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Apple MacBook Neo review: the best budget laptop you can buy

4:00 pm | March 10, 2026

Author: admin | Category: Computers Computing Gadgets Laptops Macbooks | Tags: USB | Comments: Off

Apple MacBook Neo two-minute review

The MacBook Neo is one of the most interesting releases from Apple in a long time, and it comes at an important moment. Thanks to a global memory shortage, a tariffs-loving president in the White House, and other global conditions, consumer electronics are becoming ever more expensive, just as the cost of living has also risen, which means consumers have less money to spend on things like a new laptop.

Apple is generally regarded as a company that sells high-end and expensive devices, which isn’t entirely fair, as I think the Mac mini (M4) is one of the best-value products in the computing space. The MacBook Neo is interesting, as Apple is entering the budget and midrange laptop market for the first time. This is a market that's dominated by cheap Chromebooks and affordable Windows 11 laptops, and while Apple is joining the fray with the MacBook Neo, it’s doing so on its own terms.

That means, as the company is keen to emphasise, that while the MacBook Neo is a more affordable MacBook, it is in no way a cheap, pared-back or limited MacBook.

MacBook Neo laptop on a desk with plant in background — (Image credit: Future)

You’re still getting a solid and great-looking laptop made out of aluminum (and now in four new colors, harking back to the more fun days when Apple launched brightly-colored Macs), and a bright and vibrant screen with a retina resolution of 2408 x 1506, which is higher (and therefore sharper and more detailed) than the 1080p screens laptops at this price usually sport.

Audio from the built-in speakers is also excellent, the 1080p webcam means video calls look great, and perhaps best of all, the MacBook Neo runs the full version of macOS, and you can run pretty much any Mac app on it.

While its 8GB of unified memory means you won't see the best performance when running multiple apps at once, overall I had no issues at all running various apps for day-to-day tasks, making it ideal for students in particular.

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Best of all is the price: $599 / £599 / AU$899. You’re going to be hard-pushed to find a Windows laptop or Chromebook around this price that can match the build quality and performance of the MacBook Neo; and if you're a student, you can get a further discount that brings it down to just $499 / £499 / AU$749. At that price, it really is a no-brainer.

Of course, there are compromises. As well as the limited amount of memory, the MacBook Neo doesn’t come with a backlight behind the keyboard, so finding the right keys in darker environments can be an issue, and the two USB-C ports use older and slower USB 3 and USB 2 tech.

Despite those compromises, Apple has made easily the best budget laptop you can buy in 2026. While it’s not the cheapest laptop out there, it’s well worth paying a little extra to get such a slick and accomplished laptop at this price. Windows 11 laptop and Chromebook makers have been put on notice, and they’ll need to up their games to match, let alone surpass, the MacBook Neo.

Apple MacBook Neo: Price & release date

Starts at $599 / £599 / AU$899
Went on sale March 11

The biggest selling point of the MacBook Neo is its price, with Apple seemingly pulling out all the stops to keep the price as low as possible.

With a starting price of just $599 / £599 / AU$899 (and a further $100 / £100 / AU$150 discount for education users), this is one of the cheapest Macs Apple has ever made. Sure, the Mac mini (M4) is more powerful, and launched at the same price, but it doesn’t come with a screen, mouse or keyboard, so for sheer out-of-the-box value for money, the MacBook Neo now reigns supreme.

For that starting price you get a 13-inch Liquid Retina display, 8GB of unified memory and a 256GB SSD. The Neo is powered by the Apple A18 Pro chip, with a 6-core CPU and 5-core GPU. The A18 Pro debuted in 2024 in the iPhone 16 Pro, and the fact that the MacBook Neo is powered by an older mobile chip, rather than one of the M-series chips usually found in Macs, is one of the ways Apple has kept the overall price of the MacBook Neo down.

Customization options for the hardware are pretty limited as well, with just the option to double the storage to 512GB for an extra $100 / £100 / AU$200. Considering the current price of storage, this isn’t an obscene amount to pay for an extra 256GB of the stuff — and by going for the larger storage option you also get a Touch ID button on the keyboard that allows you to log in to macOS, pay for things via Apple Pay and more using your fingerprint. This is not an option with the base model of the MacBook Neo.

The $599 / £599 / AU$899 starting price firmly pits the MacBook Neo against the best budget laptops, such as the HP Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch and Acer Aspire Go 15 — the first time in a long, long, time that I can say that about a MacBook, and Apple’s build and design quality easily surpasses almost every budget laptop or Chromebook at this price point.

The arrival of the MacBook Neo also means the MacBook Air is no longer the cheapest MacBook model, which makes the new, more expensive, price of the just-announced MacBook Air (M5), which now starts at $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,799, a slightly less bitter pill to swallow. Slightly.

While I love the fact that you can now get a MacBook for $599 / £599 / AU$899, the value proposition of the Neo lives or dies on how many compromises Apple has had to make to keep the price low.

One last thing to note here is that in the UK and EU, the MacBook Neo does not come with a charger, just a USB-C cable, as is the case with the M5 MacBook Pro from last year and the Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra. It’s likely we’ll see an increasing number of laptops in the UK and EU not ship with chargers in a bid to reduce e-waste — if you don't already have a USB-C charger you’ll need to buy one.

Price: 5/5

Apple MacBook Neo: Specs

	MacBook Neo base configuration	MacBook Neo top configuration
Price:	$599 / £599 / AU$899	$699 / £699 / AU$1,099
CPU:	Apple A18 Pro (6-core)	Apple A18 Pro (6-core)
Graphics:	5-core GPU	5-core GPU
Display	13-inch Liquid Retina Display, 2408 x 1506, 500 nits brightness, 1 billion colors	13-inch Liquid Retina Display, 2408 x 1506, 500 nits brightness, 1 billion colors
RAM:	8GB	8GB
Storage:	256GB	512GB
Keyboard:	Magic Keyboard	Magic Keyboard with Touch ID
Ports:	USB 3 (USB-C) port, USB 2 (USB-C) port, 3.5mm audio jack	USB 3 (USB-C) port, USB 2 (USB-C) port, 3.5mm audio jack
Wireless:	Wi-Fi 6E / Bluetooth 6	Wi-Fi 6E / Bluetooth 6
Weight:	2.7lbs (1.23kg)	2.7lbs (1.23kg)
Dimensions:	0.50 x 11.71 x 8.12 inches (1.27 x 29.75 x 20.64cm)	0.50 x 11.71 x 8.12 inches (1.27 x 29.75 x 20.64cm)

Apple MacBook Neo: Design

Available in four colors
No backlit keyboard
USB 2 and USB 3 ports

Apple has done an excellent job of ensuring that, despite its lower price, the MacBook Neo retains the look, feel and build quality that we’ve come to expect from Apple devices; and when it comes to design, the MacBook Neo blows pretty much all of the competition at this price point out of the water.

Thanks to its aluminum build the MacBook Neo feels solid, robust and impressively premium. It comes in four vibrant colors, and the review sample Apple sent me is the Citrus version, which is a nice bright-looking green. I also had the chance to check out the other colors at the launch event: Silver is the iconic Mac color, Blush is a lovely pinkish shade and Indigo is a dark blue.

As with the iMac redesign a few years ago, it’s great to see Apple return to releasing fun and colorful Macs, and while the MacBook Neo variants look bright, there’s a metallic sheen to them which means they don’t resemble toys.

The aluminum chassis means the MacBook Neo isn’t quite as light as you might imagine. At 2.7 pounds (1.23kg) it weighs the same as the MacBook Air, and while that’s certainly not a hefty laptop (hence the ‘Air’ moniker), students and kids lugging the MacBook Neo around might notice the weight. It’s also thicker than the MacBook Air.

The MacBook Neo’s Magic Keyboard is slightly colored to match the hue of the laptop, which, as Apple says, creates “a cohesive design aesthetic and [makes] MacBook Neo the most colorful MacBook yet.”

Speaking of the keyboard, it’s here where one of the big differences between the two models of the MacBook Neo can be found. If you go for the more expensive model with 512GB storage you also get a Touch ID button for signing into macOS using your fingerprint. It’s a shame that this is limited to the pricier model, as I find Touch ID to be really convenient — you can also use it to approve installations, insert passwords and make payments — and there are plenty of budget laptops out there that support biometric security.

The base model instead comes with a ‘lock’ button that you can press and hold to lock the MacBook Neo, which is far less useful.

While the keyboard of the MacBook Neo feels as comfortable to use and responsive as the Magic Keyboards on more expensive Macs, it does lack a very important feature: backlighting.

On other MacBooks, the keyboard backlights illuminate the letter or icon of each key, making them easy to see in low-light conditions. Without backlighting, typing can be more difficult if you’re not in a suitably lit environment, even if, like me, you’re a proficient typer who doesn’t usually need to look at the keyboard.

It’s arguably the biggest sacrifice Apple has made in order to keep the MacBook Neo’s price as low as possible, and while it's not a deal breaker, it’s definitely worth noting, and in dark and poorly lit classrooms and lecture halls the lack of backlighting could become an issue.

Along the left-hand side of the MacBook Neo are two USB-C ports, which are also used to charge the laptop (there’s no fancy magnetic MagSafe 3 port here). While the two USB-C ports are indistinguishable from each other, or from the USB-C ports found on other MacBooks, it’s important to note that both use different, and older, tech.

The USB port nearest the back of the MacBook Neo uses USB 3, which maxes out at 10Gb/s. For comparison, the new MacBook Air M5 comes with Thunderbolt 4 ports, which can handle up to 40Gb/s, and the most recent MacBook Pros with M5 Pro and M5 Max up that tech to Thunderbolt 5, which can handle 120GB/s.

So, while the USB 3 port on the MacBook Neo can handle modern peripherals (such as mice and keyboards), moving large files to and from an external hard drive will be noticeably slower than on many other modern laptops. You can at least plug in a USB-C monitor and use it as a second screen, with support for 4K and 60fps.

The second USB-C port uses the even older USB 2 interface, which limits speeds to just 60MB/s, which is far slower, and only really appropriate for wired keyboards and mice.

This is another big indicator of the MacBook Neo’s (relatively) low price, and while I can understand that Apple needed to make some sacrifices, it could have handled this a bit more elegantly. For a start, having two seemingly identical ports that use very different technology could cause confusion — you might wonder why your USB memory stick is suddenly very slow, or why a peripheral isn’t working correctly if you connect them via the wrong port.

Also, while using USB 3 technology is an understandable cost-cutting measure (Apple is likely banking on most people not noticing the low speeds compared to more modern USB technology), including USB 2 in a laptop in 2026 feels close to insulting, no matter how cheap the device is.

To be fair to Apple, the rest of the design of the MacBook Neo is free from those kind of compromises. As I’ve mentioned, the aluminum body makes it look and feel far more premium than pretty much any other laptop at this price point, and the screen is another highlight. At 13 inches, and with a resolution of 2408 x 1506, the display might not be the biggest or sharpest screen in Apple’s lineup, but on a laptop in this price range it’s a fantastic addition, considering that most Windows 11 and Chromebook rivals at this price will be limited to 1080p or even lower. The 13-inch screen also helps to make the MacBook Neo nicely portable, especially for kids and students. Perhaps the best thing about the Neo’s display is its brightness — it's able to hit the same 500 nits of peak brightness as the screen on the MacBook Air.

For anyone who's used a budget laptop and been disappointed by the dim or washed-out image quality, the MacBook Neo’s screen is impressively bright and vivid, and with support for one billion colors (and that higher-than-usual resolution), the MacBook Neo easily has one of the best, if not the best, displays on an affordable laptop — though, Apple being Apple, it’s not a touchscreen.

Design: 4/5

Apple MacBook Neo: Performance

Uses the same A18 Pro chip that powered the iPhone 16 Pro
Can run macOS apps
8GB of memory is a concern

The MacBook Neo is one of Apple’s most interesting releases in years, and while it uses a chip built by Apple, unlike the other modern MacBooks it’s not an M-class chip; instead it's the A18 Pro, which originally appeared in the iPhone 16 Pro.

Putting a smartphone chip into a laptop might seem odd, but the logic is sound. For a start, Apple has been making mobile chips for a lot longer than it’s been making computing chips (by around 10 years), and the mobile chips it makes these days, especially for its high-end Pro iPhones, are impressively powerful — and you could argue that a powerful mobile chip like the A18 Pro is more capable than a weak laptop chip like those found in many budget devices.

By going with an older iPhone chip, Apple is able to keep the price of the MacBook Neo lower without impacting the performance too much.

Apple MacBook Neo: Benchmarks

Here's how the Apple MacBook Neo performed in our suite of industry-standard benchmarks and game tests.
Geekbench 6.6:
Single - 3,535
Multi - 8,920
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test:
Read: 1,585 MB/s
Write: 1,440 MB/s

So why not use an older computer chip like the M1? As Apple explained to me, the A18 Pro features a 16-core Neural Engine that can handle on-device AI features, including Apple’s much-hyped Apple Intelligence, which is baked into macOS. The M1 chip, which debuted with the MacBook Air in 2020, isn’t able to handle those tasks as well – and the A18 also uses faster memory. So, despite my initial reservations about Apple using a mobile chip for the MacBook Neo, it’s actually quite a shrewd move.

As the A18 Pro is also a 64-bit Arm-based chip, you don’t have to worry about only being able to run iPhone apps on the MacBook Neo. Instead, you can run any Mac app that can run on modern MacBooks.

macOS itself runs well on the Neo, and while it doesn’t feel quite as snappy as when I’m using my MacBook Pro, considering the price difference I was impressed. Because of the less powerful hardware in the MacBook Neo, for the best results it’s worth sticking to the default apps as much as possible. So, rather than loading up Ableton Live 12 and launching a project full of various sounds and instruments, I stuck to the pre-installed Garage Band instead; while it’s a more basic music-making application, it’s still got plenty of great features, and it ran without an issue on the MacBook Neo. Other default apps, such as Keynote, used for presentations, also ran well.

If you want to try more intensive apps you certainly can. As I mentioned earlier, despite running on an iPhone chip, the MacBook Neo can run any Mac app — I even installed Steam, which requires Rosetta to run on non-Intel hardware. You get the same macOS experience as you’d get on the similarly priced Mac mini, as well as on ultra-expensive MacBook Pros or the Mac Studio.

So, there are no limits as there are with ChromeOS on Chromebooks, where you can only run limited Android apps, or a relatively small selection of Chrome apps. Some budget laptops also come with ‘Windows 11 in S mode’ – a typically terrible Microsoft name, and which is essentially a locked-down version of Windows 11 that can only run apps bought or downloaded through the Microsoft Store, and on which you’re stuck with using Edge as the default browser.

The MacBook Neo suffers from none of these limitations, so in theory you’ll be able to run any app that you could run on a more expensive Mac. This makes the Neo a far more versatile device than a Chromebook or Windows 11 S laptop, and I’d also argue that it’s more useful than the iPad Pro, which despite being far more powerful (and which uses the latest Apple M5 chip), can only run iPadOS apps, rather than full Mac applications.

You can also use your iPhone or iPad with the MacBook Neo, in the same way you can with more expensive MacBooks. So, you can mirror the screen of your iPhone, drag and drop files, make calls and messages, share the clipboard, and use an iPad as a second screen. I paired the MacBook Neo up with the latest M5-powered iPad Pro (an unlikely pairing, I’ll admit, given the price difference between them), and used the iPad Pro as a second monitor, and it worked brilliantly.

So I have to give Apple major props when it comes to ensuring that users of the MacBook Neo do not get a compromised or limited macOS experience — you enjoy the same experience that other Mac owners do, and that’s great to see on a more affordable device.

The only limits, then, are those of the MacBook Neo’s hardware itself, so while you could fire up Blender and work on complex 3D scenes, the Neo is going to struggle, so you'll need to keep your expectations in check.

While I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of the A18 Pro chip, I do worry about the 8GB of unified memory, which could limit how future-proof the MacBook Neo will be.

Due to the global memory shortage, which is raising the price of memory, it was an inevitability that the Neo would come with a limited amount in order to help keep the overall price down — and I was actually relieved that we got 8GB rather than 4GB, which some Chromebooks and even some budget Windows 11 laptops still come with.

However, 8GB of system memory doesn’t go very far these days, and there’s no option to upgrade to a MacBook Neo model with more — and you certainly can’t easily open up the laptop and install more memory yourself.

With my MacBook Neo running Safari, Keynote, Garage Band and downloading a game through Steam, around 6.48–7GB of memory was being used at once — that's pretty darn close to the 8GB limit. Once you max out the MacBook Neo’s memory, as with any laptop, things start slowing down considerably.

The MacBook Neo, like other modern Macs, uses unified memory, which means that 8GB of memory is shared between the system and graphics, so loading up more graphically-intensive tasks puts even more pressure on the memory.

If you’re going to be using a laptop for graphically intensive workloads, or you like to multitask and switch between numerous apps, you’d be much better off investing in the MacBook Air (M5) instead, the base configuration of which comes with 16GB of unified memory.

Again, the memory limits of the MacBook Neo can be avoided by keeping in mind what the MacBook Neo has been designed for, and what it hasn’t. Sticking to more basic apps, and only having a few of them open at once, will ensure you have a smooth and enjoyable experience.

If you’re not prepared to do that, then the MacBook Neo simply isn’t for you — but good luck finding at laptop at this price that will be able to keep up with your ambitions.

The MacBook Neo can also play games, though again you’ll need to keep your expectations in check. However, I got it to run Cyberpunk 2077 at a perfectly playable 30fps (frames per second) using the ‘For this Mac’ preset. Usually a stunning-looking game, on the MacBook Neo it wasn’t quite as impressive due to most graphical presets being set to ‘low’, or turned off entirely (such as advanced ray tracing lighting effects); but the fact that it was playable at all on a 13-inch laptop costing $599 was very impressive. You can also play iPhone and iPad games, and those are much better suited to the MacBook Neo’s hardware.

Overall, the performance of the MacBook Neo is very impressive for the price It excels at day-to-day tasks, and is flexible enough for you to run most Mac apps without an issue — but if you want a productivity powerhouse, look elsewhere.

One last thing to note here is that, like the MacBook Air, the MacBook Neo has a fanless design, which means it’s practically silent when in use — another big difference from budget Windows 11 laptops, which often get noisy when the fans whirr into life.

Performance: 4/5

Apple MacBook Neo: Battery life

Apple claims up to 16 hours of video streaming
11 hours of wireless web browsing
Hit 13 and a half hours in our tests

The MacBook Neo’s A18 Pro chip is an efficient bit of silicon, which isn’t surprising as it was designed to power a smartphone, and Apple promises up to 16 hours of video streaming on a single charge — that's two hours less than what it promises for the MacBook Air, but still an ambitious target.

In Future's battery life tests it managed to last 13 and a half hours before shutting down, which is more than enough for an entire work or school day, though there are Chromebooks out there that can go for a lot longer.

This makes it a great laptop for students who don’t want to have to hunt for a power socket between lessons, and charging the MacBook Neo is fast using the 20W power adapter that’s included in the box (unless you’re in the UK or EU, in which case you don’t get an adapter).

Battery: 4/5

Should I buy the Apple MacBook Neo?

Apple MacBook Neo scorecard
Attribute	Notes	Score
Price	The MacBook Neo offers exceptional value for money, especially if you're able to take advantage of the $100 / £100 student discount.	5/5
Design	It looks and feels a lot more premium than most laptops at this price, and its display is similarly impressive. The lack of a keyboard backlight and slow USB ports are a shame, however.	4/5
Performance	You get the full-fat macOS experience here, and day-to-day tasks pose no trouble at all — but the 8GB of memory means multitasking is less smooth.	4/5
Battery life	16 hours promised, and 13 and a half in our tests is more than enough for going a whole work or school day without needing a charge.	4/5

Buy it if…

You want an affordable laptop
These days, finding a laptop under $600 that’s worth buying is extremely difficult, but the MacBook Neo makes it easy — this is a brilliant laptop for the price.View Deal

You want to get into the Mac ecosystem
Many people with iPhones or iPads don’t have a MacBook, and the Neo’s low price means this is a brilliant choice for your first Mac.View Deal

You're a student
I really don’t think I can recommend any laptop over the MacBook Neo for students. It’s solidly built, has a long battery life, and performs well, and with the student discount offered by Apple it’s even better value for money.View Deal

Don’t buy it if…

You’re a creative professional
The MacBook Neo is aimed squarely at students, small-business owners, and regular folk. If you need a laptop for some heavy-duty creative work, get a MacBook Pro instead.View Deal

You want to stick with Windows 11
If you really don’t want to use macOS, then there are some very good Windows 11 alternatives, but none at this price feel quite as good as the MacBook Neo.View Deal

How I tested the MacBook Neo

I used it for almost a week
I ran various apps
I used it alongside an iPad Pro and other Macs

After seeing the MacBook Neo at Apple’s launch event I was given a unit to thoroughly test. I’ve been using the laptop every day during my review period, using it for a variety of day-to-day tasks such as document creation and browsing the internet.

