We had a chance to play around with the new M4 MacBook Air and find out the answer to the real question — how blue is the sky blue? Aside from the new color, the MacBook Air now also has a 12MP Center Stage webcam. But the best news is that both versions of the laptop cost $100 less than before — the 13-inch MacBook Air now starts at $999 and the 15-inch version starts at $1,199. Is a spec bump and lower price enough of a reason to upgrade?
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TechTranscript
00:00Apple's got a new MacBook Air that offers you more for less, and new Mac Studios that
00:05offer you more for, well, more.
00:09They're as expensive as you might expect.
00:11The MacBook Air is Apple's bread and butter laptop for everyday users.
00:15It's pretty much been our perennial top recommendation for most people since the M1 generation made
00:20the switch to Apple Silicon back in 2020.
00:23Now, the new model for 2025 looks pretty much exactly like the past two generations, but
00:28it's got a cool new color.
00:30That color is sky blue.
00:32While Apple continues to be afraid of using big, bold, and saturated colors in devices
00:36other than its adorable iMac, I'll concede that sky blue looks pretty nice on the MacBook
00:41Air.
00:42But if not for this color, you'd have a tough time telling it apart from last year's M3
00:47and even the previous M2 MacBook Air.
00:49All the other changes are on the inside.
00:52What's also new for the MacBook Air is that it's getting the M4 chip, starting out with
00:56a 10-core CPU and 8-core GPU.
00:59Also, the Air can be used with two external monitors and still keep its lid open for a
01:03triple monitor setup.
01:05And the final upgrade is it's getting a 12-megapixel center stage webcam.
01:09It's the same one that's on the M4 generation MacBook Pros.
01:12But the update you may care most about is that it's actually cheaper than last year's
01:16M3 model.
01:17The 13-inch M4 MacBook Air starts at $999, and the larger 15-inch starts at $1199.
01:23That's a $100 price cut for both.
01:25Look, I'll be blunt.
01:26I was fully prepared for this MacBook Air to be a big snoozer of an update.
01:30And in some ways, it kind of still is.
01:32I mean, being able to keep your laptop lid open while using two external monitors is
01:37nice, but it's more fixing mistakes of the prior gen models than it's delighting us
01:41with groundbreaking new features.
01:44But when you offer new improvements and lower the price, that's a huge surprise, especially
01:49from Apple.
01:50Now, let's not forget that Apple raised the base memory of MacBook Airs from 8 gigabytes
01:54to 16 gigabytes just last October.
01:56So now, its entry-level Air has 16 gigs of RAM and starts at $999.
02:00It's not massive, but still pretty good.
02:04Now, Apple also has two other new computers for us, and they start well, well, well above
02:10$999.
02:11There are two new Mac Studios, the M4 Max and the higher-end M3 Ultra.
02:15Yes, the M3 Ultra, the one with the lower number, is the flagship model that costs the
02:20higher number.
02:22As if Mac names weren't annoyingly complex enough.
02:25Think of the M4 Max Mac Studio as the M4 Max MacBook Pro from last year, but in a desktop
02:31form factor with more ports.
02:33It starts at $1999 with 36 gigabytes of unified memory.
02:37That's 4 gigabytes more than the previous model and 512 gigabytes of storage.
02:42And four of its six USB-C ports are Thunderbolt 5, which is new for the studio.
02:47But the top-end Mac Studio is now one that uses an entirely new chip, the M3 Ultra.
02:52Apple is billing this as its most powerful silicon yet.
02:55This M3 Ultra Mac Studio has over 800 gigabytes per second memory bandwidth, and it can be
03:00outfitted with up to a 32-core CPU, of which 24 are performance cores, and 80, 80 GPU cores,
03:09twice as many as the M4 Max.
03:11You can even spec it with up to 16 terabytes of storage and 512 gigabytes of unified memory.
03:18That's over half a terabyte of friggin RAM.
03:23Of course, those top-tier configurations are going to cost a small fortune.
03:26Insert vast sum about right here.
03:29And the M3 Ultra Mac Studio is really only for the most hardcore pros doing things like
03:343D design and development work.
03:36They're not really meant for mere mortals.
03:38And it's priced accordingly, as the M3 Ultra Mac Studio will start at $39.99 with a 28-core
03:44CPU, 60-core GPU, 96 gigabytes of memory, and a lowly 1 terabyte of storage.
03:50The M4 Max M3 Ultra naming scheme may be really confusing, but it's clear that Apple is
03:55continuing to aim ultra-high in its performance when it comes to its big-time Macs.
04:00But it's simultaneously a pleasant surprise that there's something nice and somewhat
04:04affordable for us plebs with the M4 MacBook Air.
04:07I didn't think the M4 Air would be a monumental improvement or some kind of big shake-up.
04:11I wasn't expecting that much.
04:13But some nice little spec bumps for a cheaper price?
04:17Not bad.
04:18Thanks for watching.
04:19We'll be reviewing both the MacBook Air and the Mac Studio really soon.
04:21Let us know, though, in the meantime, what would you do with half a terabyte of RAM?
04:25Open a million Chrome tabs?
04:26A billion tabs?
04:27I don't know.
04:28What's eating your RAM?