Apple’s much-loved MacBook Air will get much more energy, a a lot better webcam and an sudden value minimize for 2025, making one of many highest client laptops much more tempting.
The corporate’s thinnest and lightest laptop computer at the moment begins at £999 (€1,199/$999/A$1,699) – £100 lower than final yr’s mannequin – and has Apple’s high M4 chip with a minimal of 16GB of reminiscence, making the most affordable mannequin way more succesful.
Nothing has modified since 2022 on the skin apart from a fetching new gentle blue color that replaces the longstanding “house gray”. The aluminium physique is simply as properly made, skinny and lightweight. The keyboard is superb, the Contact ID fingerprint reader within the energy button is quick and the beneficiant trackpad is finest in school.
The 13.6in LCD display screen is crisp and good, though restricted to 60Hz, in contrast to the sooner and smoother display screen on the MacBook Professional line and a few rivals. New for this yr is an upgraded webcam, which is now 12 megapixels and sports activities Apple’s Centre Stage tech for computerized panning and scanning, plus help for Desk View for demonstrating issues remotely, just like the M4 MacBook Professional.
Two significant adjustments have been made on the within. The brand new M4 chip makes the Air basically as quick because the MacBook Professional, which is to say very quick and snappy certainly. In assessments it is just marginally slower than the Professional regardless of not having a fan to maintain it cool for extended intervals, and sooner than the iPad Professional with M4 chip. There may be little the Air will be unable to handle outdoors workstation-class workloads. Observe the most affordable mannequin has two fewer graphics cores on its chip, which can make it barely much less highly effective for sure apps and video games.
All Airs now additionally include not less than 16GB of reminiscence, which is the beneficial minimal quantity for contemporary laptops. The earlier mannequin began with solely 8GB of reminiscence, which value £200 to double.
Together with highly effective chips, the Air’s predominant promoting level – very lengthy battery life – stays. For basic gentle workloads utilizing browsers, notes apps, phrase processing, picture enhancing, chats and emails, the Air often lasts greater than 16 hours between expenses, which is roughly two full work days on battery. Pushed a bit tougher, comparable to creating and enhancing photographs, the Air nonetheless managed greater than 10 hours’ work on battery.
Specs
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Display: 13.6in LCD (2560×1600; 224 ppi) True Tone
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Processor: Apple M4 with eight 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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Working system: macOS 15 Sequoia
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Digicam: 12MP Centre Stage
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Connectivity: wifi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, 2x Thunderbolt/USB 4, headphones
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Dimensions: 215 x 304.1 x 11.3mm
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Weight: 1.24kg
Sustainability
The MacBook Air is made with 55% recycled supplies together with aluminium, cobalt, copper, glass, gold, lithium, plastic, rare-earth parts, metal and tin. Apple breaks down the pc’s environmental influence in its report.
The pc is typically repairable, and the battery could be changed for £159 by Apple. The restore specialists iFixit gave the machine 5 out of 10 for repairability. Apple gives trade-in and free recycling schemes, together with for non-Apple merchandise.
macOS Sequoia 15.4
The Air runs the identical macOS Sequoia software program as the remainder of the Mac lineup, not too long ago up to date to model 15.4, which brings with it just a few extra Apple Intelligence options.
The Mac Mail app has been redesigned to extra carefully resemble the app on an iPhone with AI e-mail categorisation, comparable to promotional emails, receipts and others. AI notification summaries are helpful, as is iPhone mirroring should you additionally use an Apple smartphone. The brand new snapping and window tiling instruments are very helpful, permitting you to shortly prepare your home windows with both mouse or keyboard shortcuts, one thing that beforehand required third-party instruments.
Value
The Apple 13in MacBook Air begins at £999 (€1,199/$999/A$1,699) with an 8-core GPU, 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. 15in variations begin at £1,199 (€1,499/$1,199/A$2,099).
For comparability, the M4 MacBook Professional begins at £1,599, the Samsung Galaxy Ebook 4 Edge prices £1,399 and the Microsoft Floor Laptop computer 7 begins at £1,049.
Verdict
The MacBook Air is the buyer laptop computer to beat except you particularly want Home windows. It merely gives a greater mixture of efficiency, battery life, audio system, keyboard and trackpad than rivals.
The M4 chip improve retains it forward of the pack whereas being fanless and subsequently silent always. The brand new Centre Stage webcam is a large enchancment, too, for anybody who lives on video requires work. The display screen continues to be nice, though that is one space the place higher shows could be discovered on opponents at increased value. It solely has two USB-C ports however not less than it may be charged by way of the MagSafe port to maintain them accessible for connections.
A value minimize to about £1,000 or equal for the 13in mannequin may be very welcome, as is the minimal of 16GB of reminiscence, which makes the 2025 MacBook Air surprisingly good worth for a premium pocket book.
Execs: super-fast M4 chip, silent and funky operating, extraordinarily lengthy battery life, good 13.6in display screen, nice keyboard, best-in-class trackpad, MagSafe, good audio system, Centre Stage webcam, Contact ID.
Cons: solely two USB-C ports and no USB-A or SD card slot, no Face ID, RAM and SSD upgrades are costly and can’t be modified after buy, no wifi 7.
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