I also used various apps, including Garage Band, to push the MacBook Neo, and played a bit of Cyberpunk 2077. I also linked the MacBook Neo up to an iPad Pro and my Mac Studio to test out how the MacBook integrates with other Apple products.

I’ve reviewed almost every modern MacBook during my time at TechRadar, as well as other Macs and iPads, plus plenty of Chromebooks and Windows 11 laptops as well, and I've used this experience to help me judge whether or not the MacBook Neo is worth buying for different kinds of user depending on their requirements.

Read TechRadar’s reviews guarantee
First reviewed: March 2026

The Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) is still the best ultraportable I’ve ever used — and I wrote this review on it

5:00 pm | March 9, 2026

Author: admin | Category: Computers Computing Gadgets Laptops Macbooks | Tags: AI | Comments: Off

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5): Two-minute review

It's safe to say the MacBook Air 13-inch M5 is every bit as good as its M4 predecessor, but a little faster. The differences are so few, in fact, that I could simply direct you to my now year-old MacBook Air M4 review, and just note here that the M5 chip makes Apple's latest, and sure to be quite popular, ultraportable both faster and more efficient.However, I'm not that lazy. I've spent considerable time with this attractive, well-built, ready-for-almost-anything (and a solid day of it) ultraportable laptop, and I have some thoughts.The MacBook Air is one of the most popular laptops out there for a reason. Apple has found a winning aluminum slab design that mixes a lightweight (2.7lbs) chassis with a stunning 13.6-inch Liquid Retina Display, and 18 hours of battery life (promised for streaming video only). While Apple didn't touch the design, or any external materials and components, it was inevitable that its fastest class of Apple silicon would find its way into the new Air, along with the new N1 chip, which readies the MacBook Air for the growing proliferation of WiFi 7 hubs and brings it up to speed with the latest Bluetooth 6 capabilities.If there is a downside to this update, it's the new starting price. Over the years, the MacBook Air has bounced around the $1,000 mark, dropping just below and then rising up a hundred dollars or so. Now it's back to $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,799, but I'm actually okay with this change, because the Air finally starts with a half terabyte of storage (for the record, my test system arrived with 1TB 👀); that's double the 256GB we've been getting, without a huge leap in price. And, as a bonus, the storage speed is faster than on the M4 MacBook Air.So, while having to pay a little more for the best ultraportable you can buy is not good news, the upsides far outweigh the hit to your bank balance.The MacBook Air 13-inch M5 does have several other notable, though not new, features, like the 12MP Center Stage camera, a backlit keyboard that feels wonderful to use, the highly responsive ForceTouch trackpad, Thunderbolt 4 ports, and macOS 26 (a.k.a. Tahoe). I know Liquid Glass divides opinion, but I think it's elegant and I like it. Yes, there's also Apple Intelligence, but I'm still not fully sold on its utility.All in all, while I don't think you need to trade in your M4 Air for this new model, it's a worthwhile upgrade from your clamshell MacBook Air M1; and it will, like its predecessor sit atop our best ultraportables list.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) review: Price and availability

Starts at $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,799
Costs more than the M4, but there's hidden value

Apple MacBook Air M5 review — (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

Apple unveiled the MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) on March 3, 2025, and the laptop starts shipping on March 11.Those shopping for the latest MacBook Air will likely notice the price hike on this 13-inch model and wonder what gives. Yes, it has an incrementally faster piece of Apple silicon (M5), but I'd attribute the $100 / £100 / AU$100 hike to the new base storage level. The 13-inch MacBook Air M5 starts with 512GB of storage, double the starting SSD of previous models. It's a non-insignificant change and, as I've written, 256GB was simply not enough in what for many users is a workhorse portable.In addition to the option of buying a larger, 15-inch MacBook Air (heavier and more expensive, but with a substantially larger screen), the 13-inch MacBook Air M5 comes in a variety of configurations, including my 10-core GPU test model, up to 32GB of memory, and up to 4TB of storage (the previous limit was 2TB).It’s available in Sky Blue, Midnight, Starlight, and Silver. Sadly, there are no new colors this year, although that may only be an issue if you let the new day-glo Citrus MacBook Neo turn your head.

Price score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) review: Specs

The Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) comes in three pre-configured options.

	MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) base configuration (reviewed):	MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) mid configuration (reviewed):	MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) top configuration:
Price:	$1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,799	$1,199 / £1,199	$1,299 / £1,299 / AU$2,399
CPU:	Apple M5 (10-core)	Apple M5 (10-core)	Apple M5 (10-core)
Graphics:	Integrated 8-core GPU	Integrated 10-core GPU	Integrated 10-core GPU
RAM:	16GB unified memory (up to 32GB)	16GB unified memory (up to 32GB)	24GB unified memory (Up to 32GB)
Screen:	13.6-inch, 2560 x 1664 Liquid Retina display (500 nits sustained brightness, wide color P3 gamut, True Tone technology)	13.6-inch, 2560 x 1664 Liquid Retina display (500 nits sustained brightness, wide color P3 gamut, True Tone technology)	13.6-inch, 2560 x 1664 Liquid Retina display (500 nits sustained brightness, wide color P3 gamut, True Tone technology)
Storage:	512GB SSD (up to 4TB)	1TB SDD (up to 4TB)	512GB SDD (Up to 4TB)
Ports:	2x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), 3.5mm headphone jack, MagSafe 3	2x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), 3.5mm headphone jack, MagSafe 3	2x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), 3.5mm headphone jack, MagSafe 3
Wireless:	Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6	Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6	Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6
Camera:	12MP Center Stage Camera 1080p HD video	12MP Center Stage Camera 1080p HD video	12MP Center Stage Camera 1080p HD video
Weight:	2.7lbs / 1.24kg	2.7lbs / 1.24kg	2.7lbs / 1.24kg
Dimensions:	11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches (304 x 215 x 11.3mm)	11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches (304 x 215 x 11.3mm)	11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches (304 x 215 x 11.3mm)

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) review: Design

No major redesign
Excellent construction, materials, keyboard, and trackpad

You could be forgiven if you had trouble telling the difference between this new 13-inch MacBook Air M5 and the M4 model. They are, for all intents and purposes, identical. Still, this is a winning design. The body is made of recycled aluminum that feels premium and smooth to the touch, but also strong enough to get dumped in your backpack or slapped onto a desktop without suffering any damage. My 1TB review unit arrived in Starlight, which is not my favorite color (I'd have chosen Sky Blue), but then the chassis hue is not the primary reason why you'd buy a MacBook Air.MacBook Airs will never be the cheapest laptop (there's now the Neo to hit that spot), but they all have the same premium design and build. The backlit keyboard is expansive, and with good, satisfying travel. I love typing on it; in fact, I'm using it right now to write this review. Included in the keyboard is the Touch ID sleep button, a useful biometric device for unlocking the laptop, signing into services and apps, and making purchases. It took me just a moment to register my index finger (though I can register more). The Force Touch trackpad offers an expansive, almost 6-inch, canvas for interaction without ever getting in the way. As a haptic device, it doesn't actually move, but it does a remarkable job of fooling you into thinking it does.The ports and speakers are also unchanged from the previous model. On the left side are a pair of Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, which are great for extending the screen to a new Studio Display or other monitor, or for high-speed data transfer (the Pro model gets you Thunderbolt 5 ports).Next to those ports is the MagSafe charger, a magnetic port that makes it almost impossible to accidentally drag the laptop off a desk by kicking the charging cable. Opposite those ports is the 3.5mm audio jack. The four-speaker system sits in the hinge, and provides loud and clear audio that supports spatial audio and Dolby Atmos. The 15-inch model ups the speaker count to six.Perhaps the best demonstration of the MacBook Air's elegance and design is how you can open it with just a fingertip. The laptop is so perfectly machined and balanced that all I have to do is place a fingertip under the lip and above the 1.5-inch-wide-carve-out in the base and lift — even without me holding it, the base stays put.

Design score: 5/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) review: Display and Center Stage

Apple MacBook Air M5 — (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

Over the years, I've gotten used to the notch at the top of the MacBook Air's lovely 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display. When using most apps, the space, which is used to house the Center Stage Camera, a light sensor, and an LED Indicator, only breaks into the menu system. Streaming content, games, and the majority of apps, are displayed in the rectangular space below it. If you really feel like you're losing a lot of space, you might consider the 15-inch MacBook Air instead.

Apple MacBook Air Review — (Image credit: Future)

Overall, though, this is an excellent LED-backlit, high-resolution (2560 x 1664) display, full of rich colors (a promised one billion, though I can't say that I counted), rich contrast, and 500 nits of brightness. I've used MacBook Air outdoors, and while it might struggle in direct sunlight, using it in shade is no problem at all.The 13.6 -inch display is ample space for one or more apps, and everything from macOS apps to movies and games, which look great on it. Images and text are crisp and clear, blacks are inky, and colors pop. I spend most of my work days looking at this screen, and I'm never disappointed.

Speaking of that notch, it does give you a decent webcam, the 12MP, 1080p Center Stage camera. It's called Center Stage because it can, if you allow, follow you around during your video conference. So if you like to stand up and walk around during your FaceTime calls, this camera is for you. The camera can also recognize gestures, and can launch reactions and emojis during the call.

Unlike many modern Windows 11 ultraportables, and also unlike some more affordable laptops, the MacBook Air screen does not support touch. If you want to use a touchscreen within Apple's ecosystem, but still plan on doing desktop-style computing, I suggest you look at an iPad Air or iPad Pro running iPadOS 26 and paired with a Magic keyboard.

Display score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) review: macOS and Apple Intelligence

macOS Tahoe is a rich, deep, and well-organized platform
A MacBook take on Liquid Glass
Apple Intelligence is of limited use

macOS Tahoe 26 is not only a rich, well-organized, and deeply thought-out operating system, it's a doorway to Apple's wide and varied ecosystem — the more Apple products you own, the more powerful it becomes. With Liquid Glass, there's a consistent look and feel across everything from the MacBook Air 13 I'm testing to the iPhone 17 Pro Max and iPad Pro. However, the glassiness feels somewhat less aggressive on the MacBook Air, likely because it still has to look like a traditional Mac desktop.

The desktop is customizable, easy to manage (stacks are incredibly useful), and I like the widgets, especially the fact that you can keep them black-and-white to reduce distractions.Still, I love how I can mirror my iPhone and get notifications from it on my MacBook Air desktop, and with Universal Control, my trackpad and keyboard easily hop from one Apple screen to another. I found that not only could I control a neighboring iPad with the mouse and keyboard on my 13-inch MacBook Air, but I could do the same with two MacBooks sitting side by side.

MacBook Air M5 — Genmojis are fun, letting you create all kinds of customized emojisFuture

Apple Intelligence does add some useful features, like Writing tools to help you sound, say, more intelligent or friendlier, including in Messages. For those who aren't as confident with their writing, this might be of some use. I can imagine other features like Live Translation might come in handy, especially if you work with global teams.Clean Up in Photos is also a valuable enhancement, especially if you need to remove distractions from photos you want to share, post on social media, or print. Apple Intelligence can't, say, add a lifelike puppy to your photos (or really anything for that matter), but it will do its best to make sure that when you remove something the revealed background still makes sense. One caveat here: this replacement only works if the object you remove isn't too big — it did a pretty good job when I removed a pie and some whipped cream from my photo of a holiday spread.I do not get what the big deal is with Genmojis — basic emojis are still good enough for me. I was similarly disenchanted with Image Playground. Despite providing Image Playground with a good headshot of me, its output does not look much like me (it put hair on my head!). Also, Apple's insistence on sticking with cartoonish content creation seems ridiculous when you consider the image-generation capabilities now found on even the best smartphones.Siri is obviously part of the system, but still lacks the long-promised AI brain transplant. You can get wider answers via the ChatGPT integration, but Siri is still not the master of all things (inside the system and relating to you) that Apple's been promising. I, like many others, await the promised Gemini integration that will likely transform Siri on this MacBook Air and all other Siri-supporting Apple devices.

Software score: 4/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) review: Performance

M5 chip brings the same levels of power showcased in the 14-inch MacBook Pro M5 released in October 2025
More and faster storage is a very welcome update
The MacBook Air M5 is truly a workhorse in ultraportable clothing

MacBook Air M5 vs MacBook Air M4 — The MacBook Air M5 on the left and the MacBook Air M4 on the right. Both are running Geekbench (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

Benchmarks

Here’s how the MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

Geekbench 6 Single-Core: 4190; multi-core: 17073
Geekbench Metal score (8-core GPU): 49557
Cinebench 2026 single-core: 729; multi-core: 2921
Cinebench 2026 GPU: 16872
Battery life (web surfing): 15.5 hours

Apple's MacBook Air line now lives between the new A18 Pro MacBook Neo and the high-performance, heavy-workload M5 Pro (or M5 Max) MacBook Pro. It's meant to be the laptop for every student and office worker who prioritizes portability and battery life over raw power.(Note: my test system shipped with the 10-core CPU and 10-core GU, so your GPU performance may vary if you have an 8-core GPU.)

MacBook Air M5 vs MacBook Air M4 with Lightroom — Running light room on the MacBook Air M5 (left) and the MacBook Air M4 (right) (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

However, even in my early performance tests, I found the new 13-inch MacBook Air M5 more than capable of some pretty heavy-duty tasks. I started by opening Lightroom and loading in some raw images. Then I launched Final Cut Pro and imported an 8K 30 fps video, and then made three copies and started editing a video in which all four videos could play at once. Next, I loaded Pixelmater Pro and edited a photo. I also installed Chrome and opened 25 tabs (tuned to TechRadar, of course). After that, I installed and started playing Lies of P. Finally, I installed Steam and downloaded Inzoi, a rich, open-world SIM that sort of overwhelmed me with its choices and scope.

The MacBook Air just kept going. At one point, I got a system message indicating that Inzoi was eating a lot of system processes and battery, and that I should consider switching to low power, but when I exited the game the battery was still near 90%. Overall, I found it difficult to stress the M5 and its 16GB of RAM.

Perhaps more exciting for your day-to-day efforts, the MacBook Air line now starts with 512GB of storage, and faster storage at that. I ran the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test on the new M5 MacBook Air and on the MacBook Air 13-inch with an M4 chip. My M5 test system has a 1TB drive, and the M4 only came with a 256GB SSD; however, I do not believe storage capacity has any bearing on these tests.

Black Magic Disk Speed Test
	Write (MB/s)	Read (MB/s)
MacBook Air M5	6459.2	6701.8
MacBook Air M4	845.2	288.2

As you can see, the differences are stark. The new MacBook Air M5 SSD is faster on both read and write tasks. The payoff should be in system launch, app performance, and other operations.Overall, the M5 chip, ample RAM, and a larger and faster SSD mean this is a powerful and efficient system that will satisfy most users, and may be enough for quite a few pro users, too.Connectivity got an upgrade, as well, with Apple's N1 chip bringing WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 6 support, two moves that help set itup for the foreseeable future of wireless communication.

Performance score: 5/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) review: Battery life

15 and a half hours of battery life (web activities)
Effectively lasts all day (mixed use)
Charges to 50% in 30 minutes with the included 40W charger; 100% in just over two hours

The 3-nanometer M5 inside my new 13-inch MacBook Air isn't just faster, it's more efficient, squeezing another hour and a half of battery life out of the system over what the M4 MacBook Air achieved in our Future Labs tests.What's more, in mixed use, I got closer to the promised 18 hours of video streaming that Apple claims. No matter how you slice it, this is an ultraportable that can sip power and let you leave your 'ABC' (Always Be Charging) worries behind.When it was time to charge, I used the included 40W charger and MagSafe cable to charge the Air to almost 50% in 30 minutes. It took about two hours to reach 100%.

Battery score: 5/5

Should you buy the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5)?

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4)
Attributes	Notes	Rating
Price	The MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) is a little more expensive than the M4 before it, but with twice the storage it's still a good deal	4.5/5
Design	Close to a perfect laptop design, with quality materials, excellent build and Apple's exquisite attention to detail.	5/5
Display and Center Stage	Excellent screen with great color, brightness and sharpness. We've learned to live with the notch, and Center Stage makes for high-quality video conferencing and calls.	4.5/5
macOS and Apple Intelligence	macOS Tahoe is the complete package, a rich and comprehensive platform that ties in nicely to the Apple ecosystem. I wish Apple Intelligence was more useful, but there's great utility in every other area.	4/5
Performance	The M5 brings the level of performance we've previously seen in the MacBook Pro — I had trouble finding anything the laptop couldn't do. The faster and more substantial storage paired with 16GB of RAM make this a high-performance ultraportable that you'll love using every day.	5/5
Battery life	Mixed battery life improved, and I got closer to the possible 18 hours Apple promises if you only stream video.	5/5

Buy it if...

You want the best ultraportable
The MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it does raise the bar for ultraportable performance.

You demand real portability
At 2.7lbs / 1.24kg, the MacBook Air still lives up to its name.

You need a good blend of power and efficiency
The MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) packs more than enough power for most users, and you can bank on all-day battery life.

Don't buy it if...

You still want a touchscreen
Some think this might be the year of a touchscreen MacBook, but I doubt it. The MacBook Air is a perfect, classic laptop, and for touchscreen lovers there's always the iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard.

You want more useful AI
Apple Intelligence is not the kind of integrated AI we expect from our mobile systems, but changes are on the horizon in the form of Siri with Gemini integration.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) review: Also consider

	MacBook Air 15-inch M5 (2026)	Dell XPS 13 Plus
Price:	$1,299 / £1,299 / AU$2,199	$1,999.99 / £2,049 / AU$3,998
CPU:	Apple M5 (10-core)	Up to Intel Core Ultra 9 288V
Graphics:	Integrated 10-core GPU	Intel Arc Graphics
RAM:	16GB unified memory	Up to 32GB LPDDR5X
Screen:	15.3-inch, 2880 x 1864 Liquid Retina display, 500 nits brightness, wide color P3 gamut	Up to 13.4-inch 3K (2880 x 1800) OLED, 60Hz
Storage:	512GB SSD	Up to 2TB SSD
Ports:	2x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), 3.5mm headphone jack, MagSafe 3	2 x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C)
Wireless:	Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6	Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
Camera:	Center Stage Camera (12MP, 1080p)	720p, 30 FPS HD
Weight:	3.3lbs / 1.51kg	2.70lbs / 1.21kg
Dimensions:	13.40 x 9.35 x 0.45 inches / 34 x 21.2 x 1.56cm	11.6 x 7.8 x 0.58 inches / 29.5 x 19.9 x 1.48cm

If our Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review has you considering other options, here are two laptops to consider...

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M5)
The MacBook Air 15-inch (M5) is virtually the same as the 13-inch model in every respect except size (and screen size), but the base model does start with two extra GPU cores.

Dell XPS 13 Plus
The latest Dell XPS 13 brings Intel's Lunar Lake chips to the iconic laptop line, delivering truly all-day battery life and strong performance across the board in a sleek and stylish MacBook-esque design. However, issues with the XPS redesign remain, with its edgeless trackpad and adaptive function bar creating some problems with usability that prevent it from reaching true greatness.

Read more: Dell XPS 13 Plus review

How I tested the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5)

I used the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) for five days
I worked, played, listened, edited, and wrote this review on it
I usually ran multiple apps at once

The 13-inch Apple MacBook Air M5 was been my constant companion for several days. I worked, played, edited (photos and videos), and gamed on it.I ran a wide variety of benchmarks, installed Steam, and ran heavy-duty games. I watched some streaming video, and did my best to tax the M5 chip. I also spent time comparing its performance to that of the M4 chip on my Sky Blue MacBook Air.I browsed the web, played with Apple Intelligence (it didn't help me write this review), and enjoyed every minute of my time with this splendid machine.I've been reviewing technology for over 30 years, and I've tested everything from DOS-based word processors to Apple's Vision Pro. I've reviewed laptops of all stripes, including traditional clamshells and convertibles. I regularly work on macOS, but also use the Windows platform almost every day — I like to keep my hands in all the ecosystems.Read more about how we test

First reviewed March 2026

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max): a small upgrade unless you love AI

8:00 pm | October 21, 2025

Author: admin | Category: Computers Computing Gadgets Laptops Macbooks | Tags: AI, M5 Pro | Comments: Off

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max): Two-minute review

With the initial release of the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) at the tail-end of 2025, Apple seemed to have settled into a reliable pattern. Coming pretty much exactly a year after the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M4, 2024), very few people were surprised by the reveal of the M5 chip and 14-inch MacBook Pro.However, there are a few things that are different this time around. Alongside the launch of the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5, 2025), Apple also revealed the iPad Pro (M5, 2025), unlike with the M4 generation, when Apple launched the iPad Pro around half a year before any Macs or MacBooks got the M4.

