As expected, Apple has officially refreshed its MacBook Air lineup with its M4 chip, the same silicon we’ve already seen in products like the MacBook Pro, the iMac, and the Mac mini. And in most ways, it’s a straightforward update, with no major changes to the laptop’s physical design, screen specs, keyboard, or ports.
The most important update is the price. The 13-inch M4 MacBook Air will start at $999, a $100 price cut compared to the M3 Air and the same price that Apple set for the M2 Air last year when the M3 models came out. The 15-inch model will also get a $100 cut, from $1,299 to $1,199. These baseline configurations still come with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, plus the 8-core version of the M4’s GPU.
The M2 version will continue to be sold as a budget model in some countries, but the US isn’t one of them. Apple will also continue to sell a cheaper version of the M1 MacBook Air through Walmart, which it has been doing since March 2024.
There are two other updates of note: the first is the 12 megapixel Center Stage camera, similar to the one introduced in the iMac and MacBook Pro last year. Like the other Center Stage cameras, it will digitally shift around to follow people as they move, and also supports some background removal and replacement effects that older webcams don’t.
