Apple’s MacBook Air, a beloved consumer laptop, has received a significant power boost for 2025, along with a better webcam and unexpected price cuts, making it even more appealing.
The thinnest laptops from the company now start at £999 (€1,199/$999/$1,699), which is £100 less than last year’s model. With Apple’s top M4 chips and a minimum of 16GB of memory, even the cheapest model is significantly more powerful.
Externally, there haven’t been many changes apart from a new light blue color replacing the long-standing “space grey” since 2022. The aluminum body remains well-crafted, thin, and lightweight. The keyboard is excellent, the power button touch ID fingerprint reader is fast, and the trackpad is generous and perfect for everyday use.
The 13.6-inch LCD screen, while limited to 60Hz, is crisp and of good quality. This year’s new features include upgraded webcams supporting 12 megapixels and featuring Apple Center Stage Technology with automatic panning and scanning. Desk view M4 MacBook Pro, to display things remotely.
Two significant internal changes have been made. The new M4 chip essentially makes the MacBook Air as fast as the MacBook Pro. In tests, it performs slightly slower than the PRO and faster than the iPad Pro with an M4 chip, despite not having fans to keep it cool for extended periods. The air can handle external workstation-class workloads without any issues. Note: The cheapest models have two fewer graphics cores, making them slightly more powerful in certain apps and games.
All MacBook Air models now come with at least 16GB of memory, the minimum recommended amount for modern laptops. Previous models started with only 8GB of memory and cost significantly more starting from £200.
In addition to the powerful performance, the main selling point of the air – a long battery life – remains. For typical light workloads involving browsing, note-taking, word processing, image editing, chatting, and emailing, the air lasts over 16 hours between charges. Even with slightly more demanding tasks like development and photo editing, the air offers over 10 hours of battery life.
specification
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screen: 13.6in LCD (2560×1600; 224 PPI) True tone
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Processor: Apple M4 with 8-core GPU or 10-core GPU
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Ram: 16, 24, or 32GB
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Storage: 256GB, 512GB, 1TB or 2TB SSD
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operating system: MacOS 15 SECOIA
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camera: 12MP Center Stage
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Connectivity: Wifi 6e, Bluetooth 5.3, 2x Thunderbolt/USB 4, Headphones
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size: 215 x 304.1 x 11.3mm
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Weight: 1.24kg
Sustainability
The MacBook Air is made from 55% recycled materials such as aluminum, cobalt, copper, glass, gold, lithium, plastic, rare earth elements, steel, tin, and more. Apple provides detailed reports on the environmental impact of the laptop.
The computer is Generally repairableand the battery can be replaced by Apple for £159. The machine received a repairability score of 5 out of 10 from the repair specialists at aquixit. Apple also offers trade-in and free recycling programs for non-Apple products.
MacOS Secoia 15.4
The MacBook Air runs the same MacOS Sequoia software as the rest of the Mac lineup and has been recently updated to version 15.4.
The Mac Mail app now resembles an iPhone app with AI email classifications such as promotional emails, receipts, and more. The AI notification overview and iPhone mirroring features are useful for users with an Apple smartphone. The new snap and window tile tool is very convenient and allows for quick window placement using either the mouse or keyboard shortcuts, eliminating the need for third-party tools.
Price
The Apple 13-inch MacBook Air starts at £999 (€1,199/$999/$1,699) with an 8-core GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. The 15-inch version starts at £1,199 (€1,499/$1,199/$2,099).
For comparison, the M4 MacBook Pro starts at £1,599, while the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Edge is priced at £1,399, and the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 starts at. £1,049.
Verdict
The MacBook Air is a top-notch consumer laptop that stands out unless you specifically require Windows. It offers a superior combination of performance, battery life, speakers, keyboards, and trackpads compared to its competitors.
The M4 chip upgrade, with a fanless design, keeps it ahead of the competition, always running silently. The new centrestage webcam is also a major improvement for users who rely heavily on video calls for work. While the screen is still great, it may be an area where competitors offer better displays at a higher cost. The device has only two USB-C ports, but they can be utilised for connections via the Magsafe port.
With a minimum of 16GB of memory and price reductions of around £1,000 on the 13-inch model, the MacBook Air is highly appealing.
Strong Points: Ultra-fast M4 chip, silent and cool running, extremely long battery life, good 13.6 inch screen, great keyboard, best-in-class trackpad, magsafe, good speakers, center stage webcam, touch ID.
Cons: Two USB-C ports and no USB-A or SD card slots, Face ID, RAM and SSD upgrades are expensive and cannot be changed after purchase. There is no WiFi 7.
Source: www.theguardian.com