@techradar
♬ original sound - TechRadar

So, it’s good to see the MacBook reclaiming its role as a showcase device for Apple’s M-series chips – but there are a few other odd things about this launch. For a start, there’s still no sign of an M5-powered Mac mini or iMac, and we had to wait until March 2026 for the M5 Pro and M5 Max versions of the 14-inch MacBook Pro. Now that the more powerful versions of the MacBook Pro 14-inch have released, I've updated this review to include my opinions of all the MacBook Pro models, with Apple sending me the M5 Pro model, alongside the M5 base configuration.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5, 2025) in recording studio — (Image credit: Future)

The MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) launched at $1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,499, which got you the M5 chip with a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16GB of unified memory, and 512GB of SSD storage.This was the same price as the previous model with the M4 chip, and at the time it was good to see Apple continues to resist bumping up the price at a time when it feels like everything else is getting more expensive. However, since then, the price of the M5 MacBook Pro 14-inch has increased by $100 / £100 / AU$200, which means it now starts at $1,699 / £1,699 / AU$2,699. This is disappointing, but at least Apple has doubled the base storage capacity from 512GB to 1TB, which makes the price hike slightly more palatable.It should also be noted that in the UK and EU, the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) doesn’t come with a charger, so if you need one, you’ll have to buy one separately, which diminishes the value somewhat.The newer M5 Pro and M5 Max models have also had a price rise compared to the previous generation. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro starts at $2,199 / £2,199 / AU$3,499, an increase over the $1,999 / £1,999 / AU$3,299 M4 Pro model. This gets you an M5 Pro chip with a 15-core CPU and 16-core GPU, 24GB unified memory and 1TB of storage space.The M5 Max-toting 14-inch MacBook Pro now starts at $3,599 / £3,599 / AU$5,799, again, more expensive than the previous models, and comes with an 18-core CPU and 32-core GPU to start.Design-wise, the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max) looks exactly the same as the M4 model… and the M3 model. That’s not particularly an issue, as it remains a fine-looking laptop, and the 14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display is still one of the best on the market. But it’s beginning to feel like Apple isn’t interested in making incremental tweaks to its MacBook designs – instead, it takes an all-or-nothing approach. You get big design overhauls every few generations, like the one we saw with the M3 model (which replaced the 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro), but then a few years where it seems like Apple doesn’t want to change anything design-wise.That means some aspects of the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max) are in danger of being a bit outdated, especially as Apple’s rivals in the laptop market, especially the likes of Dell and Lenovo, seem to be far more comfortable with shaking up the designs of their products.So, we ended up with the base M5 model of the 14-inch MacBook Pro launching in 2025 that doesn’t feature the new Wi-Fi 7 standard, instead sticking with the older Wi-Fi 6E (the M5-powered iPad Pro, which was released at the same time, does support Wi-Fi 7, so clearly someone at Apple thinks the tech is worth supporting). The ports are also identical to the base model of the M4 14-inch MacBook Pro, so that means an HDMI port, SDXC card slot, 3.5mm headphone jack, and MagSafe 3 port for charging, plus three USB-C ports and Bluetooth 5.3. This remains a decent selection for professionals, allowing you to hook up a TV or projector, connect multiple peripherals, or insert a memory card, all without needing an adapter. However, the USB-C ports remain unchanged, using Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4 technology speeds of up to 40Gb/s. With an increasing number of laptops coming with much faster Thunderbolt 5 speeds of 120Gb/s - most notably including the older M4 Pro and M4 Max versions of the 14-inch MacBook Pro - this is another area where Apple’s reluctance to make even the smallest of changes could see it overtaken by its competitors.It's a shame the USB-C speeds have remained static, as Apple has updated the SSD, with new technology that gives the M5 MacBook Pro twice the read and write speeds compared to the previous model.At least with the new M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro 14-inch models, Apple has seen fit to include Wi-Fi 7 support, as well as Bluetooth 6, which makes the base model feel slightly more outdated. The base model also sticks with Thunderbolt 4 for its USB-C ports, whereas the M5 Pro and M5 Max models feature faster Thunderbolt 5 technology.

Performance-wise, the MacBook Pro 14-inch with the M5 chip is pretty much flawless, with macOS Tahoe feeling fast and responsive, and both preinstalled apps and third-party ones, including Adobe Photoshop and Ableton Live 12, working brilliantly. The problem is, the older M4 model was also a fantastic performer, and for many people, it will probably be hard to notice any significant generational boost. This is definitely not an upgrade I'd recommend to anyone who already has an M4 or even M3 MacBook Pro. However, if you have an older Intel MacBook or are coming from a Windows laptop (perhaps prompted by the end of Windows 10 support), then there's a lot to like about the latest Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch.Apple's main focus for this release is improving the on-device AI capabilities, and there are some decent gains made here, but if you have no interest in AI, then you might not appreciate these improvements and may be better served by a soon-to-be-discounted M4 model.Battery life, meanwhile, continues to be among the best of any laptop, with almost 24 hours of constant video looping, and over 18 hours in our web browsing benchmark. It will easily last multiple workdays on a single charge, and performance doesn't dip either.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max) review: Price and availability

How much does it cost? M5 model starts at $1,699 / £1,699 / AU$2,699
When is it available? M5 model went on sale October 22, 2025. M5 Pro and M5 Max models released on March 11, 2026
No charger for UK/EU customers

The base model of the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) went on sale on October 22, 2025, and when it launched, it started at $1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,499, the same price that the M4 model launched at back in 2024. However, since that launch, the price has risen For the new price you get the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) with a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16GB of unified memory, and 1TB SSD storage (double the amount the M5 base model orginally came with, making the price increase a tiny bit easier to swallow).One important thing to note is that in the UK and EU, the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) does not ship with a charger (elsewhere, you’ll get Apple’s 70W USB-C power adapter with the base model).In the UK, you can add a 70W USB-C power adapter to your order when configuring it for £59, or add a 96W USB-C power adapter for £79, however, rather oddly, it seems that you can only do this if you make other changes, such as adding a Nano-texture display (for £150), or tweaking the amount of memory or storage.

If you stick with the cheapest base M5 MacBook Pro model in the UK or EU, you have no option to add a charger to your order – you’ll have to buy it entirely separately.I won’t go into the reasons for this decision (Apple suggests it's pre-empting an EU directive coming in next year, though that doesn’t explain why the UK, no longer in the EU, is also not getting the charger), but it does make an impact on the overall value of the laptop if you do need to buy the charger separately.The good news, at least, is that you can charge the new MacBook Pro using any USB-C power adaptor, and if it’s powerful enough, the MacBook Pro can utilize fast charging. So, if you already have plenty of power adaptors lying around with USB-C, then you should be able to just use one of those – and it will at least mean you’re not lumbered with yet another charger that you don’t need. While Apple doesn’t include the actual charger for UK and EU customers, it does at least include the USB-C to MagSafe3 cable, so if you have a wall charger with a USB-C socket, you can make use of the convenient and fast MagSafe 3 port of the MacBook Pro, which holds the charger in place via magnets, making it easy to attach and safe to remove (accidently yanking it out won’t do any damage).For all customers, you can configure the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) before you purchase it. While there are no variants of the M5, you can add a nano-texture display, which reduces glare and reflections for $150 / £150 / AU$230, boost the memory to either 24GB (for an extra $200 / £200 / AU$300) or 32GB (add $400 / £400 / AU$600), or up the storage to 1TB, 2TB or 4TB (which will cost, respectively, an extra $200 / £200 / AU$300, $600 / £600 / AU$900, and $1,200 / £1,200 / AU$1,800).Apple faces renewed competition when it comes to premium laptops, with the Dell 14 Premium launching at a lower price of $1,499.99 / £1,499 / AU$2,598.20, while offering a similar level of performance with an Intel Core Ultra 7 255H processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD – oh, and Wi-Fi 7.After the initial launch of the base M5 model of the MacBook Pro 14-inch at the end of 2025, Apple followed up in March 2026 with M5 Pro and M5 Max versions. These more powerful variants are aimed at creative professionals who need to run intensive tasks, such as rendering complex 3D scenes and emulating different hardware and software platforms, and as such come with even higher price tags.The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro starts at $2,199 / £2,199 / AU$3,499, an increase over the $1,999 / £1,999 / AU$3,299 M4 Pro model. This gets you an M5 Pro chip with a 15-core CPU and 16-core GPU, 24GB unified memory and 1TB of storage space.Meanwhile, the top-end M5 Max 14-inch MacBook Pro version now starts at $3,599 / £3,599 / AU$5,799, again, more expensive than the previous models, and comes with an 18-core CPU and 32-core GPU to start.

Price: 3.5 / 5

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max) review: Specs

The Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max) now comes in three pre-configured variants, and when buying from Apple you can tweak some of the options (such as storage and memory) to better suit your needs. Below, you’ll find the three base models:

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max) specs
	MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5)	MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5 Pro)	MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5 Max)
Price	$1,699 / £1,699 / AU$2,699	$2,199 / £2,199 / AU$3,499	$3,599 / £1,999 / AU$5,799
CPU	M5 10-core	M5 Pro 15-core	M5 Max 18-core
GPU	10-core	16-core	32-core
RAM	16GB unified memory	24GB unified memory	36GB unified memory
Storage	1TB SSD	1TB SSD	2TB SSD
Display	14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display (3024 x 1964), 120Hz	14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display (3024 x 1964), 120Hz	14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display (3024 x 1964), 120Hz
Ports	3x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), HDMI, SDXC card slot, 3.5mm headphone jack, MagSafe 3	3x Thunderbolt 5 (USB-C), HDMI, SDXC card slot, 3.5mm headphone jack, MagSafe 3	3x Thunderbolt 5 (USB-C), HDMI, SDXC card slot, 3.5mm headphone jack, MagSafe 3
Wireless	Wi‑Fi 6E (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.3	Wi‑Fi 7 (802.11be), Bluetooth 6	Wi‑Fi 7 (802.11be), Bluetooth 6
Weight	3.4 lbs (1.55kg)	3.5 lbs (1.60kg)	3.6 lbs (1.62kg)
Dimensions	12.31 x 8.71 x 0.61 inches (31.26 x 22.12 x 1.55cm)	12.31 x 8.71 x 0.61 inches (31.26 x 22.12 x 1.55cm)	12.31 x 8.71 x 0.61 inches (31.26 x 22.12 x 1.55cm)

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max): Design

No new design
Still looks great
No Wi-Fi 7 for base model

The Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max) features an identical design to the M4 model, and the M3 before it. While it’s still a very nice-looking (and very well-built) laptop, and looks a lot more modern than the M2-era 13-inch MacBook Pro, which the 14-inch replaced in 2023, it could disappoint anyone hoping for a freshly designed MacBook Pro.One rumor that keeps on cropping up is that Apple is working on a MacBook Pro with an OLED screen – and if you’re holding out for that, I’m afraid the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5, 2025) isn’t the MacBook you’re looking for.However, the 14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display, with a resolution of 3024 x 1964 and with ProMotion variable refresh rates of up to 120Hz, remains one of the best screens you can find in a laptop. The mini-LED backlit panel still allows for excellent contrast, and colors look life-like and vibrant. HDR content looks particularly good on the screen, and while OLED panels might have the edge when it comes to showing true blacks, the screen of the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max) offers deep, inky blacks with no hints of light bleed.

The high pixel density of the screen at 254 pixels per inch means images look sharp and detailed, and the ProMotion refresh rate means scrolling through websites and documents, watching movies, and even playing games is smooth and responsive.The model Apple sent me to review comes with the optional nano-texture coating on the display, which minimizes glare and reflections. It leads to a very pleasant matte-like finish, and even under bright studio lights the screen was pleasant to use, without any distracting reflections. Adding the nano-texture coating costs $150 / £150 / AU$230, so you'll need to judge if it's worth the additional cost. I'd say that if you're going to be doing a lot of visual work on the MacBook, and will be using it where there's a lot of ambient light (especially from above or behind you), then it's well worth considering.The quality of the display means that anyone holding off buying a MacBook Pro until an OLED model is launched is in danger of missing out on an excellent screen. On the other hand, an increasing number of rival laptop makers are kitting out their premium laptops with OLED panels (or at least offering them as an option), so Apple is in danger of getting left behind if it doesn’t update the screen any time soon.Port-wise, things stay the same as last year’s model, with an HDMI port, SDXC card slot, 3.5mm headphone jack, and MagSafe 3 port for charging. The base M5 MacBook Pro 14-inch model also comes with three USB-C ports, which use Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4 with speeds of up to 40Gb/s.These aren’t the fastest ports, and that might disappoint any professionals who need to move lots of large files quickly. The newer M5 Pro and M5 Max 14-inch MacBook Pros even offer faster speeds, as their three USB-C ports are Thunderbolt 5 and USB 4, which support speeds of up to 120Gb/s. If you're planning on moving large files to and from a USB-C external hard drive, you'll want to go for the more expensive models, then.

The Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max) remains a sleek-looking professional laptop, available in two colors – Space Black and Silver – with a very good display. I was sent the Space Black version to review, and it really does look lovely. But the lack of any change to the design, no matter how small, makes this release feel particularly incremental (and possibly even inessential if you already have a recent MacBook Pro), so that puts a lot of pressure on the internal upgrades to justify this release.

Design: 3.5 / 5

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max): Performance

Very good performance
AI tools work faster
Not a massive leap over the M4 model

While Apple has once again played it safe with the design, the changes to the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max)’s internals are much more ambitious.The M5 chip debuted towards the end of 2025 in just three devices: the 14-inch MacBook Pro, the new iPad Pro (M5, 2025), and (rather surprisingly) a new version of Apple’s ultra-niche Vision Pro headset. It features a 10-core CPU made up of four high-performance cores and six high-efficiency cores, which the M5 switches between depending on the tasks you’re performing on the laptop, and whether or not you’re using the 14-inch MacBook Pro while plugged in or while on battery.With more efficiency cores than performance ones, it’s pretty safe to assume that Apple’s priority with the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) is prolonging battery life and maintaining performance when on battery, rather than raw power. It’s a balance that has served Apple well in the past, with its MacBooks, especially the Pro versions, leading the industry when it comes to battery life and sustained on-battery performance.Despite having the same number of cores as the M4 chip, Apple claims the M5 offers 20% faster multithreaded performance. Combined with the faster memory bandwidth of 153GB/s (compared to the 120GB/s of the M4, this puts the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5, 2025) in a solid position to outdo its predecessor when it comes to running multiple apps at once.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5): benchmarks

Here's how the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) performed in our suite of industry-standard benchmarks and game tests.

Geekbench 6.5:
Single - 4,288
Multi - 17,926
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test:
Read: 6,619.7 MB/s
Write: 6.517 MB/s
Cinebench R24:
Single-core - 199
Multi-core - 1,141
PugetBench for Adobe CC:
Photoshop: 13,755
Premiere Pro: 69,887
Battery life test (web browsing):
18 hours 14 minutes
Battery life test (video):
21 hours 43 minutes

It certainly felt sprightly as I used it, with multiple apps and web browser windows, including a 1080p video and Apple’s Image Playground generative AI tool, all running seamlessly.The M5’s 10-core GPU handles graphics tasks, and Apple has included an enhanced shader core and ray tracing engine, which it claims gives the M5 up to 1.6 times faster graphics performance compared to the M4.If the smaller bump in graphics performance versus the M4 model is a tad disappointing, it seems like Apple has put a lot of effort into the AI capabilities of the M5 chip. The company claims it’s been built from the ground up for AI, and it’s certainly been keen to highlight its AI capabilities in its promotional materials.Since the launch of the M1 chip, Apple has been including its Neural Engine in its computing chips for on-device AI tasks, and the M5 has an improved Neural Engine, also integrating what Apple calls a ‘Neural Accelerator’ into each core of the GPU to speed up results. Now, we’re getting dangerously close to impenetrable tech jargon, but as a huge amount of AI tasks are handled by a system’s GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), this approach seems to make sense, and would explain Apple’s bullish claims about the AI performance improvements the M5 benefits from versus the M4. According to Apple’s own numbers (so take it with a pinch of salt, as the company is typically vague about the testing methodology), LLM (Large Language Model) prompt processing is 4.6 times faster than the M4.

While these numbers might look impressive, the actual real-world benefits of this increase in AI performance are harder to gauge, and really depend on how much you use on-device (as opposed to cloud-based) AI tools.Apple has continued to add AI tools to macOS Tahoe, the latest version of its operating system, which ships with the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max), and while it’s not quite at the level of AI integration as its rival Microsoft’s Windows 11 is, it’s getting easier to use AI without having to install extra apps. These include Genmoji and Image Playground, which generate images and emojis based on your prompts, and are, ultimately, inessential for most people. You might play around with them a few times, but I can’t imagine many professionals who have forked out for the latest MacBook Pro will use it much, so the fact that the M5 can generate images more quickly will likely inspire more of a shrug of the shoulders than a rush to buy the new MacBook.I got Image Playground to generate several images based on various prompts, and the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max) did so speedily, giving me various images in a matter of seconds. However, this never seemed to take too much time on older MacBooks, so any performance improvements here are hard to judge.More useful is Live Translation, which allows you to talk to other people in different languages, and it makes a great case for on-device AI as it means your conversations remain private. On the whole, however, Apple’s AI tools still don’t compete with its competitors, and their faster performance on the M5 chip will do little to get people to buy the latest MacBook Pro on its own.Third-party apps do much better jobs at showcasing the potential of artificial intelligence, as well as the M5’s improved performance in this area, especially when it comes to Adobe’s Photoshop and Premiere Pro apps. It’s here that the M5’s AI chops get to shine. However, it should be noted that certain tools, such as Generative Extend (which can generate additional frames to lengthen video clips), run on Adobe's Firefly AI generation service, which isn't on device, and therefore doesn't really benefit from the M5 chip. If Apple really thinks AI capabilities are something people look for when buying a MacBook Pro, I feel it's going to have to do more to justify the hype.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5 Pro): benchmarks

Here's how the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5 Pro) performed in our suite of industry-standard benchmarks and game tests.

Geekbench 6.5:
Single - 4,311
Multi - 28,364
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test:
Read: 12,773 MB/s
Write: 12,775 MB/s
Cinebench R24:
Single-core - 199
Multi-core - 1,141

After reviewing the M5 model of the MacBook Pro 14-inch when it launched in late 2025, Apple sent me the M5 Pro model in March 2026. For day-to-day tasks there is little, if any, performance difference, but that's mainly because the M5 is plenty powerful enough for web browsing, document creation and general use, and the M5 Pro is just plain overkill, so macOS and its standard apps are running at just about as well as possible.For more intensive apps and workloads, however, including 4K and 8K video editing, creating complex musical projects in Ableton Live 12 and playing around with IK Multimedia's AI-powered ReSing tool, the differences between the M5 model and the M5 Pro become far more apparent, with projects loading a lot quicker. The additional memory (24GB compared to 16GB) means multitasking with multiple apps open at once is much smoother, and because this is unified memory, which means it's used as both system memory and video memory, graphically-intensive workloads like 3D rendering are quicker.In our Geekbench benchmark results above, you can see how the additional cores in the M5 Pro can make a big difference to performance. Single-core performance is essentially the same, but because the M5 Pro has 15 CPU cores compared to the M5's 10 cores, the overall performance is much higher.

Performance: 4 / 5

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max) review: Battery life

Apple promises up to 24 hours
Hits over 18 hours in our web browsing test
Supports fast charging

One of Apple’s biggest successes with modern MacBooks is battery life. Thanks to its dedication to power efficiency that started with the M1 chip, and improved upon with each subsequent generation, the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max) is easily one of the longest-lasting laptops you can buy.This is particularly impressive considering how powerful the M5 MacBook Pro 14-inch is, as usually, the more powerful the components are, the more power-hungry they are as well. The fact that it’s relatively small, and therefore limits the physical size of the battery Apple can fit inside it.The battery in the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max) is 72.4 watt-hours, and Apple is bullish when it comes to potential battery life, claiming up to 24 hours of video streaming and 17 hours of web browsing.

Big claims indeed, and I’d usually be sceptical if it wasn’t for Apple’s excellent legacy with MacBook battery life, and in our benchmark tests it scored a very respectable 18 hours and 14 seconds for web browsing. Meanwhile, almost 16 and a half hours into our looped battery life benchmark test, the MacBook Pro 14-inch’s battery was still at 40%. As I used the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) for day-to-day tasks, it became clear that this is again a powerful workstation laptop that can go multiple workdays on a single charge. It’s extremely impressive.Just as importantly, thanks to Apple’s commitment to power efficiency with its M series chips, there’s no sign of any negative impact on performance when the laptop is unplugged. It’s quite common for laptop makers to reduce the overall performance of a device (a practice known as ‘throttling’) when it’s on battery power to lower power consumption and prolong battery life.

While this can be useful in some situations, it does mean that if you want to use a laptop for heavy workloads, it’ll need to be plugged in. With the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5), Apple has once again avoided this problem, and I was able to run demanding tasks such as video editing and music production while using the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) on battery power, and there were no noticeable knocks to performance compared to plugged-in use. Because of this, the MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) is easily one of the best laptops for people looking for a device they can use for heavy workloads while travelling.

Battery: 5 / 5

Should you buy the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max)?

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max): Scorecard
Attributes	Notes	Rating
Price	Recent price rises makes this already expensive laptop even pricier.	3.5 / 5
Design	No new design isn't a huge issue, it still looks great, but it means some things, like its USB-C port speeds and Wi-Fi 6E support on the base model are showing their age.	3.5 / 5
Performance	Once again, Apple has made a MacBook Pro that is excellent at all kinds of tasks. However, it's not a huge leap over the M4. Fans of AI tools will like the improvements here, however.	4 / 5
Average rating	If you're new to MacBook Pros, you'll be very happy with this device, but for anyone using a recent MacBook, the lack of any generational leaps will disappoint.	4 / 5

Buy it if...

