The Apple MacBook Air 15in M4 is surprisingly affordable and also blue – but it doesn't last as long as the Pro

At $899, the Apple MacBook Air 15in M4 is surprisingly affordable. Surprisingly, because Apple isn't really known for that, and MacBooks tend to be expensive purchases. However, with the looming switch off of Windows 10, Apple senses an opportunity to capture some new business – specifically, small businesses – and now might be the best time to invest in its latest laptops.

There's little change to the design, save for a fancy new blue color option, and most of the upgrade centers around that super M4 chip. Compared to the M4 Pro, there are a few drops in quality, and no Wi-Fi 7. But you can have the M4 MacBook Air with 16GB RAM and 256GB of SSD – or configure them up to 32GB and 2TB, respectively.

Apple MacBook Air 15in M4: Design

So the new color for the MacBook M4 is a very light, almost grey, sky blue. A very particular sky blue, like the lightest sky you have ever seen. And in truth, there are times it just looks grey. But in the right light, it's sky blue and we like it. We're talking about the color a lot because that is really the only change in design compared to the M2 and M3 models of MacBook Air.

In a way, this is good, as the M3 was beautiful, as most MacBooks are. The M4 Air is pretty in a minimal way, with little noise around the chassis and keyboard, and just that webcam notch the only blemish. The build quality is cool and ridged – there is absolutely no flex in the lid. It is also not very light at 1.5kg, not very Air-like, but then again it isn't exactly heavy; the 15in size is harder to get in a backpack, but you'll not notice it when you have slipped it in.

Apple M4 MacBook Air: Display

The 15in Liquid Retina display on the MacBook Air is bursting with quality. It has a 2,880 x 1,864 resolution, covers 100% of the DCI P3 color gamut in its default mode, and reaches over 500cd/m2 for brightness (512cm/d2 in our tests).

Color accuracy was also high; with our colormeteier, and measuring in the default color mode, we recorded the MacBook Air showcasing 98.7% for sRGB gamut color coverage. The scores were largely similar to the MacBook Pro, which is impressive. In truth, video quality is not as good as your best OLED screens – you don't quite get those inky blacks – but it is nonetheless a high-quality screen.

And yet, there are still complaints. Apple will never go for a touchscreen on a MacBook, not a massive deal, to be honest, but they can and should be upping the refresh rates. 60Hz on a screen in this day and age is criminal. This, a MacBook Air, with all its quality elsewhere, should be giving us at least 90Hz for smoother scrolling. We found this an annoyance going up and down spreadsheets and documents, where everything blurs if you go too fast.

Apple MacBook Air 15in M4: Keyboard and trackpad

Apple has made major changes to its keyboard since its butterfly-switch catastrophe a few years ago. So the keys on the M4 MacBook Air are largely the same as the ones on the M3 and M2 models – and that's a good thing really. All three models have great keyboards, so there's little complaint here at ITPro.

The trackpad is largely the same as on the Pro, in that it is rather big and also very good. Single finger taps, multi-touch gestures, and a refined forced feedback engine that lets you double-click and prod with ease. The whole experience is effortless and makes navigation simple.

Apple MacBook Air 15in M4: Specs and performance

As with the Pro, the most noticeable upgrade on the MacBook Air is the M4 chip. The CPU count is up from eight to ten compared to the M3, and there are four performance cores and six efficiency cores. The GPU core count is the same a the M3, but there is a performance improvement.

In Geekbench 6, the M4 Air produced stellar results, with 3,762 for single-core performance and 14,872 for multi-threaded performance. These are only slightly below the scores of the MacBook Pro, but way ahead of the M3 MacBook Air. Apple is far and away from other vendors here, with only the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 coming close to its multi-threaded performance.

When it comes to battery life, the M4 MacBook Air is better than the M3, but not by much. However, it isn't as good as the M4 Pro by a significant distance. In our looped video test, the MacBook Air lasted 15hrs and 39mins – almost five hours off the MacBook Pro.

Apple MacBook Air 15in M4: Features

The M4 MacBook Air supports a range of features, and we will start with the standard stuff. Only Wi‑Fi 6E (not 7 for reasons unknown), and Bluetooth 5.3. There's a MagSafe 3 charging port and 3.5mm headphone jack. You get two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports with support for charging, DisplayPort, and Thunderbolt 4 (up to 40Gb/s) USB 4 (up to 40Gb/s).

Getting to the more advanced stuff, you have Apple Intelligence, the company's AI engine. On a laptop, as we found with the Pro, there are some handy features to enjoy here – though nothing much different from your average copilot. The writing tools feel like the best application (so far) as they are genuinely useful, helping with proofreading and summarisation. The former is on par with tools like Grammarly, while the latter is slightly less annoying than Google's Gemini.

Siri has also had a brain boost, as it seems a little bit cleverer; you can use a quick type search bar in the upper right of the display and learn new things quicker than clicking and typing in Google.

Ever more useful is the fact that you can now connect up to two external 6K monitors while continuing to use the MacBook's display – if you recall, the M3 model could only do so if you closed the lid. So that's a real improvement.

Apple MacBook Air 15in M4: Is it worth it?

The first question to ask yourself (or your business) here is what do you want the Air for? If you're a new business with a fondness for Apple hardware, the Pro, though more expensive, is the better laptop (longer battery life, Wi-Fi 7, slightly faster). And it feels more like a work machine, too.

That being said, the Apple MacBook Air M4, with its larger 15in display, is a smashing machine. It looks good (the blue is swish), it has a nice keyboard, it's fast, and the battery life is decent. Prices start at $899 (£899), which is surprisingly affordable.

Apple MacBook Air 15in M4 specifications