M4 Macbook Air got better and dropped in price... they are on one.
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TechTranscript
00:00All right, I think we can make this pretty short and sweet.
00:05The Mac team is on one.
00:08See the M4 Mac mini refresh was already
00:11one of the best tech deals of all 2024.
00:13Great computer, great price.
00:15So now here comes this new M4 MacBook Air.
00:18It's the most capable, powerful version yet,
00:20obviously, thanks to the new chip.
00:21The starting memory is 16 gigs.
00:24It gets a sneaky, slightly larger battery,
00:25some Thunderbolt improvements, a new webcam,
00:28a new color, and the price goes down.
00:31It's kind of funny looking back a bit
00:33at the arc of reviewing MacBook Airs over the years.
00:36Like at first it was this spectacle of engineering,
00:39but also kind of impractical and missing a few ports.
00:41They went from that to being, you know,
00:43a bit of an outdated design, but improving a lot.
00:46Then turned into basically the easiest
00:47to recommend laptop in the world at 999.
00:50But then with Apple Silicon updates
00:51and higher base storage,
00:52the price did go up with the M2 generation by 200 bucks.
00:56So it was 1199.
00:57And I feel like everyone just kind of went,
01:00all right, it's still fine.
01:03Yeah, still a good laptop for that price.
01:04But now it's 2025 and it's got the M4 chip
01:07and the price has dropped back down to 999
01:11for the base machine again.
01:13And that is sick.
01:14Now, almost nothing else has physically changed
01:16with this laptop.
01:17Still the same keyboard.
01:18You know, there's no speaker grills.
01:20There's still MagSafe charging, two USB type C ports,
01:23the headphone jack, the notch at the top
01:26with a 60 Hertz LCD, the thin and light aluminum build.
01:29This is very much still the MacBook Air.
01:31If you wanna get sweaty about it, as Dave2D would say,
01:35I noticed the mute button icon is different.
01:39And the webcam is now a 12 megapixel center stage webcam,
01:42which can follow you around the frame if you leave it on,
01:44but I actually do turn it off every time.
01:48And also I noticed on Apple's website,
01:50the battery capacity went up slightly
01:53from 52.6 watt hours to 53.8 watt hours, this generation.
01:58So that's about 2% more capacity.
02:01I'm paying attention, okay?
02:02It's the real life spot the differences challenge.
02:04But really the main way, obviously,
02:06you'll know if it's the new laptop generation or not
02:09is this, did you notice?
02:10It's a new color, barely.
02:14It's called sky blue this time.
02:16If I could rename it, I'd rename it barely blue,
02:19considering when it's up against white backgrounds,
02:21okay, it looks a little bit blue,
02:22but when it's up against actually blue things,
02:25it literally looks silver again.
02:26It's like the LaCroix of MacBook paint colors.
02:30It's like someone whispered the word blue in the paint shop
02:33just before placing each one in its box
02:35and shipping it away.
02:37But yeah, now you know if you see this pale blue color
02:39on a MacBook Air, you know it's the new one.
02:41This replaces space gray.
02:43But also speaking of boxes,
02:45this is the box that my MacBook Air came in from Apple,
02:51the review unit.
02:52And I don't know if you notice on the corner there,
02:56it appears someone has bled onto the box of this computer.
03:02I don't really know how that happens.
03:03I just pulled it out of the cardboard shipping box
03:05and it just looked like this.
03:07Really weird, never seen that before.
03:09I really hope whoever packaged this computer is okay.
03:12Anyway, the main reason this laptop is such a big deal
03:15is the chip, right?
03:16This M4 chip, it's really good.
03:19We already learned this from the M4 iPad Pro nine months ago
03:22and then again with the M4 Mac mini four months ago.
03:25This chip in the laptop will be passively cooled
03:28so no fans in the air, unlike the Mac mini.
03:30So yeah, sustained performance ceiling
03:33is going to be a bit lower.
03:34But for the quick bursty stuff
03:36like normal computer activities,
03:38yeah, it's amazing as expected.
03:40And then the specific benefit in case you forgot
03:42of the M4 over previous generations of Apple Silicon
03:45is going to be more AI specific horsepower.
03:48So more powerful 16 core neural engine.
03:50Some of that manifests itself in useless stuff
03:54like image playground,
03:55rendering images locally faster than ever before, cool.