You’ve not had an M-series MacBook Pro before
The M5 chip’s improvements over the M4 and M3 aren’t big enough to justify upgrading from those devices, but if you’re still on an Intel-powered Mac (or are a Windows user looking to switch), then you’re going to be hugely impressed by this laptop.

You want a portable workstation
The MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max)’s small and light design makes it easy to carry around, and the huge battery life and lack of throttling mean you can be productive pretty much anywhere.

You use a lot of AI tools
The M5’s biggest improvements over the M4 are when it comes to on-device AI performance, so if you use a lot of artificial intelligence, this could be the ideal laptop for you.

Don't buy it if...

You don't need the power
Now that the M5 Pro and M5 Max editions of the 14-inch MacBook Pro are out, you can get even more power - but unless you're a creative professional, you'd be better off getting the new, more affordable, M5 MacBook Air instead.

You think AI is a gimmick
As you'd expect, the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) runs macOS, Apple's own operating system. If you want to stick with Windows 11, look elsewhere.

You want a large-screen laptop
Apple has now released M5 Pro and M5 Max versions of the 16-inch MacBook Pro, and that's the laptop to get if you want a big screen to work on - but be prepared to pay a lot more.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5/M5 Pro/M5 Max): Also consider

	MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5)	MacBook Air 13-inch (M5)
Price	$1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,499	$1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,799
CPU	M5 10-core	M5 10-core
GPU	10-core	8-core
RAM	16GB unified memory	16GB unified memory
Storage	512GB SSD	512GB SSD
Display	14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display (3024 x 1964), 120Hz	13.6-inch Liquid Retina display (2560 x 1664)
Ports	3x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), HDMI, SDXC card slot, 3.5mm headphone jack, MagSafe 3	2x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), 3.5mm headphone jack, MagSafe 3
Wireless	Wi‑Fi 6E (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.3	Wi‑Fi 7 (802.11be), Bluetooth 6
Weight	3.4 lbs (1.55kg)	2.7 lbs (1.24kg)
Dimensions	12.31 x 8.71 x 0.61 inches (31.26 x 22.12 x 1.55cm)	11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches (304 x 215 x 11.3mm)

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M5)
The 13-inch MacBook Air with the M5 chip is an awesome alternative if you don't need the kind of sustained performance the MacBook Pro 14-inch with M5 chip offers, and it's a lot more affordable as well. There's also a 15-inch model if you'd rather have a larger screen.

Read our full MacBook Air 13-inch (M5) review

How I tested the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5)

I used both the MacBook Pro 14-inch M5 and M5 Pro models solidly for several days
I ran multiple benchmarks
I used them as my daily work laptops

I used the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) for several days as my main work laptop, writing some of this review on it, as well as browsing the web, attending meetings via video call and running our suite of benchmarks. I also played around with video and photo editing during my time with the laptop. With the launch of the M5 Pro and M5 Max versions, I then used the M5 Pro model for a similar amount of time, running the same benchmarks and working on the same projects. I've been reviewing MacBooks for TechRadar for well over a decade, and have extensively used and tested all models of Apple's M-series chips.Read more about how we test

First reviewed: October 2025 (M5 model) and March 2026 (M5 Pro model)

I’ve reviewed the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) – and it remains the best 15-inch laptop I’d recommend for most people

9:39 pm | March 12, 2025

Author: admin | Category: Computers Computing Gadgets Laptops Macbooks | Comments: Off

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4): Two-minute review

The MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) is the latest edition of Apple’s large-screen thin and light laptop, launched alongside the smaller MacBook Air 13-inch (M4). Many of us have been waiting for Apple’s most popular laptops to get the powerful M4 chip since it debuted last year with the iPad Pro.

Since then, we’ve had M4 versions of the MacBook Pro, iMac and Mac mini, which has left MacBook Air fans (and there are a lot of them, with the MacBook Air being the most popular Mac product) waiting for their turn.

It’s perhaps understandable that some people might feel like the M4 MacBook Airs are an afterthought, with Apple taking so long to bring its latest chip to its most affordable laptops, but it seems Apple has settled into this release schedule. After all, the M3 MacBook Air (in both 13-inch and 15-inch configurations) launched pretty much exactly a year ago, in March 2024.

It seems Apple doesn’t want to get into another controversy by releasing a new MacBook model less than a year after the previous one. It did that with the MacBook Pro M3, which launched around nine months after the MacBook Pro M2, and it got a lot of flak for that.

By spacing the launches out for a year, it’s less likely to annoy people who have bought the previous model, and I get the feeling that Apple’s made the calculation that because the MacBook Air is aimed at a more casual, mainstream audience, there’s less clamor to get the latest and greatest hardware.

To be fair, that’s probably the right call, and no one who has an M3 MacBook Air should feel the need to upgrade to the M4 model. We go into more depth about what the M4 brings to the MacBook Air in our MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review, but this release is more of a refinement than a complete reimagining.

MacBook Air 15-inch with M4 chip on a creative's desk with screen open — (Image credit: Future)

When a laptop is as good as the MacBook Air (in either size), then that’s no bad thing at all, and if you’re looking for a new laptop, especially coming from a much older MacBook or Windows laptop, then there’s a very good chance that you’ll absolutely love the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4).

With a starting price of $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,099, Apple gave us all a pleasant surprise, as like the 13-inch model, the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) has actually had a price cut, as the base model of the 15-inch MacBook Air with M3 started at $1,299 / £1,399 / AU$2,199.

A better model for less money is fantastic to see, especially these days where things seem to be getting ever more expensive, and I’ve got to give Apple credit for this. One of the best things about the MacBook Air is its affordability compared to laptops of a similar spec, and it’s great to see that Apple understands this.

This lower price does come at some cost, however, as unlike with previous generations, Apple is no longer officially selling any of the older MacBook Airs. When the MacBook Air M2 came out, for example, Apple reduced the price of the M1 model and sold it as a more affordable option, and the same thing happened with the M3 model (the M2 model got a price cut).

Instead, Apple is only selling the M4 models of the new MacBook Airs, so if you want to buy direct from the company, there’s no cheaper option available. However, third party retailers will continue to sell older MacBook Airs as they clear their inventory, and we’ve already seen some impressive MacBook Air deals since the announcement of the M4 model.

The base model of the 15-inch MacBook Air comes with the M4 chip with a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16GB of unified memory and 256GB of SSD storage – similar to the base model of the new 13-inch MacBook Air, except the cheapest configuration of the smaller MacBook comes with an 8-core CPU.

Otherwise, in many ways the M4 MacBook Air 15-inch is the same as the 13-inch model, but with a larger screen, and therefore larger overall size. Even the sharpness of the two screens are essentially the same, due to the larger 15.3-inch screen coming with a higher resolution of 2880 x 1864 which works out at 224 pixels per inch, compared to the 13.6-inch screen’s 2560 x 1664 resolution, which also offers 224 pixels per inch.

This means the screens offer the same level of sharpness, and with the other similarities of the hardware, it really boils down to which screen size you’d prefer. The 15-inch MacBook Air offers a larger screen that some people will find more comfortable to work on, while the 13-inch model’s smaller size will appeal more to people who want a laptop they can rely on while traveling.

One big difference between the 13-inch and 15-inch M4 MacBook Airs is that the larger MacBook comes with six built-in speakers with force-cancelling woofers, while the smaller laptop makes do with four speakers, and no force-cancelling.

So, the 15-inch MacBook Air with M4 offers a much richer and more immersive sound experience, while the woofers offer deeper bass without shaking or vibrating the MacBook. The sound is certainly impressive considering the thin and light design of the 15-inch MacBook Air – it’s certainly one of the best sounding laptops you can buy, and if audio quality is of the utmost importance to you, then you will likely be better off buying the 15-inch model rather than the 13-inch.

There have also been some slight design tweaks since the last generation of MacBook Airs. The MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) (as with the 13-inch model) now comes with a 12MP Center Stage webcam. When broadcasting, you can move around and the Center Stage camera will keep you in frame (within reason – you can’t move too far). It does a decent job, and the video quality is clean and crisp.

The new webcam also supports Desk View, which cleverly keeps you in shot, while also showing your desk in another shot. This can be useful if you’re demonstrating something to an audience, and previously you’d need two cameras to achieve the same effect – one to shoot you from the front, the second angled to shoot your hands.

While not everyone is going to make use of this feature, it’s pretty clever, and works well. The new webcam also uses the M4 chip to offer machine learning-enhanced video effects such as Studio Light, which adjusts the lighting, brightness and contrast of your footage to give you a more professional look. It’s similar to the Windows Studio Effects tool found in Windows 11 laptops which come with AI-capable processors.

The new M4-powered MacBook Airs also come with a new color choice: Sky Blue. Don’t go thinking this is a vibrant, iMac-like hue, however. It’s a more subtle, metallic color with a hint of blue, and while understated, I do like it (Apple was kind enough to send me a review unit in the new color). The MagSafe charge cable comes in a color that matches the color of the MacBook Air, which is a nice touch.

Overall, the new MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) is an excellent thin and light laptop, and one of the best 15-inch laptops you can currently buy. However, if you have an M3, or even M2, version, there’s not much different that will make you feel the need to upgrade. That’s no particular slight on the M4 chip, but rather a testament to how good the M2 and M3 remain.

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) review: Price and availability

How much does it cost? Starts at $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,099
$100 / £200 / AU$100 less than M3 model
When is it available? On sale now

In a very welcome move, Apple has released the new MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) at a lower price than the M3 model launched at, beginning at $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,099, which gives you an M4 chip with a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16GB of unified memory and 256GB of SSD storage.

After getting an increasing amount of flak for launching modern MacBook Airs with 8GB of memory and 128GB SSDs, which isn’t enough these days, Apple – to its credit – doubled the base amount of memory and storage without increasing the price of the M3 model, and I’m pleased to see that it has continued to offer 16GB and 256GB as its minimum configuration.

If you’re a student, then you can get a further price cut which makes the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) much better value, and even without that discount, you’ll be hard pushed to find a 15-inch laptop that offers the same level of performance, design and build quality for a similar price. A recent model of the Dell XPS 15, for example, launched at $1,499 / £1,499 / AU$2,498.

In fact, the only competition the 15-inch MacBook Air with M4 has is… the 13-inch model, which offers similar levels of performance, but with a smaller screen and fewer built-in speakers, and starts at $999 / £999 / AU$1,699. As impressed as I am with the price of the 15-inch MacBook Air, I’m not sure the larger screen, better sound and two extra CPU cores justify the extra $200 / £200 / AU$400.

Unlike with previous generations, where Apple continued selling an earlier model as a more affordable option, it’s no longer selling M2 or M3 MacBook Airs, and while third party retailers will continue selling those models whilst stock lasts, the M4 models are now the only option available to buy direct from Apple, which means you have less choice if you want to get a cheaper MacBook.

The good news is that since the launch of the M4 MacBook Airs, we’ve seen some fantastic deals on the older models already.

Price: 4.5 / 5

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) review: Specs

Here are the specs for the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) at a glance.

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) review: Design

New Sky Blue color
Upgraded webcam
Otherwise same design

Since getting a major design overhaul with the M2 model back in 2022, Apple has pretty much stuck to the same design for its MacBook Air releases, with the 15-inch model essentially looking identical to the 13-inch model – just larger.

This is pretty much true with the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4), which largely keeps the look of the M3 model, but with a few welcome tweaks. The lack of a major new look isn’t too much of an issue, as the design remains stylish and modern.

With dimensions of 0.45 x 13.40 x 9.35 inches (1.15 x 34.04 x 23.76cm) and a weight of 3.3lbs (1.51kg), it remains an impressively slim and light 15-inch laptop, though the smaller dimensions of the 13-inch MacBook Air mean that’s the laptop I’d recommend to people who want the most portable machine.

While some rival laptop makers are putting out stylish and incredibly light laptops, especially LG with its ‘gram’ lineup of laptops, the 15-inch MacBook Air is unmistakably a premium Apple product with a stylish design and solid build quality.

On the left-hand side are two Thunderbolt 4 ports and a MagSafe 3 charging port (which contains magnets which makes plugging and unplugging the power connector convenient – and protects the MacBook from damage should the cable be yanked out by accident), and on the right-hand side is a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The Thunderbolt 4 ports offer speeds of up to 40Gb/s, and while it would have been nice to have faster Thunderbolt 5 ports, for most people this will be plenty fast enough for transferring large files to and from an external hard drive.

It’s not the best selection of ports, and we’ve seen rival thin and light laptops feature a greater array of ports, such as HDMI, without sacrificing their svelte looks, but at least the inclusion of the MagSafe 3 port means you don’t have to give up one of the Thunderbolt 4 ports when charging (though you can still use a USB-C charger to top up the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4)’s battery if you leave your MagSafe charger at home.

There have been a few changes to the design, however. For a start, the webcam is now a 12MP Center Stage camera which also offers the Desk View feature, which effectively splits your footage into two – a front-on portrait shot, and a wide angled view of your hands and desk. The image quality is excellent (boosted by the M4 chip), though the divisive ‘notch’ that surrounds the webcam and dips down into the screen remains.

This has been a part of the MacBook Air’s design for three years now, so most people who had a problem with this have likely made peace with its inclusion, and I’ve never had an issue with it, but it’s worth pointing out, especially as there are rival Windows 11 laptops that include just as good a webcam into thin bezels without needing a notch.

Another very minor design change is with the keyboard. It remains backlit, with a Touch ID button for quickly logging into macOS or confirming Apple Pay payments using a fingerprint, and is comfortable to use (and no longer plagued by stuck keys, which older MacBooks sometimes suffered from). What’s changed, however, is the mute icon on the F10 key, which has changed from a symbol of a speaker to a symbol of a speaker with a line through it.

This might seem like a minor change, but it’s actually one I welcome, as it means the symbol now matches the icon that appears on screen when you mute the sound of the laptop. It also matches what most other devices use as a mute symbol, and also means the mute button and the volume down button (which also has a speaker icon) are less easily confused, as they now look more distinct.

The biggest design change, however, is the new Sky Blue color. Apple sent me the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) in this color, and you’ll be able to see what it looks like in the photos that accompany this review. It’s a subtle, metallic color that means it doesn’t look out of place next to the existing Midnight, Starlight and Silver colors, and while it’s not as vibrant as the iMac colors, it does mean it looks professional, while offering a hint of personality. It’s always nice to see the braided MagSafe cable that’s included in the package match the color of the MacBook Air you choose as well.

Overall, the design of the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) remains stylish, thin and portable. If you’re looking for a 15-inch laptop with a premium look, then you’ll be very happy with the design of this machine.

Design: 4 / 5

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) review: Performance

Very good performance
M4 remains impressive
Big leap over Intel Macs

While the design of the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) feels like an iterative update over the previous model, the hardware and performance of the new MacBook Air… also feels like a limited leap rather than a generational one.

In some ways this is to be expected due to Apple’s yearly release schedule for its M-class chips. There’s only so many improvements and refinements you can make, and unlike with an iPhone, you’re unlikely to want to upgrade your laptop every year or so.

What this means is that if you already own an M3-powered MacBook Air, the performance upgrade you’re going to get by moving to the M4 isn’t going to be huge.

This is why in most of Apple’s marketing and documentation for the new MacBook Air 15-inch (M4), the company highlights the performance gains over the 13-inch MacBook Air with an Intel Core i7 processor from around 2020.

According to Apple, the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) offers around 20 times the performance of the Intel MacBook Air in certain tasks. Meanwhile, the difference between the M3 and M4 MacBook Air, according to Apple’s own figures, is much more modest (I’m talking single digit increases).

Having used both the M2 and M3 MacBook Airs extensively, as well as my time testing the M4 MacBook Air, I have to say that there was little noticeable performance difference. Pretty much every app, and the macOS operating system itself, ran smoothly, and almost every major application now supports the Arm-based M4 chip natively, which meant I didn’t need to rely on the Rosetta 2 tool which allows apps designed for Intel Macs to run (which comes with a slight hit to performance).

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) benchmarks

Here's how the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) performed in our suite of industry-standard benchmarks and game tests.

Geekbench 6.4:
Single - 3,799
Multi - 14,921
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test:
Read: 3,012.5MB/s
Write: 3,335.1MB/s
Cinebench:
Single-core - 172
Multi-core - 904
GPU - 3,860
Battery life test:
15 hours 14 minutes

More intensive tasks, such as editing 4K raw footage in Premiere Pro, saw a bigger improvement, but, again, not enough to warrant upgrading from the M3. Most people looking to buy a MacBook Air won’t be performing heavy duty tasks with it, but for day-to-day use, the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) is truly excellent. The efficiency of the M4 chip means that it is also once again fanless, so the MacBook Air remains silent throughout use – a lovely change from many Windows 11 laptops that like to whirr up their fans seemingly at the drop of a hat.

The screen remains excellent, with bright, vivid colors, though an increasing number of competitors, such as the Asus Vivobook S 15 Copilot+ threaten to beat Apple here with support for OLED screen technology which makes a huge difference to image quality. We’re also seeing an increasing number of 4K laptops that offer sharper resolutions as well.

That’s not to say that the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4)’s screen is bad – far from it – but rivals are catching up fast at this price point. A new feature with the M4 chip is that the MacBook Air can now support two external displays at once, while also powering its built-in screen as well – a welcome tweak that people who like to use multiple monitors at once will be very pleased with.

Where the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) remains a leader in its class is with the audio. Watching shows and movies in Apple TV+ looked good, but sounded even better thanks to the six-speaker sound system offers a depth and clarity that other thin and light laptops can’t match. In movies especially, the six speakers offer a wide soundstage, with sound effects coming from either side of the screen. Apple also talks up the spatial audio abilities of the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4)’s speakers, and while it doesn’t compare to my physical Dolby Atmos home theatre setup, there are still moments of impressive immersion as the sound envelops you. Considering the slimline design of the 15-inch MacBook Air, this is very impressive.

What does disappoint, slightly, is that Apple has stuck with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 for wireless networking and peripheral connections, two last-gen technologies that lack some of the features and performance that Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 offer.

Overall, the performance of the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) is superb for the price, and if you’re coming from an Intel-based MacBook, or even a traditional Windows 11 laptop, then you’re going to be very impressed with what the new MacBook Air offers.

However, if you already have an M2 or M3 MacBook Air, I don’t think there’s enough of a performance leap to justify upgrading just yet – and I’d recommend holding out for the (almost) inevitable M5-powered MacBook Air which could land sometime next year.

Performance: 4 / 5

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) review: Battery life

Apple promises 18 hours
We found it lasted over 15 hours
Slightly longer battery life than the 13-inch model

Ever since Apple switched from Intel hardware to its own Arm-based M-series chips, I’ve been incredibly impressed with the power efficiency of the MacBook Air. Even when performing complex tasks, the performance of the new MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) didn’t drop when on battery power (some laptops will throttle performance to prolong battery life), and in our battery life benchmark tests, it easily cleared 15 hours of continuous use.

This means you can confidently use the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) for several work days without worrying about plugging it in – something I did myself while testing.

Because of the bigger body, Apple has added a larger battery to the 15-inch MacBook Air compared to the 13-inch model, and this resulted in a slightly longer battery life for the 15-inch MacBook Air, though the extra energy needed to power the larger screen means there’s not a huge amount in it.

Battery: 4.5 / 5

Should you buy the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4)?

Buy it if...

You want a 15-inch laptop
Apple has done it again, and the new MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) is the best 15-inch laptop you can buy.

You want a laptop that lasts several work days
The battery life of this laptop is excellent, and you should be able to use it over several work days on a single charge.

You have an Intel-based MacBook
If you have an old Intel-based MacBook, then the new M4 MacBook Air will offer a tremendous upgrade.

Don't buy it if...

You have an M2 or M3 MacBook
While the M4 chip is a great performer, you don't need to upgrade if you have an M2 or M3 MacBook, as the leap isn't quite worth it.

You prefer Windows 11
As you'd expect, the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) runs macOS, Apple's own operating system. If you want to stick with Windows 11, look elsewhere.

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4): Also consider

Mac mini (M4)
Like the sound of the M4 chip, but want something cheaper? The Mac mini from late 2024 is a great, affordable choice that comes with the same M4 hardware that the 15-inch MacBook Air has. It's a desktop PC, however, so it's not as portable.

Read our full Mac mini (M4) review

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4)
The 13-inch MacBook Air has also got an M4 makeover, and offers very similar performance but in a smaller form factor, making it a great choice if you want a more easily portable laptop to travel with.

