MacBook Air M4 Early 2025: Reviewed

Apple's annual tradition of refreshing the MacBook Air continues into 2025 with the new MacBook Air 15, a sleek and portable powerhouse designed for everyday tasks. Despite the minimal upgrades to its internal components, this laptop remains a favorite among professionals seeking efficiency and style.

While gaming isn’t its forte, the MacBook Air excels at handling typical office tasks with ease. Its impressive battery life and stunning display make it an ideal companion for both work and leisure. The 15.3-inch Retina display delivers vibrant colors and sharp visuals, making it perfect for binge-watching your favorite shows or editing photos on the go.

Purchasing Guide

The MacBook Air (M4, Early 2025) starts at $999 for the 13-inch model and $1,199 for the 15-inch variant. Configurations can be customized up to $2,399 for a fully loaded 15-inch model with 32GB RAM and a 2TB SSD.

MacBook Air (M4, 2025) – Photos

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Design

Weighing in at just 3.3 pounds, the MacBook Air is one of the lightest 15-inch laptops available. Its unibody aluminum chassis is less than half an inch thick, contributing to its portability and sleek appearance. Unlike the MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air hides its speakers in the hinge, directing sound toward the display. While this design choice might seem unconventional, Apple has managed to optimize sound quality effectively.

The fanless design contributes to the laptop's minimalist aesthetic, eliminating the need for ventilation grills. On the bottom, only four rubber feet are visible, protecting the aluminum surface from scratches. The keyboard retains the familiar feel of previous models, offering deep key travel despite the slim profile. The Touch ID sensor is conveniently placed in the top right corner, providing quick and secure access.

The touchpad is spacious and responsive, with excellent palm rejection ensuring precise cursor control during extended typing sessions. However, the port selection is limited, featuring two USB-C ports and a headphone jack on the left side and just a headphone jack on the right. Apple’s decision to omit additional ports like an SD card reader or extra USB-C port is likely due to design constraints, but it remains a notable drawback compared to competitors.

Display

The MacBook Air's 15.3-inch Retina display supports 1880p resolution and covers 99% of the DCI-P3 color gamut and 100% of sRGB, delivering rich, accurate colors. It achieves a peak brightness of 426 nits, slightly below the advertised 500 nits but still sufficient for most environments. While not as advanced as OLED displays, the panel provides excellent performance for general use cases, including streaming high-definition content.

Performance

Despite its modest hardware, the MacBook Air handles multitasking with ease. Equipped with 32GB of RAM, it smoothly juggles numerous applications, including heavy browser usage and background media streaming. Even during demanding photo editing tasks, the laptop maintains responsiveness, although it occasionally stutters when applying complex filters in software like Lightroom. For non-gaming users, the MacBook Air proves to be a reliable productivity tool.

Battery

Apple boasts an impressive battery life of up to 18 hours for video streaming and 15 hours for web browsing. During testing, the MacBook Air exceeded expectations, lasting 19 hours and 15 minutes on local video playback. Although streaming demands slightly more power, the laptop easily sustains long work sessions without frequent charging. Its lightweight design and compact charger make it an excellent choice for frequent travelers.