03:59But also some of that is potentially useful stuff
04:01like the background cutouts being quicker and more accurate
04:05or the single click photo enhancer in Pixelmator Pro
04:08being much faster.
04:10Reviewing MacBook Airs is so funny though
04:12because we do this every time.
04:14This is the baseline.
04:15This is the cheapest entry-level way to get a Mac laptop.
04:20For people who don't care about pro level tasks,
04:22they're just gonna check their email and web browse
04:25and maybe edit a photo once in a while.
04:27Basic stuff, MacBook Air, classic.
04:29But because Apple Silicon has gotten so good,
04:32we end up able to do things that are way beyond that.
04:35This machine is capable of things
04:37that required a pro chip like a couple of years ago.
04:40That's not an exaggeration.
04:41So when I tell you I could load up a bunch of 4K
04:43and 8K footage into a Final Cut Pro timeline
04:46and it would scrub through the timeline
04:47with almost no hesitation at quarter res playback resolution
04:51and then it could export the project
04:52just a few beats slower than a Mac mini.
04:54That literally doesn't matter to 99% of MacBook Air buyers
05:00but the chip is so powerful, it's capable of it.
05:03So it's just good to know that you could.
05:05You know, most areas will never have
05:073D modeling applications or Logic Pro
05:10or ever be churning through the Adobe suite
05:12or playing triple A games
05:14but instead they'll be doing video calls
05:17and having 20 Safari tabs open
05:19or flipping through a bunch of productivity apps.
05:21But it is pretty sick that this computer
05:22can stretch and handle all of that
05:25should you choose to throw that at it.
05:27That is the modern MacBook Air.
05:29There's even allegedly a customer
05:32that was frustrated with the last generation of Air
05:34because it couldn't connect two different 6K displays
05:38at the same time and use them with the lid open.
05:43And so now this one can.
05:44So, okay, great.
05:45This laptop is still a great machine and a great deal.
05:50Here's my only complaint potentially with this laptop.
05:55I would like a better display.
05:57Now, I know that I'm coming from a MacBook Pro
06:00and I'm very used to these really good displays
06:02and it seems like Apple is, as they usually do,
06:05reserving certain things for the pros.
06:07So the mini LED, the ProRes high refresh rate,
06:11even the nanotexture coating on the display,
06:14all of that stuff is reserved for the MacBook Pro.
06:17But all that is stuff that I would like to see
06:20in a MacBook Air.
06:20And I think you can handle it.
06:21I think it's got plenty of battery.
06:22It could go brighter.
06:24It could look even better.
06:25So I want a better screen on the MacBook Air,
06:29me personally, as an option.
06:31But again, I know that most people won't even notice
06:34and will be totally fine with this.
06:35But here's a more important question
06:36that I ask basically every year with this MacBook Pro
06:38because we always talk about this base price.
06:40Can you actually order the base price spec
06:43and still be fine?
06:45And this year, again, I feel like for most people,
06:48the answer actually is yes.
06:49Because this time that's 16 gigs of unified memory
06:53and then it's 256 gigs of base storage.
06:56So the storage and memory upgrades
06:58are always borderline robbery.
07:00That's not a shocker.
07:02I do like that you can get a much faster charger for 20 bucks
07:05if you don't already have one.
07:06But yeah, doubling up to 16 gigs base for 999 is huge
07:10since these computers can go into swap memory so quickly.
07:13Shout out to the single best feature of Apple Intelligence,
07:15which has been improving the amount of RAM
07:17in every Apple device.
07:18If you are in the market for a base machine though,
07:21I think if you don't plan on ever doing super high-end tasks,
07:25you can still consider the last gen.
07:27This is gonna sound familiar,
07:28but the last gen is also a really good deal.
07:30It has half that memory, eight gigs,
07:33but it's 799 at Best Buy right now.
07:37So that's a really good deal.
07:37Obviously, if you have an older MacBook,
07:39if you have an Intel MacBook,
07:40this is the type of stuff you're gonna be looking at.
07:42Otherwise then yeah, pretty easy to recommend the baseline,
07:47the new entry-level sky blue MacBook Air.
07:51All things considered, it's pretty boring
07:54that this laptop doesn't change very much
07:56and it's just a barely new color
07:58and it's a chip we've already seen before.
08:00But I think it's pretty exciting
08:01that laptops have gotten this good, period.
08:07Thanks for watching.
08:08Catch you guys in the next one.
08:10Peace.
08:10♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