Read our full MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review

How I tested the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4)

I used the new MacBook Air for around a week
I ran multiple benchmarks
I used it as my daily work laptop

I've used the MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) over the past week as my main work laptop, writing most of this review on it, as well as browsing the web, attending meetings via video call and running our suite of benchmarks. I also played around with video and photo editing during my time with the laptop. I've been reviewing MacBooks for TechRadar for well over a decade, and have extensively used and tested all models of Apple's M-series chips.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed: March 2025

The Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) is the best ultraportable – and the new price makes it even more appealing

4:09 pm | March 11, 2025

Author: admin | Category: Computers Computing Gadgets Laptops Macbooks | Tags: AI, Apple Store, CPU | Comments: Off

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4): Two-minute review

How do you make the best MacBook, and arguably one of the best laptops on the market, better? You could redesign it, but that’s a move fraught with potential downsides; if the current design is popular, you risk disenfranchising fans. In that case, making small changes, especially under-the-hood ones, is probably the smart move, and it’s clearly Apple’s strategy.

The MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) is virtually indistinguishable from the M3 model. Apple has left the exquisite keyboard and responsive trackpad untouched, and the same goes for the brilliant Liquid Retina display. The 2.7lbs. weight is unchanged, and even the two Thunderbolt 4 ports are essentially the same. Visually, the only thing that's new is a new color option, and the Sky Blue finish is a subtle hue that can, depending on the light, look almost gray, but a second glance always reveals that pleasing almost pastel-like azure. It’s a color that should sell out fast.

@techradar
♬ original sound - TechRadar

The other two significant changes are to the hardware. Replacing the FaceTime camera is the new 12MP Center Stage Camera. It’s an ultra-wide lens in a screen notch that can keep you in the frame during video calls, and it’s a nice-to-have though not earth-shattering update.

There’s also the M4 chip, which adds cores and performance over the M3 Apple silicon it replaces. Like the M3, this is a fast, efficient, 3-nanometer chip with plenty of headroom for AAA gaming, video editing, music creation and, of course, Apple Intelligence.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) REVIEW — (Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

From one perspective, the biggest upgrade might be in the value space. Apple doubled the base memory from 8GB of unified memory to 16GB while reducing the price to $999 / £999 / AU$1,699. That’s a shocking, and very welcome, turn of events. The best MacBook is now back to its pre–MacBook Air M3 price, and better value because of it.

It really is hard to find any fault with the MacBook Air 13-inch (M4). It’s lightweight, attractive, powerful, easy to use, and up for anything. I gamed, streamed video, browsed the web, answered email, texted friends, conducted FaceTime calls, edited video, practiced guitar, and wrote this review on it. I’m not concerned about the lack of design changes, and I like the new color, the Center Stage Camera, and especially the price. I would not be surprised to see the MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) rise to the very top of our best laptops list.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review: Price and availability

Starts at $999 / £999 / AU$1,699
Lower launch price than the discontinued M3 model
M2 and M3 models no longer on the Apple Store, but M2 MacBooks can be found at third-party retailers

Rarely do I get to write about a price drop for a new product that arrives with feature enhancements. Usually, we get the same or sometimes a little less for the money. That is not the case with the MacBook Air 13-inch M4.

Even though Apple hasn't radically refreshed its best MacBook, the updates in performance, memory, and video conferencing, plus a new color, hit all the right notes – and when paired with a now $100 (in the US) lower price, they have me singing a happy tune.

Funnily enough, the first 3lb MacBook Air – the one that slid out of a manilla envelope in 2008 – cost $1,799. It would take a few years for it to hit that $999 sweet spot, which it maintained until recently.

Sometimes that $999 got you a lower-end Intel Core I, but in the age of Apple silicon we’re getting great performance and efficiency at an excellent price.

The MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) comes in three base configurations. If you upgrade to the $1,199 / £1,199 model the GPU gets a bump from eight to 10 cores, and the storage doubles to 512GB. Go for the $1,499 / £1,499 / AU$2,399 top-tier model and the base unified memory is increased from 16GB to 24GB, and you can get up to 2TB of storage. Whichever option you go for, you can upgrade the RAM to 32GB.

It’s available in the new Sky Blue (like my 256GB review unit), Midnight, Starlight, and Silver. Apple has discontinued Space Gray (for now).

Apple unveiled the MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) on March 5, 2025, and the laptop starts shipping on March 12.

Price score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review: Specs

The Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) comes in three pre-configured options.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review: Design

No major redesign
Sky Blue is subtle but attractive
Excellent construction, materials, keyboard, and trackpad

There are still some who mourn the passing of the original MacBook Air’s wedge design, the one that started at a more than half inch (1.61 cm) at one end and ended at 0.16 inches (4.064mm) at the other. That design remains so popular that the M1 model featuring it is still a top seller at Walmart.

I’ve moved on. The MacBook Air M4 is just 2.7lbs / 1.24kg, and at 11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches / 30.41 x 21.5 x 1.13cm, is thinner than the OG MacBook Air was at its thickest point. This is a laptop that's built for your backpack and, yes, it’s light enough that you might forget it’s there.

Everything about the MacBook Air M4 feels premium. The 100% recycled aluminum enclosure is light but solid and has all the exacting tolerances Apple is known for. It’s a finely machined, eye-catching piece of hardware, and few laptops can match its elegance.

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The backlit keyboard is an absolute pleasure to type on, and has remarkable travel and response for such a thin design. It includes all your function keys and a multipurpose power / sleep / Touch ID button that’s useful for unlocking the MacBook Air and logging into various apps and services with your registered fingertips.

I do prefer the Microsoft Surface Laptop’s Windows Hello feature, which lets you log on using your face in much the way you do with Face ID on any of the best iPhones, although I don’t have to touch anything because I set the MacBook Air to unlock automatically with my Apple Watch.

While Apple hasn't redesigned the keyboard, there is one small change that you might not notice at first glance: the mute key now features a speaker icon with a line through it, which matches what you see on-screen when you press the key. It's a small but clarifying change.

There’s ample room to rest your palms, and the glass-covered multi-touch trackpad is huge and responsive.

Ports and other elements are unchanged from the last two MacBook Air generations. There are two Thunderbolt 4 ports on the left side with up to 40GBps of throughput and which are capable of driving two external screens, even with the MacBook Air lid open. Next to those is the MagSafe charging port, and on the right side is the 3.5mm headphone jack.

The four-speaker stereo sound system is hidden in the hinge below the display. It can fill a room with bright, crisp audio, although it mostly lacks bass (the 15-inch model offers a 6-speaker sound system with force-cancelling sound woofers).

Design score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review: Display and Center Stage

With one exception, the 13-inch M4 MacBook Air’s display is identical to the last generation. It’s still a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina panel with 2560 x 1664 resolution and 500 nits of sustained brightness, which in my experience is viewable in direct sunlight, and support for one billion colors. It’s a fantastic display for everything from gaming to streaming to content creation.

There is a notch at the top for the camera, but most apps do not wrap around that cutout, and it’s not distracting on the desktop.

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The notch also contains the new 12MP Center Stage Camera. The idea here is that the lens is an ultra-wide camera, but for the purposes of video conferencing it crops to an undistorted rectangle. Then, as you move around, the frame moves around to keep you in the frame. If you like to get up and walk around, or people walk in and out of the video conversation, this can be tremendously useful, and it worked well for me as long as I didn't stray too far out of frame. If you need the camera to stay still (as I do when I use the 1080p camera to go on TV), you can easily turn Center Stage off.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) — (Image credit: Future)

Compared to Microsoft’s excellent Surface Laptop 7, the screen is missing one feature: touch. I used Surface laptops for years, and I did enjoy being able to touch and even draw on the display with a dedicated Bluetooth pen. Apple has steadfastly resisted introducing touch on its MacBook line – and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs didn’t think it made sense. If you require that kind of multipurpose device, you may want to consider the M4 iPad Pro 13-inch plus a Magic Keyboard.

Display score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review: macOS and Apple Intelligence

macOS Sequoia is a rich, deep, and well-organized platform
Everything is well integrated into Apple's wider ecosystem
Apple Intelligence can be useful, but it's not yet compelling

With macOS Sequoia, Apple has built one of the most consistent and stable desktop platforms on the planet. It virtually never crashes, and it’s full of useful features.

The latest version is mostly a refinement of the platform, but if it’s been a while since you’ve upgraded you will notice feature enhancement like better widgets and window-management tools, the excellent new Passwords app, and audio transcription on Notes.

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What’s more, macOS makes excellent use of the M4’s power.

At one point I ran Garage Band, and I was pleased to discover that not only could I use the MacBook Air to tune my guitar, but it could also tell me if I was playing my chords correctly. I also used Pixelmator Pro image and video editor (now owned by Apple) to effortlessly apply complex masks.

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Apple MacBook 13-inch M4 — (Image credit: Future)

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Of course, the big news on the software side is Apple Intelligence, Apple’s own brand of AI, which is supported by the M4’s 16-core neural engine.

It enables features like Image Playground, which lets you imagine wild scenes that can include representations of you and others from your Photos library. It’s good fun, but I still struggle to see the utility, and I wonder when Apple will offer a more open-range image-generation platform, one that enables me to describe a complex scene in a prompt and get a result. Most Windows laptops running Copilot can do this.

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Writing Tools, which is available in Apple's native text composition apps like Notes and Mail, is useful, especially if you struggle to write clear, cogent sentences. It's of limited utility to me.

Similarly, Siri got a few nice upgrades, like the ability to respond to text prompts and better handle broken speech patterns, but it's still unable to carry on longer conversations or learn anything about you, and you still can't use it to comprehensively control your MacBook. What’s worse is that promised updates to Siri that would have made it a more able competitor to ChatGPT and Gemini have failed to materialize. At least Siri can now tap into ChatGPT (if you allow it) for more complex queries.

Safari is an excellent browser, but I still find myself using Chrome.

Software score: 4/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review: Performance

M4 has more CPU cores than the M3 that preceded it
Ample power
Decent but not massive performance upgrade
Excellent platform and increasing Apple Intelligence capabilities

Benchmarks

Here’s how the MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

Geekbench 6.2.2 Single-Core: 3679; Multi-Core: 14430
Geekbench Metal score (8-core GPU): 48515
Cinebench 2024 Single-core: 165; Multi-core: 652
Battery life (web surfing): 14 hours 51 minutes, and 59 seconds

For comparison, here’s how the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

Geekbench 6.2.2 Single-Core: 3,148; Multi-Core: 11,893
Geekbench Metal score (10-core GPU): 49090
Cinebench 2024 Single-core: 141; Multi-core: 615

Ever since Apple switched from Intel to Apple silicon we’ve seen significant gains in performance and efficiency. The power of these lightweight laptops and the M-class chips can appear limitless, and all-day battery life is now usually a given.

Of course, the world has not stood still. Some Windows laptops are now arriving with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, and these ultraportables often nearly match Apple silicon for performance and battery life.

The M4 10-core CPU and 8-Core GPU backed by 16GB of unified memory inside my test system generally outperformed the X Elite on single-core scores but are now matched for multi-core performance.

These are just numbers of course, and I prefer to rely on real-world performance. In my tests, the MacBook Air 13 and its M4 chip handled everything I threw at it. It can be difficult to stress out the system – I played the AAA game Lies of Pi at maximum settings and it was smooth as butter, thanks no doubt in part to the new Game Mode that optimizes performance for gaming.

I highly recommend getting a controller (I use one designed for the Xbox), but regardless, the new MacBook Air offers a great gaming experience with thrilling, smooth graphics, and excellent sound.

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I often ran the game alongside multiple background apps, including Final Cut Pro. I had no trouble editing four 4K 30fps streams at once, but when I loaded up four 4K 120fps clips, I did notice some stuttering on video playback, although as this is not a considerably more expensive MacBook Pro, that doesn’t concern me.

I noticed in my benchmarking that the Metal Score on the MacBook Air M3 was slightly higher than that of the M4 system, but that’s because I had a 10-core GPU on the older MacBook and just an eight-core GPU on the new M4 system. You can, as I noted earlier in the price section, pay a bit more for the two extra cores. It’s worth noting, though, that the differences in performance between the M3 10 Core and M4 8-Core GPU were minimal.

The system supports WiFi 6e and Bluetooth 5.3, which is good, if not entirely forward-leaning – I'd like to see WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

Performance score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review: Battery life

14 hours battery life (web activities)
Effectively lasts all day (mixed use)
Charges to 50% in 90 minutes; 100% in three hours

Apple is promising up to 18 hours of battery life from the MacBook Air 13-inch (M4), which is mostly a test of how long the laptop can play 1080p video for; for comparison, Microsoft promises 20 hours from its Surface Laptop 7 for a similar task. The MacBook Air 13 M4’s real-world battery life numbers will vary significantly when performing a mix of sometimes CPU-intensive tasks.

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In my tests, which included playing games (which made the base of the laptop quite warm), editing video, opening multiple browser windows and streaming video, battery life came in around eight hours. That’s quite good for a hard day of work, and especially for such a thin and light laptop. In our Future Labs test, which is primarily web browsing, the MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) managed 14 hours, 51 minutes, which is about 30 minutes longer than the M3 but for slightly different tasks.

Overall, you're getting good, all-day battery life, but your experience will vary based on the tasks you perform.

After I drained the laptop to zero, I recharged it with the included 30W charger (the more expensive 24GB model comes with a 35W charger) and (matching Sky Blue) woven MagSafe charger to 50% in 90 minutes, and 100% in three-and-a-half hours.

Battery score: 5/5

Should you buy the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4)?

Buy it if...

You want the best ultraportable experience
The MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) might look the same as last year's model, but it's a definite upgrade – and that price makes it a winner.

You like your laptops thin and light
At 0.44 inches / 1.13cm thick and just 2.7lbs /1.24kg, the new 13-inch Air is a perfect backpack companion.

You need a good blend of power and efficiency
The MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) packs more than enough power for most users and you can bank on all-day battery life.

Don't buy it if...

You want a touchscreen
Apple may never introduce a touchscreen MacBook. For that, look to the Surface Laptop, or an iPad Pro paired with a Magic Keyboard.

You want more AI
Apple Intelligence is showing promise, but it still pales in comparison to what you'll find on some Windows Laptops with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) review: Also consider

If our Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review has you considering other options, here are two laptops to consider...

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4)
The MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) is virtually the same as the 13-inch model in every aspect except size (and screen size), but the base model does start with two extra GPU cores. It also gets a price reduction compared to the M3 model, so if screen real estate matters to you, this is the MacBook Air to go for.

Check out our MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) review

Dell XPS 13 Plus
Its thin and light design, stunning OLED screen, great sound quality, and comfortable keyboard make this a premium Windows 11 laptop that in many ways rivals the MacBook Air. However, it’s prone to overheating, and the touch bar is divisive.

Read more: Dell XPS 13 Plus review

How I tested the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4)

I used the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) for five days
I worked, played, listened, edited, and wrote this review on it
I usually ran multiple apps at once

After receiving my MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) review unit I immediately unboxed it and began testing, and it did not leave my side for much of the next five days.

I ran benchmarks, installed multiple apps, and then began using it to edit images and video, play AAA games, listen to music, stream movies and shows, answer email, browse the web, and generate words and images with Apple Intelligence.

I've been reviewing technology for over 30 years, and I've tested everything from DOS-based word processors to Apple's Vision Pro. I've reviewed laptops of all stripes, including traditional clamshells and convertibles. I regularly work on macOS but also use the Windows platform almost every day – I like to keep my hands in all the ecosystems.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed March 2025

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: one of the best Pro laptops around just got better

5:05 pm | November 7, 2024

Author: admin | Category: Computers Computing Gadgets Laptops Macbooks | Tags: AAA | Comments: Off

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) : Two-minute review

Apple's MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 is the full package, a near-perfect blend of price, performance, and utility. The M4 is the base edition of the newest and most powerful generation of Apple silicon (it's the same chip that's already running in the iPad Pro 13-inch) but it's still bursting with power, and more than capable of doing most of the heavy-lifting you want from a pro-level portable machine, as ready to edit raw photos and 4K video as it is to stand in as an able gaming console.

I've long been a fan of the MacBook Pro design, especially since Apple refined it by removing the Touch Bar, a neat innovation that never reached its full potential. My M4 Pro review unit, supplied by Apple, is a sleek-looking Space Black that's both elegant and wonderfully functional. The Magic Keyboard is still a typing gem, and I love the massive trackpad and all that space for resting my hands. And the stereo speakers that straddle the keyboard deliver powerful, crisp, and clear audio that could provide the soundtrack for your party in a pinch.

When I think about the reasons why you'd buy an M4 14-inch Mac Pro over the cheaper M3-running MacBook Air, the list is smaller than when I've compared the Pro and Air options previously, but there are a handful of standout features that make this MacBook Pro 14 M4 (2024) a near-perfect choice.

Apple MacBook Pro 14 M4 (2024) REVIEW — (Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

For starters, you have the ports. Where the Air tops out at a Thunderbolt 3 port, you get a trio of speedy Thunderbolt 4 ports with the MacBook Pro (you'll need to upgrade to the M4 Pro model for Thunderbolt 5). You also gain the SD card slot, an instant bonus for photo and video professionals. The larger body and ever-efficient 3-nanometer system-on-a-chip (SoC) means a promised 24 hours of battery life – for a Pro-level system, that's unheard of. Naturally, real-world usage times varied widely in my testing based on activity (AAA gaming can quickly eat up battery).

The biggest difference between Air and Pro might be the display. This Liquid Retina XDR is an inch larger than the MacBook Air's, and it offers a nano-texture option (an extra $150 / £150 / AU$230), something I highly recommend for cutting down on reflections in almost any situation.

With the MacBook Pro 14-inch M4, Apple has created a pro-grade portable that impresses in every respect. It joins Apple's pantheon of outstanding laptops, and is set to take a well-deserved place at or near the top of our best laptops rankings.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Price and availability

Starts at $1,599 / £2,149 / AU$3,199
Nano-texture (which you want) will run you another $150 / £150 / AU$230

Apple unveiled the M4 MacBook Pro 14-inch on October 30, along with the new MacBook Pro 16-inch, Mac mini, and iMac. All these new Macs are running variations of Apple's M4 silicon.

Pricing for the M4 MacBook Pro 14-inch starts at $1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,499 for the base configuration, which comes with the standard M4 chip and 16GB of unified memory. If you want the M4 Pro chip, pricing starts at $1,999 / £1,999 / AU$3,299, while the M4 Max model starts at $2,399 / £2,399 / AU$3,999.

My Space Black review unit is the base model (10-core M4, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage) but with one key enhancement: the aforementioned nano-texture Liquid Retina XDR display coating, which costs an extra $150 / £150 / AU$230.

Value score: 4/5

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Specs

The MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) comes in three main configurations: our test unit, the base M4; a pair featuring the M4 Pro chip with options of 16- or 20-core GPU and up to 1TB storage; and at the high end, the M4 Max model, which offers one configuration with a 14-core CPU, 32-core GPU, 32GB of unified memory, and 1TB of SSD.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Design

Virtually the same design as the previous model
All the key ports you need
Fantastic screen

Over the last few years I've become an unabashed fan of Apple's increasingly iconic laptop design. Where competitors often try different and sometimes odd design flourishes, Apple carefully peeled away all but what matters, leaving a MacBook Pro that looks and feels as if it was carved from a couple of pieces of 100% recycled black aluminum. Nothing feels like, or works like, it was left to chance. That impression starts when you put your finger under the lip of the display and flip open the clamshell to reveal the screen and keyboard. That hinge is as sure as it gets, offering the perfect blend of tension and smooth movement.

At 3.4lbs / 1.55kg. the MacBook Pro 14 M4 is not the lightest laptop or even the lightest MacBook. The excellent MacBook Air holds that distinction, and if you prize portability over power you might be reading the wrong review. On the other hand, the MacBook Pro 14 is by no means heavy (the 16-inch MacBook Pro, by contrast, weighs nearly 5lbs / 2.27kg).

Folded close, the MacBook Pro 14 is just 0.61 inches tall, 12.3 inches wide, and 8.71 inches deep. It slips into my backpack and, even though I'm used to carrying the M3 MacBook Air, I mostly forget it's there.

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Apple hasn't adjusted the ports since the M2 MacBook Pro, which is fine with me. We still have the HDMI-out port if you want to extend your display to a giant, high-resolution screen. Next to that is one of the three Thunderbolt 4 ports and an SD card slot, which I used to transfer some raw images from my DSLR. On the opposite side is the MagSafe charge port, two Thunderbolt 4 (40Gb/s) ports, and the 3.5mm headphone, although I generally connect my AirPods Pros 2 for audio. If you need Thunderbolt 5's 120Gb/s throughput speeds you'll want to upgrade to an M4 Pro chip.

The full-sized backlit Magic Keyboard is a pleasure to use (I'm composing this review on it), with ample travel and a satisfying typing feel. It includes the arrow keys and a full line of function keys. On the right side of that is the Touch ID power and sleep button. During setup, it took me a few moments to register my index finger which I now use to unlock the laptop and log into some online services. Below the keyboard is the massive, nearly 6-inch diagonal, and very responsive Forcetouch trackpad.

One of the benefits of a larger laptop is that Apple can fit a pair of speaker grilles on either side of the keyboard. They provide fantastic sound, especially when playing spatial audio (try Territory on Netflix).

The system features a pair of four-inch vents, one on each side. You usually won't hear the fan until you play AAA games or run benchmarks.

