan noise, it's the little things.

Air is my favorite laptop of all time. Portable, durable, and now powerful enough to be a semi-workstation.

But why on earth Apple, your logos are filled with masonic and Babylonian symbology? Apple intelligence? Reversed Babalon? Mother of abominations? Really? Enough of this Thelema Crowley bullshit already. You are insulting my intelligence. We are reasonably educated people in Eastern Europe.

You don't have enough intellectual capital to generate more adequate geometry? And what is the message here? You are summoning the demons? :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babalon

these laptops are so good they're starting to feel like magic

16GB base!

Still no cellular modem.

it turns out you can simply tether this thing called an iPhone that almost everyone over wifi.

But no Space Grey?

Pretty incredible how timeless the design still is.

Isn’t it a couple years only ?

Biggest question for me is how does it compare to AMD Strix Halo? I mean the Max 395 just seems very impressive.

I mean I like Apple hardware, but I also prefer to run Linux.

no nano texture? :(

Looks good.

Now I regret buying that Air M3 last year...

Upgrade now and you'll feel buyers remorse again when m5 comes out

The good thing about these frequent upgrades by them is that you'll soon be able to just get a new device whenever you need it, without worrying about upgrade cycles.

Where does this obsession of making it as thin as possible even come from?

I am pretty sure almost everyone will gladly trade the "thinness" for a few standard USB and HDMI ports.

I used to hold the same opinion as you, but since getting a m2 air I’ve really enjoyed how thin and light it is. It really is a noticeable quality of life improvement. Once you have a decent stockpile of usb c cables the port thing isn’t really an issue anyways

On the Air model? Its whole thing is being light and thin. On the Pro model, sure.

Macbooks have been USB-C for 10 years. All my devices have been replaced since then. USB-C is the standard USB port.

That's what the MBP product line is for. More ports and performance for more expense and weight/size.

I know it seems like a champagne problem but the Pro really can get annoyingly heavy when traveling and the Air is dreamy how light it is.

> I am pretty sure almost everyone will gladly trade the "thinness" for a few standard USB and HDMI ports.

I think there’s a lot of people that want something as light and thin as possible to slip into your purse and take to the cafe.

I care more about total mass than thinness. But those things tend to be correlated.

USB-C is objectively better than USB-A in every way, and quite massively so.

Technology makes progress. Do you want a COM port?

Steve Jobs.

If only Apple could make a laptop that could last more than two days with the clamshell closed and energy settings set to the most conservative. I have an Asus ROG Z13 and Lasts over three weeks when asleep. I have had an M1, M2, and now an M4 MacBook Pro, and all of them suffer from this problem, even after setting them up from scratch.

Would love to understand the downvotes on this. I just laid out my problems with these laptops. If you have a solution, I am all ears.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com