MacBook Air M4 - The Laptop Most People Should Buy

Coming from a 2019 Intel MacBook Pro that sounded like a jet engine, the MacBook Air M4 is night and day. No fans means no noise - ever. You can edit 4K video and it stays silent. The trackpad is still the best in the business (sorry, Windows laptops).

The 13.6-inch screen is solid. Not OLED like some Windows machines, but it gets bright enough and colors look good. True Tone adjusts the white point automatically, which is nice once you get used to it. The webcam is finally decent at 12MP with Center Stage, though it's still in that stupid notch location that makes you look like you're calling from under a bridge during video calls.

Performance is genuinely impressive. I run Chrome with 40+ tabs, Slack, Docker containers, and VS Code simultaneously without slowdowns. The M4 chip scores around 3,700 in Geekbench single-core, which translates to everything feeling snappy. Video exports that took 20 minutes on my old Intel machine finish in 6-7 minutes.

The trade-off is heat management - it gets warm during video exports but never uncomfortably hot. Just don't put it on a blanket while rendering.

Battery life lives up to the hype for once. I regularly get 12-14 hours of actual work (not Apple's fantasy video playback test). MacBook Air anxiety is finally dead.

The Sky Blue color looks more like silver with commitment issues, but it's subtle and professional. The aluminum build quality is excellent - this thing will last years.

The M4 chip is fast. Not "up to X times faster" marketing bullshit - genuinely fast. I've been running Geekbench tests and it consistently hits 3,720 single-core, which means apps launch instantly and everything feels responsive.

Real Performance Testing

I've thrown some heavy workloads at this thing. Final Cut Pro exports that took forever on my old Intel machine now finish in reasonable time. Photoshop with 50+ layer files doesn't choke the system. Docker containers spin up quickly. The GPU handles casual gaming surprisingly well - Resident Evil 4 runs at 50-60 FPS on medium settings, which is impressive for integrated graphics.

The 10-core CPU (4 performance + 6 efficiency) works as advertised. Background tasks get handled by the efficiency cores while the performance cores stay available for whatever you're actively doing.

Gaming Reality Check

Don't buy this for gaming, but it can play games. The 8-core or 10-core GPU (depending on config) with hardware ray tracing handles most titles at medium settings. Just don't expect RTX 4090 performance - this is still a thin laptop prioritizing battery life over frame rates.

The Multi-Monitor Thing Actually Works

This surprised me - you can actually drive two 6K displays plus the internal screen. Previous MacBook Airs were limited to one external display, so this is a real upgrade for people with serious desk setups. The two Thunderbolt 4 ports handle power, data, and video without issues.

The thermal management is solid. No throttling during extended workloads, and the aluminum body does a good job dissipating heat passively. It gets warm but never uncomfortably hot.

Cost Reality Check

$999 gets you 16GB RAM and 256GB storage. 256GB fills up fast with Docker images - factor in $200 for the 512GB upgrade because Apple. Can't upgrade RAM later - choose wisely or buy a new laptop in 2 years when 16GB feels limiting.

Storage upgrade costs are pure Apple tax. 512GB upgrade costs $200, 1TB costs $400. External SSD storage works fine for media files, but internal storage matters for performance.