Design score: 5/5

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Display

It's gorgeous
Better brightness for SDR
The coating you want

While it might look like Apple left the Liquid Retina XDR display from the M2 MacBook Pro untouched, there are a couple of noteworthy differences. But let's start with what's the same.

It's still the same mini-LED technology offering a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and one billion colors with a P3 wide color and ProMotion with up to 120Hz refresh rate. The resolution is still nearly 4K at 3096 x 1964 pixels. However, Apple has boosted the brightness a bit, with SDR content now getting up to 1,000 nits. HDR still gets a peak brightness of 1600. These numbers primarily matter outdoors, where you might be battling back the sunshine, and I found that the display was quite effective at remaining viewable and usable in direct sunlight. I attribute this, however, only in part to the heightened SDR nit capabilities.

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My screen came with the optional nano-texture coating. This adds a fine texture across the entire screen that's meant to diffuse direct sunlight (the MacBook Pro comes with a special cloth for cleaning the screen). It costs an extra $150 / £150 / AU$230, but it's transformative technology. Not only does it effectively kill outdoor reflections, it also transforms how streaming and gaming content looks on the display. No more desk and overhead lamp bulbs peaking into the frame. No more window light killing your gaming groove. I honestly wonder why all laptops, Macs and otherwise, do not come with this texture. It's a game-changer.

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Apple MacBook Pro 14 M4 nano texture — The nano texture helps make the screen viewable in direct sunlight. (Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

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The 14.2-inch screen is big enough for lots of side-by-side app work. It's the perfect canvas for photo editing in Adobe Lightroom and video work in FinalCut Pro. but is also well suited to lighter productivity (like my efforts to write this review), email, and web browsing. It's not a touch screen because Apple refuses to bring that technology to Macs, even as the touch-friendly iPad Pro becomes more and more Mac-like. The trackpad is large enough that I don't miss touching a screen (as I did for years for Microsoft Surface Pro) but I can't help but wonder how a MacBook Pro with a touch, and Apple Pencil-friendly, display would alter the way we use this laptop.

The other display change relates less to what you'll see on the Liquid Retina XDR panel and more to how others will see you through it. Apple has upgraded the FaceTime camera, which sits at the top of the display in a cutout notch, with a 12MP ultrawide that supports its Center Stage technology. Center Stage takes the full 12MP ultrawide frame and narrows the viewport so that you are always centered in the frame. It doesn't matter if you lean left or right or get up and walk around the room, Center Stage will follow. It's a useful feature in FaceTime – I tested it on a call with my wife who wondered why I kept moving around – and also on Zoom, where it worked well but was not useful in a broadcast video situation, so I turned it off. Center Stage did not work for me in Google Meet, where I conduct most of my video meetings.

Display score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Performance

M4 has the Pro power most need
macOS Sequoia is flexible and easy to use
AAA gaming on a Mac is real

Benchmarks

Here’s how the MacBook Pro 14-inch (2024) performed in our suite of TechRadar and Future Labs benchmark tests:

Cinebench R23 CPU: Single-Core: 2,180 Multi-Core: 13773
Geekbench 6.3 Single-Core: 3,845; Multi-Core: 15,136
Geekbench AI: Single: 4,764 Half Precision: 7,837 ; Quantized Score: 6.357

PugentBench Photoshop: 10,542
PugentBench Premier Pro: 4,618
Blender: Monster: 115.8; Junkshop: 73.17; Classroom: 188.1
Battery Life (web site surfing rundown): 18 hours and 31 minutes

The last time we reviewed a 14-inch MacBook Pro, it was running an M2 Pro. The base M4 inside my test unit has similar but not equal specs. It's still a 10-core CPU, but where the M2 Pro had a 16-core GPU, the M4 starts with 10 cores. However the M2 chips were all built on a 5-nanometer process, and the M4 line is on the more efficient three nanometers, which could lead to a better combination of power and efficiency.

The Neural Engine, which handles a lot of onboard machine learning and AI tasks, still has the same 16 cores.

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Apple MacBook Pro 14 M4 FPS test — The FPS ranged from low 40s to mid 60s on Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Image credit: Future)

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Apple is now backing all of its new Macs with at least 16GB of RAM. This pays dividends in AI (Apple Intelligence is on board) and graphically intense operations like ray tracing, which helps make games like Lies of P look incredible on the MacBook Pro 14.

In benchmark testing, I found the numbers in line with the M4 performance I saw from the iPad Pro 13 inch. Geekbench 6.3 numbers measurably exceed those of the M3 in my MacBook Air.

When I played Shadow of the Tomb Radar, Steam's internal frames per second counter showed I got anywhere between 42fps and 62fps. To my eyes, there was no tearing or dropped frames.

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Numbers only tell you so much, and what matters most is real-world experience. I did do a fair amount of gaming on this MacBook Pro. As I noted above, the nano-texture screen makes games look amazing. In my Lies of P sessions (I connected an X Box controller via Bluetooth), I took note of the rich atmospherics, from rain to fire, and the level of detail that never descended into unwatchable blurs. Gaming on the MacBook Pro benefits from macOS Sequoia's Game Mode, which prioritizes gaming tasks for truly smooth and responsive performance.

In FinalCut Pro, I edited four 4K 30fps streams at once, which played back smoothly in full-screen preview. However, when I tried the same thing with four 4K 120fps video clips shot on the iPhone 16 Pro Max, full-screen playback started dropping frames – an on-screen message confirmed this. It was one of the rare times I found the limits of Apple silicon.

Editing raw photos in Adobe Lightroom is a breeze. It's also worth noting that I rarely shut down other apps while I performed these operations, and as I noted earlier, the only times I heard the fans were during console-grade gameplay and Cinebench 23 benchmarking.

Keep in mind that my tests were all with the base M4 Apple silicon; imagine what you can expect from the M4 Pro and M4 Max.

Connectivity is mostly what you would expect, with support for Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6E. I am a bit disappointed, though, that Apple didn't future-proof the laptop a bit with Wi-Fi 7 support.

Performance score: 5/5

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Software

macOS 15.1
Some Apple Intelligence

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macOS Sequoia (macOS 15.1) has a lot to offer. There's the new Passwords app, which gives you a full-blown application for managing your passwords, and there's the updated Notes, which can now transcribe recordings. It's not as good as the transcription in Voice Recorder on Android (it doesn't identify multiple speakers) but it's still useful.

There are now Highlights in Safari that can take a 3,000-word-plus New Yorker article and boil it down to a one-paragraph summary. I worry that loses the nuance of such a piece, but if you're in a hurry...

There's also iPhone Mirroring, which lets you access and control your iPhone from the MacBook Pro. It's supposed to be useful when you don't have access to your iPhone (maybe it's just in another room), and I found it easy to connect an iPhone 16 Pro and then have a virtual version of the iPhone on my MacBook Pro 14 desktop. What's even wilder is how I can control the phone from the desktop system. I can message, browse the web, and even drag and drop between the desktop and the iPhone interface. I did notice that while I can open the iPhone camera, I cannot use the MacBook Pro 14 to take a picture with the phone.

Apple Intelligence is here within macOS 15.1, in the form of a redesigned Siri that supports Type to Siri and which can be dragged around the desktop. I found that I could ask Siri how to do things with the MacBook Pro, like find my Wi-Fi settings and opening an app like Notes.

Apple Intelligence puts email summaries at the top of email, and the writing tools are embedded throughout the system. In Notes, I asked the Writing Tools to rewrite my lengthy meeting notes. It did a really good job of boiling it all down to a concise bullet list, which I could also easily undo. This could be very useful.

This is not all of Apple Intelligence. There's no Image Playground for instance, but that will show up with macOS 15.2, possibly by early December.

A taste of AI

During my testing, I did install the macOS 15.2 Developer Beta so that I could get a sample of this MacBook Pro 14 M4's Apple Intelligence capabilities. Because this update is not intended for the public, my thoughts on this dev beta were not considered as part of my final software, performance and overall review score.

First, I was excited to see Clean Up now inside of the Photos app. It works just as it does in iOS 18 on the iPhone, and was useful for removing some unwanted items from my photos.

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Apple MacBook Pro 14 M4 (2024) Apple Intelligence — (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff)

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ChatGPT's Siri integration, which I had to enable, is quite smooth, and looks and works as if it's a part of Siri. I used it in the Type to Siri mode, entering my prompt about how to create a goods presentation. The answer I got from ChatGPT through Siri was solid.

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Apple MacBook Pro 14 M4 (2024) ChatGPT Siri integration. — (Image credit: Future)

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Image Playground, the generative AI image tool which lives in an adorable kitty app icon in the Dock, is also part of this beta, but it's still gated by an invite and, as I write this, I still await mine.

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Battery life

Rated for 24-hour video streaming
Lasted more than 18 hours in our tests
Battery life is dependent on activity

The MacBook Pro 14 M4 is, according to Apple's promises, perhaps the first truly all-day laptop, rated to last up to 24 hours on a charge. Naturally, that's if you do nothing but stream seasons 1 through 3 of Stranger Things. Once you start adding in activities like web browsing, and emailing, Slack, gaming, and photo and video editing, those numbers change.

In our Future Labs tests, we found that we could get 18.5 hours of web browsing, which is two hours more than Apple is promising. Once I started gaming, though, battery life took a fast tumble; the system is clearly hard at work rendering the exquisite detail in Lies of P. I heard the fans going full-blast, and noticed the bottom of the laptop got quite warm. My advice is if you want to use the MacBook Pro 14 M4 as a gaming rig, keep the included 70W charger and woven USB-C to MagSafe cable close by.

Speaking of that charger; when I drained the system to zero, I was able to use it to recharge the MacBook Pro 14 M4 to 43% in 30 minutes. That's a bit less than the 50% I was expecting. To fully recharge, it took more than an hour.

I've had incredible battery experiences with the MacBook Air and its M3 chip. I can already see that, in normal use, the MacBook Pro 14 M4 is a sun-up-to-sun-down kind of system. That's impressive, and a big win for Pro fans.

Battery score: 4.5 / 5

Should you buy the Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024)?

Buy it if...

You want portable power without breaking the bank
The MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) is a good blend of performance, portability, and reasonable price.

You want sunrise-to-sunset battery life
You can easily get a day of activity with the power-sipping system

You’re Team Apple
There are great benefits to adding a MacBook when you already have an iPhone and an Apple account.

Don't buy it if...

You want the ultimate performance
This is a baseline M4, but the new MacBook Pro comes in M4 flavors that run up to the new M4 Max and a 16-inch display.

You need a touch screen
No MacBook offers it. Try an iPad or a Surface Pro.

You have a 2024 MacBook Pro
Apple hasn't redesigned the MacBook Pro, and the M2 and M4 performance numbers are not that far apart.

MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 (2024) review: Also consider

If our Apple MacBook Pro 14 M4 (2024) review leaves you considering other options, here are two laptops to consider...

Apple MacBook Air (M3, 2022)
The follow-up to one of the best laptops ever released, the 2022 MacBook Air is svelte and sleek, with a larger screen and the same outstanding battery life. If you want a MacBook, but don't need the power of the MacBook Pro 14-inch, this is the one to get.

Check out our Apple MacBook Air (M2, 2022) review

Dell XPS 13 Plus
Its sleek and slim design, combined with a gorgeous OLED screen, great sound quality, and lattice-free keyboard embodies the luxury inherent of an Ultrabook. However, it’s also prone to overheating, and the touch bar is annoyingly inaccessible.

Read more: Dell XPS 13 Plus review

How I tested the Apple MacBook Pro 14 M4 (2024)

I spent more than a week with the MacBook Pro 14 M4 (2024)
I used it as an everyday productivity, creativity, and entertainment device
I ran benchmarks

Apple provided me with the base MacBook Pro 14 M4 system, and I used it every day to test and help craft this review. I set it up as a work system, and as one for production and play. I used it indoors and outdoors.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed November 2024

Apple Mac mini (M4, 2024): smaller, faster, better

5:02 pm |

Author: admin | Category: Computers Computing Gadgets Laptops Macbooks | Tags: Apple Mac, PC | Comments: Off

Two-minute review

The new Mac mini (M4, 2024) doesn’t just prove that good things come in small packages – it also confirms the old adage that good things come to those who wait.

That’s because ever since Apple’s rather strange decision to debut the M4 chip in the iPad Pro in early 2024, myself – and I’m sure other Mac fans – have been not-so-patiently waiting for Apple devices that can take full advantage of the M4 chip (as good as the iPad Pro is, you can only run iPadOS apps on it – which by their very nature are not that demanding).

The fact that Apple has launched a new Mac mini that not only comes with the new M4 chip (or the more powerful M4 Pro), but has redesigned it to be smaller than ever – while also keeping the price of entry the same – is incredibly exciting. In my review of the Mac mini (2023), I gave a rare five stars and called it the best mini PC you can buy, and even before the launch I was banging on about how any rumored new Mac mini for 2024 would be more exciting than new MacBooks.

Now that I’ve actually got the Mac mini (M4, 2024) in my hands (and on my desk), I’m pleased to say that I’ve not been disappointed, and once again the Mac mini is the most affordable way to get into the Mac ecosystem, while also proving that if you’re looking for a small form factor desktop PC, there’s not a single Windows 11 PC out there that can even come close.

Perhaps the best news (apart from the mere fact that the M4 Mac mini exists) is that Apple has kept the price of the base model at just $599 / £599 / AU$999, a welcome decision that—combined with the new design and improved specs—means the Mac mini is now better value than ever. If you’ve been keen to join the macOS ecosystem but can’t afford a MacBook or iMac, then the Mac mini remains an excellent choice.

Mac mini M4 in studio — (Image credit: Future)

For people after even more power, there’s an M4 Pro model as well that costs $1,399 / £1,399 / AU$2,199. Both models come with 16GB unified memory as standard (double the amount as the previous model), and will receive Apple Intelligence AI features as they are rolled out.

Not only do you get the latest slice of Apple Silicon with the new Mac mini, but it has also had a major redesign – its biggest in over a decade – making it more compact than ever. It’s seriously impressive how small the new Mac mini is, and it makes placing it in any room of your home (or office) easier than ever. Thanks to two USB-C ports at the front, the Mac mini (M4, 2024) is an ideal mini PC for your front room – especially as gaming is a renewed focus for Apple. This could be the closest we ever come to an Apple games console – and with a price tag below the PS5 Pro, this could be the start of a resurgence for Mac gaming.

From my time with the Mac mini I was incredibly impressed with the performance of this tiny PC. The latest version of macOS, Sequoia, ran smoothly, and even advanced tasks such as video editing were handled with ease – and the Mac mini kept virtually silent throughout. The model I reviewed is the M4 version, and to be honest it performed so well for all the tasks I used it for that I would recommend this model over the far more expensive M4 Pro iteration.

So, Apple has done it again: it’s released the best small form factor PC in the world, and I can’t see Windows 11 or Linux alternatives coming close to the build quality, performance and value for money of the new Mac mini for a long, long time. If ever.

Mac mini (M4, 2024) (M4 Pro, 2024) review: Price and availability

Starts at $599 / £599 / AU$999
Same price as M2 model
M4 Pro model much more expensive at $1,399 / £1,399 / AU$2,199

When the Mac mini (M4, 2024) was announced and pre-orders went live on October 29, 2024, one of the most pleasant surprises was that the base M4 model comes with the same price tag as the M2 model - starting at $599 / £599 / AU$999.

The M2 Mac mini already represented excellent value for money – it would be extremely difficult to find a compact Windows 11 PC at that price range that offered the same level of performance – so the fact that you’re getting an upgrade in both performance and design for no extra cost is something to applaud – though if you recently bought an M2 Mac mini, you might feel a bit aggrieved.

The M4 chip inside the Mac mini is the same as the one in much more expensive devices, including the iPad Pro (starting at $1,299 / £1,299 / AU $2,199), iMac ($1,299 / £1,299 / AU$1,999) and 14-inch MacBook Pro ($1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,499). Sure, with the Mac mini you don’t get a screen, nor do you have the ability to work on it while traveling, but offering the same amount of power for around half the price still represents incredible value for money.

The M4 chip features up to a 10-core CPU (4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores) and a 10-core GPU, up from the 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU of the base M3 chip (Apple never released a Mac mini with the M3, it should be noted), and supports up to 38 trillion operations per second (TOPS) in its 16-core neural engine (Apple's version of an NPU) - so when Apple Intelligence, the company’s generative AI (artificial intelligence) feature does come to macOS, the M4 Mac mini will be more than prepared.

It’s not just the M4 chip that brings a performance upgrade, as the base model now comes with 16GB of unified memory, twice that of the M2 Mac mini’s base model. Not only does this mean the new Mac mini is much better at multitasking (as there’s more memory to support multiple apps running at once), but it’s also more future-proof.

You can also get the new Mac mini with the more powerful M4 Pro chip, which starts at $1,399 / £1,399 / AU$2,199. That’s quite a price jump, and while the M4 Pro is certainly a promising bit of silicon on paper, it’ll have to really outperform the M4 to justify the price difference.

We’ve been sent the M4 version to review, and for the majority of people, that should be more than capable enough for the kind of tasks they’ll need this tiny PC to perform. Having the M4 Pro option is nice, despite the price hike, as you are getting a seriously powerful PC in a tiny and almost silent form factor.

There was also a brief moment between Apple announcing the new Mac mini and it revealing the new MacBook Pros with M4 Pro where the M4 Pro Mac mini was arguably the most powerful Mac device ever. Remarkable.

Value score: 5/5

Mac mini (M4, 2024): Specs

Mac mini (M4, 2024): Design

Brilliant, smaller design
Front USB-C ports are welcome
Power button placement is a bit awkward

The Mac mini (M4, 2024) has received its biggest redesign since arguably 2011, and it’s now what Apple calls its “smallest computer ever”.

Where the previous model had dimensions of 197 x 197 x 35.8 mm (7.75 x 7.75 x 1.41 inches), the new Mac mini (M4, 2024) measures just 127 x 127 mm x 50 mm (5 x 5 x 2 inches). When taking it out of the box, it’s seriously impressive how small it is, easily fitting in the palm of your hand. Placing it on top of the M2 model, the older Mac mini looked big and bulky – something I’d never have imagined, as that was an impressively small bit of kit when it launched.

The new Mac mini is a bit taller than the older models, but if that’s the sacrifice that had to be made in order to shrink the overall footprint of the PC, while packing it with the latest tech, then it’s one I’m happy with. It’ll easily fit behind a monitor, and even in front of a screen, it’s unobtrusive enough that you’ll hardly notice it. Its small size also means you can plug it into your TV and it won’t look out of place in your lounge. For anyone holding out for an Apple games console, the Mac mini (M4, 2024) could end up being as close as you’re going to get.

As if to prove that the new Mac mini can be just as at home in a lounge as in an office or studio, it now comes with two USB-C ports at the front, alongside a headphone jack for easy access.

New Mac mini M4 in a studio — (Image credit: Future)

At the rear there’s a power port (impressively, despite the tiny size, there’s no bulky external PSU), an Ethernet port and an HDMI that’s capable of up to 8K at 60Hz, or 4K at 240Hz.

There are also three additional USB-C ports. While the front USB-C ports are limited to USB 3 speeds (10Gb/s), the three on the back are much faster. With the M4 model, the rear ports are Thunderbolt 4, with speeds of up to 40Gb/s. If you go for the M4 Pro model, those are upgraded to Thunderbolt 5, with speeds of up to 120Gb/s.

While it’s a shame that the front USB-C ports are slower than the rear ones, if you’re mainly using them for plugging in and charging peripherals, they’ll be fine, leaving the rear ports for tasks that need faster data transfer speeds – such as external hard drives or additional screens.

While the new design is a triumph on the whole, one element of the redesign has caused controversy – the placement of the power button. Rather than being on the rear right-hand corner of the Mac mini, as with previous models, it is now located on the bottom of the Mac mini by the rear left-hand corner. While the Mac mini is raised from the surface you place it on by a circular air vent bottom-center of the PC, you still need to lift it up to reach the button. As the new Mac mini is so small and light, and there are no moving parts inside, this isn’t too much of a problem, though if you’ve placed the Mac mini in a TV cabinet or somewhere where it’s hard to reach, it could be frustrating.

There are workarounds – you could just put the Mac mini to sleep rather than shutting it down, and waking it up by moving the mouse or tapping the keyboard, but even Macs need to be fully powered down every now and again. You could also use the Wake-on-LAN feature of macOS, which allows you to turn on the Mac mini by sending a command over the internet, though again you’ll need the Mac mini to be asleep, not fully turned off.

It’s certainly not the end of the world, but it’s not one of Apple’s better design choices. Placing the power button on the top or front of the Mac mini might ruin the aesthetics, but would have been easier to reach – or even having the power button still on the bottom, but on one of the front corners would have helped.

The new Mac mini only comes with the device itself and a power cord. Any other cables or peripherals will need to be bought separately (though if you’ve already got, say, an HDMI cable and a mouse and keyboard, then that shouldn’t be too much of a burden).

