Release date, specifications and more

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Now that Apple’s updated MacBook Pro 16 and MacBook Pro 14 with the M4 chipsets have been launched alongside a refreshed Mac Mini and iMac, the MacBook Air is ready for a chipset update.

The MacBook Air M3 was launched in March this year, so a renewal is probably not imminent. But we’ve already heard rumors about the next MacBook Air line and will only hear more as we get closer to the expected launch date.

Here’s everything we know about the rumored Apple MacBook Air M4, from the expected release date to the expected specs and more.

MacBook Air M4: release date

BloombergMark Gurman of Mark Gurman is known for staying on top of Apple rumors across the tech spectrum, and the MacBook Air is no different. In a September newsletter, Gurman quotes sources close to Apple who have determined that the MacBook Air M4 launch date will be in the first quarter of 2025.

Apple could launch the MacBook Air earlier in the first quarter, but Apple has historically tended to stick to the March to April timeframes for the MacBook Air. Of course, the launch of the 2022 M2 MacBook Air took place in late July, along with the latest MacBook Pro 13, so this is far from a hard and fast rule.

However, Gurman’s report is also consistent with sources for MacRumors which showed that panel shipments for the MacBook Air would go to Apple’s factories in October 2024.

We can safely expect the M4 Airs to launch no later than March 2025.

MacBook Air M4: specifications

Apple hasn’t completely excluded the MacBook Air from the company’s late October announcement week, as the base specs of the MacBook Air M2 and M3 now start with 16GB of memory. All this without changing the base price. So we can expect the M4 MacBook Airs to follow the same pattern, with 16GB taking over the base RAM configuration.

Based on the launch of the MacBook Air M3, the M4 MacBook Airs will likely feature the base M4 chipset, up to 24GB of memory, up to 2TB of SSD storage, and a 13 or 15-inch Liquid Retina display.

MacBook Air M4: performance and battery life

The MacBook Air M4 will feature the same M4 base chipset that we saw in the MacBook Pro 14 (M4, 2024) and iPad Pro (M4, 2024). The base M4 silicon houses a 10-core CPU, an integrated 10-core GPU, and a Neural Engine capable of 38 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) of AI performance.

We tested the MacBook Pro 14 M4 with 16GB of RAM, which yielded a Geekbench 6.3 multicore average of 15,114. That result is almost 50% higher than the average for premium laptops (10,492). It’s also noticeably faster than the Asus Zenbook S 14 with Intel’s Core Ultra 200V “Lunar Lake” (11,157) and the Dell XPS 13 (9345) with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite XIE-80-100 chipset (14,635).

Of course, the MacBook Air is a fanless laptop design, meaning it’s more susceptible to thermal throttling than the MacBook Pro. So we expect a small performance drop on both the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air M4 laptops compared to the MacBook Pro 14 M4.

Our MacBook Pro 14 M4 lasted 18 hours and 32 minutes on the computer Laptop Mag battery test, which is nothing to sneeze about. The MacBook Air typically lasts a few hours less on our battery test because Apple’s 13- and 15-inch Air chassis contain smaller batteries than their MacBook Pro counterparts. The MacBook Air 13 M3 lasted 15:13, while the MacBook Air 15 M3 lasted 15:03. Comparatively, the MacBook Pro 14 M3 lasted 17:16. So we’d expect something closer to 16 hours on the MacBook Airs.

MacBook Air M4: Outlook

Traditionally, Apple announces new hardware as soon as the pre-order period begins, meaning there’s usually about a week between announcement and launch. So we have until at least January before we’re likely to hear anything official about the M4 MacBook Airs.

This means there’s plenty of time for more rumors, perhaps hinting at the expected price tag. Now that Apple has expanded the base configuration of the MacBook Air to the 16GB RAM model, the price of the M4 Airs could increase. Or they can stay at the same starting price as previous years. After all, Apple did not increase the price of the basic MacBook Air M2 and M3 models when the change was announced.

So if you want to stay up to date with everything Apple has to offer, bookmark this page and check back often for the latest leaks and rumors about the MacBook Air M4.

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