If you need peripherals to go with the Mac mini you can buy the Magic Keyboard for $99 / £99 / AU$149, the Magic Trackpad for $129 / £129 / AU$209, and the Magic Mouse for $79 / £79 / AU$149. These have had slight design changes as they now use the universal USB-C cable to plug in and charge, rather than Apple’s proprietary Lightning cable, which is good to see.

Sadly, Apple didn’t take the opportunity to move the charging port of the Magic Mouse – it’s still located at the bottom of the mouse, which is a baffling design choice as it means when you plug it in to charge you can’t continue using it.

Of course, you don’t need these new peripherals as any Mac-compatible mouse or keyboard (which is any mouse or keyboard, basically) will work – though there’s no full-size USB A port anymore, so if those peripherals aren’t USB-C or Bluetooth, then you might need to buy an adapter.

Design score: 4.5/5

Mac mini (M4, 2024) review: Performance

Excellent performance
Virtually silent
Can even play some games

Once upon a time I was rather worried that Apple had fallen out of love with Macs, and especially the Mac mini, as the company seemed far more enamored with its iPhone and iPads, leaving its Macs to make do with incremental hardware updates within increasingly outdated designs.

Then Apple dumped Intel and made its own chips, starting with the M1 in 2020, and my doubts have pretty much vanished, as every major Mac device has not only been upgraded to an M-series chip, but they’ve also had noticeable redesigns as well, proving that Apple is committed to its Mac lineup. So, it’s with some relief that the Mac mini has not just got the latest M4 (and M4 Pro) chips, but also a major redesign as well, as it’s likely to be one of Apple’s more niche products.

It shouldn’t be – since getting M-Series chips, the Mac mini has become the best small form factor PC you can buy. Small PCs with either Windows 11 or Linux simply cannot match the build quality, performance, and price of Apple’s tiny machine, and with the M4 chip, that gap has become even wider.

Along with the 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU of the M4, the chip contains 28 billion transistors, up from 25 billion in the M3, but is still built on the same 3nm process node from TSMC, so a generational leap is out of the question.

In synthetic benchmarks there’s around a 20% increase in CPU performance when using Geekbench 6, though GPU performance upticks are more modest, with between 5% - 14% increases in benchmarks.

While any increase is always welcome, those kind of numbers mean if you have an M3 Mac mini, you won’t really see any major differences in performance, so upgrading might not be worth it (unless you absolutely have to have the smaller design of the newer Mac mini, which I wouldn’t blame you for).

Where things do get interesting when comparing performance between the M3 and M4 Mac mini is when it comes to AI – both artificial intelligence and Apple Intelligence. With the M4, Apple has included another 16-core Neural Engine dedicated to machine learning and AI tasks, and in AI benchmarks the results are pretty remarkable, with around a 35% increase in performance over the M3. Whether or not Apple Intelligence, or AI in general, will usher in the computing revolution we’ve been promised by many manufacturers has yet to be seen, but at the very least you know that if you buy an M4 Mac mini (or any M4 device), you’ll be in good stead should you wish to use future AI tools.

According to Apple, the M4 chip is capable of 38 TOPS - that's 38,000,000,000,000 operations per second – which is incredibly impressive and means on-device AI tasks should run well. However, the Snapdragon X Elite, like the M4 an ARM-based chip built for Windows 11 devices, offers 45 TOPS. That difference in operations per second isn’t huge, and it might not even be noticeable, especially when comparing Windows 11’s Copilot AI tool to Apple Intelligence, but it’s worth noting.

Apple Intelligence is introduced to Macs in macOS Sequoia 15.1 – and you’ll need to update the new Mac mini to get that version – thankfully, it’s quick and easy process.

The model I review here is the Mac mini with M4 chip, 16GB of unified memory, and a 512GB SSD. For day-to-day tasks, where I used the Mac mini for writing this review, browsing the web and general admin, it worked brilliantly. The operating system – macOS Sequoia – booted quickly, and every app I used loaded speedily and ran smoothly.

We’re now four years on from when Apple made the major move from Intel-based hardware to ARM-based, and that has allowed pretty much every major Mac application to make the move as well. This means it’s now very rare to have to use Apple’s Rosetta 2 tool, which allows apps made for Intel Macs to run on modern Apple Silicon Macs. That tool was essential in the early M1 days, and it meant you could still run your apps with minimal impact to performance.

Now that almost every Mac app, including those from third parties, runs natively on Apple Silicon means they can fully take advantage of the power of the M4 chip (though Steam, the popular store and launcher for PC games, still requires Rosetta to run).

Benchmarks

Here’s how the Mac mini (M4, 2024) performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

Cinebench 2024 CPU: Single-Core: 161; Multi-Core: 833
Geekbench 6.3 Single-Core: 3,838; Multi-Core: 14,838
Blender: Monster: 391; Junkshop: 187.6; Classroom: 185.2

One of the best things about Apple’s M-class chips is that the company has made a big commitment to making them as power-efficient as possible, and while this might benefit MacBooks more, as it means they can enjoy longer battery lives, the Mac mini also benefits, as the more efficient M4 chip runs cooler, which allowed Apple to shrink the body of the Mac mini – and it also means the built-in fans that are used to expel hot air when the components are being used rarely kick in. For almost all of my time using the new Mac mini, it was virtually silent. This is great when using it in an office or studio, and it also makes it an ideal mini PC for the front room.

Even when switching to more intensive tasks, such as editing videos in Adobe Premiere Pro, the Mac mini kept pace brilliantly as I added 4K footage and scrolled between scenes. When it comes to gaming, the Mac mini (M4, 2024) was surprisingly good – on high graphical settings, it ran Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 44fps, well above the 30fps I consider to be minimum for a game to be playable, and with a bit of tweaking I think you’d get to 60fps.

Running Total War: Warhammer 3 at Ultra scored just 22.1fps, however. This game is more strenuous on the CPU rather than the GPU, though when I set the visual settings to low it hit 55.4fps. These are modern and ambitious games, so for a compact PC that’s not designed for gaming at this price, that performance is pretty darn great, and you have access to a huge library of Mac games through Steam and other platforms. Throughout playing, the Mac mini remained completely silent.

While the M4 model isn’t going to trouble the PS5 Pro any time soon when it comes to playing games, the fact that such a small device can still give a decent experience is pretty cool, and I assume the M4 Pro model is an even more competent gaming device, though for the price that is a lot steeper than any console - and even many gaming laptops.

Apple has also made a big deal about the M4 chip and its AI abilities, and from my tests it's... fine. Apple Intelligence is in its infancy, so I could not try out all the features that are coming, but I was able to edit a photo in the included Photos app and use the AI-powered Clean Up feature to remove elements from a photo. It worked as well as you might expect these early AI features to perform - it was quick and easy to do, but the background the AI generates in order for the objects you select (by painting over them with a brush) left mistakes and errors that mean it's far from perfect, and you can easily tell AI has been used.

From the AI tools so far, they are interesting yet not essential - bascially the same problem many AI tools have at the moment. For the Mac mini's part, it performed those AI feats all on-device, and they were done quickly and speedily. This is an area where I can see the Mac mini improving.

Performance score: 4.5/5

Mac mini (M4, 2024): Should you buy it?

Buy it if…

You want an affordable Mac
This is the cheapest way to get into the Mac ecosystem, and it's worth every cent thanks to excellent performance and a gorgeous design.

You're looking for a mini PC
Put simply, if you want a small form factor PC, this is the one to get. No Windows 11 mini PC can come close.

You've been waiting for an Apple console
Thanks to its compact size, you can easily fit this below (or behind) a TV, and it does a decent job of playing games, though the M4 Pro model may offer a better experience with modern titles.

Don’t buy it if…

You want a gaming PC
While you can play a growing library of Mac-compatible games, if you want to play the latest titles at high definitions and graphical settings whacked up to the max, buy a dedicated gaming PC instead.

You like to tinker and upgrade your PCs
Due to the size, and Apple's general disdain for allowing its customers to open up their devices, this is not a PC you can upgrade yourself. A barebones mini PC like a NUC will be much better.

First reviewed November 2024

Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024): power refined

5:00 pm |

Author: admin | Category: Computers Computing Gadgets Laptops Macbooks | Tags: Australia, UK, US | Comments: Off

Two-minute review

Apple’s new MacBook Pro 16-inch isn’t a revolutionary release like the new, smaller, Mac mini (M4, 2024), and instead is more of a specs refresh for the company’s most powerful laptop.

So, you don’t get any new design tweaks with the new model – but you do get the very latest M4-series chips which represent the pinnacle of Apple’s mobile hardware.

This is good news for people who are looking for an incredibly powerful workstation laptop that offers exceptional build quality and the kind of performance that many desktop PCs would struggle to achieve. For those of us who have been waiting for the M4 chip to show up in a device that can take full advantage of its power (this year’s iPad Pro, which debuted the M4 chip, is limited by running iPadOS, an operating system designed for tablets, with rather basic apps to match), the 16-inch MacBook Pro Apple announced in October 2024 could be just what you’ve been waiting for – though there are caveats.

Both of the new 16-inch and 14-inch MacBook Pros feature, for the first time, the M4 Pro and M4 Max (depending on configuration), which are even more powerful versions of the M4 – which has already proved to be a powerful chip in its own right. The model Apple sent me to review comes with the M4 Pro, a chip with up to a 14-core CPU consisting of up to 10 performance cores and four efficiency cores, and a GPU with up to 20 cores (twice that of the base M4 chip).

While this isn’t the most powerful Apple chip (the M4 Max comes with a CPU with up to 16-cores, featuring 12 performance cores and four efficiency cores, and a GPU with 40 cores), the M4 Pro will likely be more than enough for people who want a laptop that can handle professional tasks such as code compilation, 3D animation and video editing.

For people who just want a laptop for browsing the web, creating documents, and editing home movies and photos, this will be complete overkill. As the core balance of the M4 Pro shows, with more performance cores than efficiency ones, Apple’s focus with the new 16-inch MacBook Pro is all about extreme performance (the chip will switch between cores depending on the kind of task you’re doing – if you want a lot of power, the performance cores are used, for lighter use, the efficiency cores kick in).

16-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Pro chip in a studio being used — (Image credit: Future)

This means unless you’re a creative professional, the 16-inch MacBook Pro (M4 Pro, 2024) really won’t be for you. And, with a starting price of $2,499 / £2,499 / AU$3,999 for the base configuration, which comes with the M4 Pro chip and 24GB of unified memory, this is the kind of investment that you should think very carefully about. That’s even more true of the M4 Max model, which starts at $3,499 / £3,499 / AU$5,699. Sure, you’re getting one of the most powerful laptops in the world for that price, but if you’re not going to need that kind of power, you’ll just be wasting money.

If you’re the kind of person who needs the very latest and most powerful hardware you might also be tempted – but don’t forget that it’s very likely we’ll see an M5 model next year. Should you buy the new MacBook Pro 16-inch, however, you should be confident in the knowledge that you’ll not need to upgrade again for a very long time.

For anyone hoping for a major redesign, then you will be disappointed. One thing I’ll say in Apple’s defense here is that the current design of the MacBook Pro 16-inch is pretty great – there’s not much I’d actually change about it. Even though the screen isn’t OLED (rumors suggest we could see that in 2026), the Liquid Retina XDR screen remains one of the finest you can get in a laptop – and there is at least a new nanotexture coating option that reduces reflections and screen glare, which will be welcome for people looking to use the new MacBook Pro out in daylight, or in brightly lit offices or studios – though this does come at an extra cost.

So, once again Apple has created an absolutely phenomenal laptop… that I can’t really recommend to everyone. If you’re a creative professional who is looking for a portable workstation to chew through some seriously taxing tasks, then this could be an excellent investment that could even save you money in the long run (with projects completing faster, you can take on more clients, and you won't need to buy a new laptop for many, many years).

That said, if you own an M2 Pro or M3 Pro model, the M4 Pro doesn’t offer enough of a performance leap to justify buying a new MacBook Pro just yet. The best move in that case would be to wait a few more years. If the M6 Pro MacBook Pro in 2026 does indeed come with a major redesign, then an upgrade is more justifiable, as the performance improvements should also be more noticeable. This isn’t a knock on the M4 Pro – it’s just that the M2 Pro and M3 Pro are just so good, you really shouldn’t feel like you need to upgrade just yet.

If you don’t need the kind of power that the new MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024) offers, then I strongly recommend you look at the 15-inch MacBook Air (M3, 2024) instead, which is far more affordable, offers excellent performance and is all wrapped up in Apple’s iconic build quality and design.

MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024) review: Price and availability

Starts at $2,499 / £2,499 / AU$3,999
Same price in US as M3 model
Cheaper in UK and Australia than M3 model

It should come as no surprise that the new MacBook Pro 16-inch is a very expensive laptop. This is a workstation designed for professional use and packed with some of the most powerful and cutting-edge mobile technology you can get, along with a gorgeous and expansive 16-inch screen.

Still, with a starting price of $2,499 / £2,499 / AU$3,999 for the M4 Pro model with 24GB of unified memory, this is one heck of an investment and one that should be carefully considered.

As with previous MacBook Pros, there’s scope to configure the 16-inch MacBook Pro before you buy by adding more memory and a larger SSD (up to 128GB of memory and 8TB of SSD storage with some models), but the price rises exponentially. You can also get a base model with the more powerful M4 Max chip, which starts at $3,499 / £3,499 / AU$5,699, and again you can up the memory and storage.

You can also add a nano-texture display which reduces reflections and screen glare, which may prove very helpful for people who work in industries where graphics are essential (such as photography, digital arts, and filmmaking), but this is also an additional cost – it’ll add $150 / £150 / AU$230 to an already high price tag.

Interestingly, while the base model of the MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024) remains the same price as the M3 Pro and M2 Pro models launched at in the US ($2,499), in both the UK and Australia the new M4 Pro base model is actually slightly cheaper by £100 and AU$300.

If you want something more affordable, your options are limited. There’s no 16-inch MacBook Pro with the base M4 chip – you’ll have to go for the 14-inch MacBook Pro for that. The smaller model, which starts at $1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,499 for a configuration with the M4 chip and 16GB of unified memory now occupies the space the now obsolete 13-inch MacBook Pro used to – a more affordable pro device with more modest specifications for people who want more power than a MacBook Air can provide, but without costing the sort of astronomical figures that high-end MacBook Pros demand.

The 14-inch model with M4 Pro starts at $1,999 / £1,999 / AU$3,299, so if you want to save $500 and don’t mind a smaller screen (the rest of the specs are the same as the 16-inch model), then this is worth considering.

Compared to Windows 11 alternatives, there’s the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 8, which costs around $1,000 / £1,000, and offers some decent specs and a solid build quality, and a gorgeous screen – plus it’s a 2-in-1 laptop which you won’t get with any MacBook.

Other Windows 11 workstations offering similar performance are around the MacBook Pro’s price, such as the Asus Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED, which comes with a second screen built above the keyboard (think the Touch Bar, but much larger). While this could also be dismissed as a gimmick, both Asus and Lenovo show that Windows 11 laptops have a far larger variety of form factors and designs.

Value score: 3.5/5

MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024): Specs

MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024): Design

No new design
Screen remains one of the best in a laptop
Awkward to use when commuting

Once again, Apple has kept the design of the MacBook Pro unchanged – so from first glance you won’t really notice any difference. It’s still got the rather chunky dimensions of 14.01 x 9.77 x 0.66 inches (356 x 248 x 17mm) and a weight of 4.7 lbs and 2.2kg. While it’s a stylish-looking laptop with that unmistakable Apple aesthetic, this is a large laptop that a lot of people might struggle with.

Whilst writing this review on the MacBook Pro 16-inch, I traveled into London on the train, and the sheer size of the laptop made using it on the drop-down desk quite awkward – it certainly made me miss my 13-inch MacBook Pro.

The size of the MacBook Pro 16-inch is understandable, as there are a lot of powerful components that need plenty of airflow to keep cool, and the large screen also means the overall size of the laptop needs to be on the bigger side. But if you’re looking for a portable laptop you can whip out while commuting, you may be better off looking at the 14-inch model, or going with a MacBook Air.

That said, when walking around with the MacBook Pro in my backpack, it didn’t feel uncomfortably heavy – and the 16-inch screen really is a joy to work on.

Superficially, port selection for the 16-inch MacBook Pro seems the same, with a MagSafe 3 port for attaching the power supply, two USB-C ports, and 3.5mm headphone jack on the left-hand side, and a USB-C port, HDMI and SDXC memory card slot on the right.

This is a decent selection of ports, though not mind-blowing. The memory card slot continues to be a welcome inclusion for photographers and videographers, as you won’t need an adaptor, and the HDMI port makes plugging the 16-inch MacBook Pro into a monitor, TV, or projector incredibly easy. The lack of USB-A ports means if you have older peripherals you’ll need an adapter to use them.

On the surface the ports may seem the same, but Apple’s made quite a drastic change with the USB-C ports, which are now all Thunderbolt 5 compatible. This offers far faster data transfer speeds (up to 120Gb/s) than the Thunderbolt 4 ports included in the previous model (which offered up to 40Gb/s). While Thunderbolt 5 devices are currently few and far between (and quite expensive), it does set the MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024) up as a future-proof device – and if you work with very large files, this new standard will be very welcome.

On the other hand, if you’re perfectly happy with the speeds your current USB-C SSD offers, then it’ll work just as well with the new MacBook Pro, and Thunderbolt 5 is backward compatible.

The 16-inch 3456 x 2234 Liquid Retina XDR display remains the same (with mini-LED, 1,000 nits sustained brightness, wide color P3 gamut, ProMotion technology) as previous models. The screen offers a sharp image quality thanks to its 7.7 million pixels, resulting in a pixel density of 254ppi (pixels per inch). However, you can now configure the new MacBook Pro 16-inch to come with a nano-texture surface, which gives the screen a matte quality that minimizes reflections and glare.

The model of MacBook Pro that Apple sent me to test came with that nano-texture surface, and in the bright overhead lights of our London office, the effect was subtle yet pleasant – there was no glare or reflections, and I can imagine outside in direct sunlight the MacBook Pro 16-inch is just as comfortable to use (as it’s October and I’m in the UK, direct sunlight isn’t really a thing).

Whether or not it’s worth the extra $150/£150/AU$230 will really depend on personal taste and professional needs. While the nano-texture isn’t an upgrade that will immediately wow you, it can be useful if you work in bright environments. You might also feel that when spending the kind of money Apple is asking for the new MacBook, an extra $150 isn’t too egregious – and remember, once you’ve bought the MacBook Pro, you won’t be able to add the nano-texture.

This leads to an ongoing complaint about Apple devices. While there’s no doubt they look great, they are very difficult – if not impossible – to open up and repair. Upgrading components is also out of the question. While the fact that the unified memory is part of the M4 chip, so adding additional memory isn’t possible, it’d be nice to be able to add extra internal storage, for example.

Of course, this has never been the way Apple does things, but when even its competitors like Microsoft are getting better at allowing users to upgrade and fix their devices, Apple is increasingly out of touch – and the difficulty fixing a faulty MacBook Pro sits uneasily with Apple’s eco-friendly messaging in other departments.

There’s one final change to the design of the new MacBook Pro 16-inch that people might miss at first – but it’s a doozy. The webcam has been overhauled with a new 12MP ultra-wide sensor. Using the Center Stage feature, the MacBook Pro crops footage and uses machine learning to keep you centered on the screen – even if you move about. This is the first time Center Stage has been added to a MacBook – in the past the feature has been limited to iPads and the Studio Display monitor.

It works well, and while it’s far from essential if you sit still when on video calls, it’s nice to see it included in a MacBook. Even more impressive is the Desk View feature, which allows you to simultaneously record footage of yourself as normal, while also recording footage of your desk.

For tutorials, unboxing videos, and more it’s a nice feature and it’s very clever how the webcam captures the footage at the same time using a single camera – usually, you’d need to use two separate cameras for the different angles. This solution is easy and elegant, and while the quality of the footage won’t compare to using two external cameras, it’s a cool feature to have.

Overall the MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024) design doesn’t contain many surprises, but the ones it does are pretty nifty. If you’re after a more innovative laptop design, however, then you may still be disappointed.

Design score: 4/5

MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024) review: Performance

Not a massive leap over M3 Pro
Still very impressive performance
Handles even the most intensive tasks well

Unlike the 14-inch model, there’s no base M4 option with the 16-inch MacBook Pro, making the M4 Pro-toting model the ‘entry level’ choice. It features a 14-core CPU with 10 performance cores four efficiency cores, and a 20-core GPU.

The base model also comes with 24GB of unified memory with a bandwidth of 273GB/s, and you can configure it to come with 48GB (though you’ll need to up the M4 Pro chip to the model with a 16-core CPU).

If you go for the M4 Max, that starts at 36GB of memory and can be configured with 48GB, 64GB, and 128GB. Memory bandwidth is also increased to 410GB/s for the 14-core CPU M4 Max and an absolutely huge 546GB/s bandwidth for the 16-core CPU model.

Putting jargon aside, any model of this year’s MacBook Pro 16-inch is going to offer excellent performance for pretty much any task. According to Apple’s own numbers (which should obviously be taken with a degree of salt), you should see around two to three times the performance of an Intel MacBook and double that of the M1 Pro MacBook. The gap between the M3 Pro and M4 Pro is less pronounced, which considering the M3 Pro only came out last year, is not too surprising.

Benchmarks

Here’s how the MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024) performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

Cinebench 2024 GPU: 9,122
Cinebench 2024 CPU: Single-Core: 175; Multi-Core: 1,688
Geekbench 6.3 Single-Core: 3,956; Multi-Core: 23,030
Blender: Monster: 873.2; Junkshop: 470.9; Classroom: 420.5
Battery Life (TechRadar movie test): 21 hours and 32 minutes

The model of 16-inch MacBook Pro Apple sent me to review is the version with a 14-core CPU, 20-core GPU, and 48GB memory – so essentially the mid-range model.

In our benchmark tests, the M4 Pro MacBook Pro saw a decent bump in numbers compared to an M3 Max model, such as in Geekbench 6, where the multi-core score was 23,030 compared to the M3 Max’s 21,345. Not a groundbreaking difference, admittedly, but it shows a reliable increase in performance between generations. I certainly wouldn’t recommend anyone with an M3 Pro MacBook Pro – or even an M2 Pro – shelling out to upgrade to the M4 Pro model based on these results.

Of course, synthetic benchmarks only tell a part of the story, and in my time using the MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024), I was extremely impressed with the overall performance. macOS Sequoia ran fast and smooth, and there was no sign of lag or slowdown even when I had several apps open at once (including the Chrome web browser with almost 20 tabs open).

The new MacBook Pro 16-inch, as with previous models, is pretty overkill for day-to-day tasks. Still, it’s good to see those essential tasks performed so effortlessly – and there was not a single crash or error during my time using it – something I can’t always say about similarly-priced Windows 11 devices.

Apple’s complete control over both the software and hardware of MacBooks has again paid dividends, and even if you don’t like the way the company does some things, there’s no denying that it often results in extremely polished and dependable products – like the new MacBook Pro.

For more demanding tasks such as video editing, the MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024) again barely broke a sweat as I stitched together 4K footage in Premiere Pro. To be honest, to really make use of the power of the M4 Pro – let alone the much more powerful M4 Max – you’re going to need to be a professional filmmaker or 3D animator working on Pixar-quality productions. Everything I threw at it barely gave the new MacBook Pro pause.

Of course, this is a great thing – it’s a workstation laptop that can rival pretty much any desktop PC and can handle even the hardest workloads. But then, there’s always that nagging feeling that you’re not making the most of it. It’s a strange contradiction that in the end is a testament to what Apple continues to achieve with its M-class chips.

Throughout my time, the fans barely kicked in, so while Apple’s focus with the M4 Pro is more about performance than efficiency, this is still a very efficient machine that is virtually silent when in use.

Performance score: 5/5

MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024) review: Battery life

Over 21 hours in benchmark test
Slightly shorter than previous model
M4 Pro focuses on performance over efficiency

Ever since switching from Intel chips to its own M-class silicon, Apple’s MacBooks have benefited from industry-leading battery lives. While Windows 11 laptops are slowly catching up (especially ones with the new Snapdragon X Elite chip, which like the M4 Pro is ARM-based), if you want a laptop that can go through an entire workday without charging (and isn’t a basic Chromebook), then modern MacBooks are the way to go—and the new 16-inch MacBook Pro is no exception.

Thanks to a combination of the efficient M4 Pro chip and a larger body that allows Apple to include a bigger battery, the 16-inch MacBook Pro offers one of the longest battery lives of any MacBook or Windows laptop.

In our tests, it lasted a huge 21 hours and 32 minutes – an absolutely incredible result that suggests you could go multiple workdays on a single charge. However, it didn’t quite match the battery life of the M3 Max 16-inch MacBook that I reviewed last year, which lasted for 24 hours and 35 minutes in similar circumstances, but that could be down to the M4 Pro’s emphasis on performance over efficiency.

Still, it’s an incredible result considering the power on offer. I worked on the M4 Pro model for an entire train journey from Bath to London (around an hour and a half – England really is quite a small country), and the battery levels hardly dipped. It’s a workstation laptop that you can feel confident working on without having to search for a power supply, and when on battery power, it doesn’t feel like performance is sacrificed either.

Battery life score: 5/5

MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024): Should you buy it?

Buy it if…

You need a powerful workstation for heavy duty creative tasks
The MacBook Pro 16-inch with M4 Pro is one of the most powerful laptops out there, and will make short work of even the most demanding tasks.

You haven’t got an Apple Silicon Mac yet
If you’ve not experienced Apple’s M-series chips the new 16-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Pro is a brilliant showcase of why Apple Silicon has proved to be so revolutionary for not just MacBooks, but laptops as a whole.

You want a laptop that can go multiple days without charging
The battery life of the new MacBook Pro 16-inch can last almost an entire day of constant use - and that means you could work on it for multiple work days on a single charge.

Don’t buy it if…

You don’t need ultra-performance
While it can be tempting to go for the highest of the high-end when buying a laptop, the MacBook Pro 16-inch is a big investment - and it offers a level of performance that most people simply won’t need - go for an M3 MacBook Air or the new Mac mini M4 instead.

You want a compact laptop
The MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024) is a large laptop, and while that has its benefits (bigger battery, nice large screen to work on), it’s a bit too big to work on when commuting or traveling.

You have an M3 Pro or M2 Pro MacBook
The M4 Pro is an upgrade over its predecessors, but not enough to make owners of the past two generations of MacBook Pro need to upgrade - they remain excellent laptops that continue to perform brilliantly.

MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro) review: Also consider

If our Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro) review has you considering other options, here are two more laptops to consider...

MacBook Pro 14-inch M4 Pro 16GB
If you like the sound of the M4 Pro-powered 16-inch MacBook Pro, but are worried that the screen (and overall size of the laptop) is too large, then check out the 14-inch model, which offers similar performance but in a smaller (and slightly cheaper) package.
Check out our MacBook Pro 14-inch (M4 Pro, 2024) review

MacBook Air 15-inch (M3)
After a large-screen MacBook but don't need the power, and can't afford, the 16-inch MacBook Pro? Then consider the 15-inch MacBook Air. The M3 chip remains a great performer, and it's a lot less expensive, yet still offers that Apple build quality and design.
Check out our MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) review

How I tested the MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro)

Spent several days testing and using the MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro)
Ran our suite of benchmark tests
Used it to work while commuting

Ever since I received the new MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024), I've been using it as my main laptop for working on. This included day-to-day tasks, such as writing up articles in Microsoft Word and sending emails, as well as browsing the web in both Chrome and Safari (with multiple tabs open) - both at a desk in an office, and on a train travelling between cities.

I’ve been testing MacBooks for many years at TechRadar, including all the previous MacBook Pro 16-inch models, including the Intel-based one, and that experience has helped inform this review.

First reviewed November 2024

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3): the best laptop in the world just got better

5:00 pm | March 7, 2024

Author: admin | Category: Computers Computing Gadgets Laptops Macbooks | Tags: AI | Comments: Off

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3): Two-minute review

After several months of rumors and speculation, Apple has officially launched the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) (alongside a 15-inch version as well) – so has it been worth the wait?

While Apple’s announcement came out of the blue – there was no event to announce the launch, just a press release emailed to media outlets – it wasn’t entirely surprising.

As well as all those aforementioned rumors about new MacBook Airs, when Apple launched its M3 chip last year it also launched new M3-powered MacBook Pros and a new iMac. The fact that this was the first M-series launch to not feature a MacBook Air didn’t go unnoticed – and many of us assumed (or hoped) that an M3-powered Air would appear at some point. Thankfully, we’ve not had long to wait.

Starting at $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,799, the latest MacBook Air model straight away addresses one of my main complaints about the previous M2 version: the high starting price. The M2 MacBook Air launched in 2022 with a new, noticeably higher, price for its base model ($1,199 / £1,249 / AU$1,899), and while it remained the best laptop you could buy due to design and performance, it wasn’t as good value as the earlier M1 MacBook Air model, which launched at $999 / £999 / AU$1,599.

So, the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) is a much better-value proposition, and in a world where the price of everything seems to be climbing it’s great to see Apple buck that trend and release a laptop that’s cheaper than its predecessor. With the launch of the M3 version, Apple has officially dropped the price of the M2 model to $999 / £999 / AU$1,599, and has stopped selling the M1 version altogether (it’s still available for the moment from third-party retailers, and will likely drop further in price).

New MacBook Air 13-inch with M3 being used in a cafe — (Image credit: Future)

While the base M3 model’s price is a nice surprise, what’s less surprising – and less nice – is the fact that this model has the same 8GB of unified memory and just 256GB of SSD storage space as its predecessor. In 2024, those specifications don’t really cut it – especially for a laptop that starts at just over $1,000.

The configuration I was sent from Apple comes with double the memory and storage and 16GB and 512GB, along with a slight bump to GPU cores in the M3 chip over the base model, and it’s a much more well-rounded offering that won’t feel outdated after a year or so. This model is significantly pricier, though, at $1,499 / £1,499 / AU$2,399.Other than the switch to the M3 chip, the new MacBook Air 13-inch keeps essentially the same design as the M2 version, which is no bad thing, as that model remains one of the nicest-looking thin and light laptops out there. I much prefer the 13-inch MacBook Air to the 15-inch model, as the smaller device is much more easy to carry about. The fact that the battery lasted over 14 hours on a single charge in our battery life tests again shows just how good the 13-inch MacBook Air is for people who want a compact laptop they can use almost anywhere.

Performance-wise, the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) does an excellent job with day-to-day tasks such as web browsing and watching TV shows, while also putting in an impressive showing when used for content creation. I used applications including Adobe Photoshop and Ableton Live 11, and even played a few games, and the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) proved fast and dependable at all times. Even when putting this laptop through its paces by trying out a range of apps (often at the same time), the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) didn’t once freeze or crash. The M3 model retains its predecessors' fan-less design, so it’s essentially silent when in use.

While the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) isn’t a radical reimagining in the way the M2 model was, it doesn’t need to be. This is an assured release from a company at the top of its game, offering improved performance for a lower price, which means I have no trouble recommending the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) as the best laptop you can buy right now.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) review: Price and availability

Starts at $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,799
Lower launch price than M2 model
M2 model is now the cheapest MacBook sold by Apple

The MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) was announced on March 4, 2024, with pre-orders from Apple’s online store going live on the same day and the new MacBook hitting physical stores from March 8.

The base model costs $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,799, and comes with an M3 chip with an 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 8GB of unified memory, and 256GB SSD storage. This is the same M3 chip as found in the base iMac 24-inch (M3), which starts at $1,399 / £1,399 / AU$2,199. That’s quite a leap in price for the all-in-one PC.

You can also get the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) with an 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 8GB unified memory, and 512GB SSD storage. This model also comes with a more powerful 35W dual USB-C power adapter (the base model’s adapter tops out at 30W), and costs $1,299 / £1,299 / AU$2,099.

Finally, you can get a pre-configured MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) with the same M3 chip and other specs, but with 16GB of unified memory and 512GB SSD storage for $1,499 / £1,499 / AU$2,399. This is the model I’m reviewing here.

As with previous models, you can further configure the new MacBook Air with up to 24GB of unified memory, 2TB SSD storage, and a 70W USB-C power adapter. This fully maxed-out model costs $2,299 / £2,299 / AU$3,599.

In a rather rare bit of welcome news, the M3 MacBook Air has launched at a lower price for the base model than the M2 MacBook Air. When that MacBook Air debuted back in 2022 the base model was priced at $1,199 / £1,249 / AU$1,899. Since then, it’s had an official $100 price cut, but one of the few complaints I had about the M2 MacBook Air (which went straight to the top of our best laptops list) was that high price. It’s great to see Apple somewhat rectify that with the M3 model, and while it’s still an expensive laptop, it’s now better value for money – which is an important consideration these days.

Apple will also continue to sell the 13-inch MacBook Air with M2, dropping the price to a very appealing $999 / £999 / AU$1,599. This is a repeat of the move it made when it launched the M2 MacBook Air, as it continued to sell the M1 model at the lower $999 price point.

It’s good to see Apple doing this again, as the M2 model remains an excellent laptop, especially at this new lower price. Unfortunately, it means that the M1 model is no longer sold by Apple. However, we’re already seeing that model on offer for an even lower price at other retailers looking to clear their stock ahead of the new MacBook Airs arriving.

So, if you’re looking for the cheapest sold-by-Apple MacBook to get into Apple’s ecosystem, the M2 MacBook Air is the one to go for, but the M3 model represents very good value for money – and it’s now the cheapest M3-powered Mac on the market (until an M3-powered Mac mini arrives at some point, which is likely).

Price score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) review: Specs

The Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) comes in three pre-configured options, and you can further configure the amount of memory and storage space before you buy. You’ll need to do that to match the review and max configurations below.

The specs of the new MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) are broadly in line with what we were expecting. However, and as mentioned above, in 2024 the base configuration with just 8GB of memory and only 256GB SSD storage is looking increasingly outdated, especially for the price. With the 8GB of memory being shared between compute tasks (regular day-to-day jobs, essentially) and graphics, it could start to struggle if you’re running multiple apps at once.

The 256GB SSD will likely fill up fast as well, especially if you’re thinking about buying the new MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) for creative work, such as photo or video editing. In typical fashion, Apple has made the MacBook Air as difficult as possible to open up, so you won’t be able to upgrade the memory or storage later. Add in the fact that the base model comes with a weaker integrated GPU in its M3 chip (eight cores as opposed to the 10-core GPU included in the other models), and I’d recommend spending a bit more to get the review configuration that I tested, as the more powerful GPU, 16GB of memory and 512GB SSD makes it far more future-proof.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) review: Design

No major redesign
Midnight color has been improved to reduce fingerprints
More recycled materials than ever

The Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3)’s design doesn’t break any new ground – but it didn’t really need to. While we loved the M1 MacBook Air, its design increasingly felt dated, and when the M2 MacBook hit the shelves in 2022 it came with a bold redesign that included a better and larger screen, thinner bezels around the display and a much more modern look. I personally loved the redesign, so the fact that the M3 MacBook Air looks pretty much identical doesn’t bother me.

This is still an impressively thin and light laptop. The 13.6-inch LED display looks bright and vibrant, and the native 2560 x 1664 resolution offers 224 pixels per inch, leading to a pleasingly sharp and detailed image. As with the previous generation of MacBook Airs, the 15-inch MacBook Air (M3), which launched alongside the 13-inch model, comes with a larger screen, but also a higher resolution, which means the pixels per inch number is very similar to the 13-inch model.

Basically, you won’t lose out on image quality no matter which MacBook Air model you go for. For many people, the 13-inch model will be much more convenient as it’s lighter and smaller, yet still very powerful. The keyboard once again feels comfortable to use, with a surprising amount of key travel for such a thin device. This means that typing away on the MacBook Air’s keyboard feels tactile and responsive. It comes with a Touch ID button that powers on the MacBook and can quickly log you in by just using your fingerprint. The touchpad below the keyboard is spacious and performs well - just as it did with the previous model.

Port-wise the MacBook Air M3 keeps the same selection as the previous model, with two Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 ports that offer up to 40Gb/s data transfers, a MagSafe 3 port for charging, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The MagSafe 3 and Thunderbolt ports are all on the same side (the left) which can be a bit fiddly if you’re using them all at once, and it also means you don’t get a choice of which side of the laptop to plug the charger into (you can also use USB-C chargers from other manufacturers to top up the battery if you find yourself without the MagSafe connector).

None of the new MacBook Air models support Thunderbolt 4, which remains exclusive (in the Mac space) to Macs running M3 Pro and M3 Max chips.

The bump to M3 also allows the new MacBook Air 13-inch to support two external monitors at once, one with up to 6K resolution and 60Hz, and the other with up to 5K resolution. The previous M2 model could only handle one 6K external monitor.

There is a rather large caveat to this, however: you can only run two external monitors with the MacBook Air’s screen closed. Opening the lid turns off one of the screens – so don’t go thinking this new feature will let you work on three screens simultaneously. For office workers who usually use their laptop in a dock with the lid closed this may not be an issue, but it’s a curiously inelegant implementation. Interestingly, the MacBook Pro 14-inch with the M3 chip launched without this feature, but Apple will be enabling it in a future software update.

Overall, the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) is another fine-looking thin and light laptop from Apple, and while it looks almost identical to the previous model, it still feels like a stylish and modern device.

I say ‘almost identical’ as there is a tiny difference with the new MacBook Air. The model that comes in the Midnight color (essentially, a very dark blue) now benefits from a “breakthrough anodization seal to reduce fingerprints.” This seems to be a response to criticisms of the previous model in the same color due to how easily fingerprints, scratches and other marks showed up (and remained) on the body.

While the 13-inch MacBook Air that Apple sent me to review was in the Starlight color (four colors are available – Midnight, Starlight, Space Gray and Silver), I was also able to get my hands on a Midnight 13-inch MacBook Air for a few minutes at Apple’s headquarters in London, and from what I could see the new Midnight finish does indeed seem more resistant to fingerprints.

Apple is also keen to highlight the fact that the new MacBook Air is its first product to be made with 50% recycled materials. The body uses 100% recycled aluminum, and the main logic board uses 100% recycled copper. While I would like to see Apple be more flexible when it comes to allowing its customers to repair or upgrade its products, having any company use more recycled materials is always welcome.

Design score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) review: Performance

M3 chip brings decent gains
You can actually game on this MacBook
New focus on AI

Benchmarks

Here’s how the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

Geekbench 6.2.2 Single-Core: 3,148; Multi-Core: 11,893
Cinebench 2024 Single-core: 141 ; Multi-core: 615
Battery life (TechRadar movie test): 14 hours and 19 minutes

The major change for the new MacBook Air 13-inch is the inclusion of the M3 chip, Apple’s most recent piece of silicon, which debuted at the end of last year alongside new MacBook Pros. Unlike last year’s MacBook Pros, the MacBook Air 13-inch only comes with the M3 chip, not the more powerful M3 Pro or M3 Max versions. However, the MacBook Air is a much more mainstream device, so it’s unlikely that people will be using it for heavy-duty creative tasks.

The Apple MacBook Air 13-inch comes with two versions of the M3 chip: a base model with an 8-core GPU, and a slightly more powerful chip with a 10-core GPU. Both versions feature an 8-core CPU with four high-performance cores and four efficiency cores, which the MacBook Air switches between depending on what kind of tasks you’re performing. This allows it to achieve a good balance between performance and battery life.

The Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) can be configured with up to 24GB of unified memory and 2TB SSD storage, and the review sample the company sent for me to test comes with the 10-core M3 chip, 16GB of memory and 512GB storage. So, if you go for the cheaper base model of the MacBook Air 13-inch, the performance might not quite match what I’ve experienced, though I’d be surprised if there was a huge difference.

However, I would recommend going for a MacBook Air with more memory and storage if possible. In 2024, 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD feels a bit mean for a laptop, with the SSD especially likely to fill up quickly if you install lots of apps and store a lot of photos and video. Out of the box, the MacBook Air I tested had 30GB of space already used by macOS and pre-installed apps, and while this isn’t an issue with the 512GB model, it may be more of a concern with the 256GB model.

In day-to-day use, the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) performs brilliantly. macOS Sonoma feels fast and responsive, and there’s now a large library of apps that have been built natively for Apple’s M series of chips, which means they can take full advantage of Apple’s latest hardware.

I used a variety of apps, including Safari, Garage Band, and Apple TV, and the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) kept pace with ease. Even when I was using more demanding applications such as Adobe Photoshop, the MacBook Air performed really well. For the vast majority of users, the MacBook Air 13-inch with the M3 chip will be plenty powerful enough.

One of the best things about the efficiency of Apple’s M-series chips is that they produce less heat, and thanks to Apple’s thermal design of the modern MacBook Airs, it means the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) is completely fanless. So, even when it’s working hard, you’re not getting annoying fan noise in the background.

This is impressive, and a very pleasant change from many Windows laptops, which often fire up their fans at the drop of a hat. It’s also incredibly useful if you’re using the MacBook Air to record audio, as it means the built-in microphones (or any external ones you plug in) won’t pick up any background noise from the laptop.

Speaking of the built-in microphones, the new 13-inch MacBook Air comes with a three-mic array to help with clarity and minimize pick-up of ambient noise, and the FaceTime HD camera is again 1080p. In a world where many laptops at this price point still come with 720p webcams built in, it’s good to see Apple include a high-quality camera for the video calls and meetings that have become a regular feature of both work and social interactions since the pandemic.

According to Apple, the M3 chip also pitches in to improve video and audio quality, and while I couldn’t see any difference in quality compared to the M2 MacBook Air, which has the same webcam and mic array, the results are nevertheless crisp and clear.

The M3 MacBook Air also gets an upgrade to its Wi-Fi, as it supports Wi-Fi 6E (the previous model has Wi-Fi 6). This offers faster speeds and more reliable connections over larger distances, and during my time with the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3), I found its wireless connection to be excellent.

The MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) also makes a decent fist of playing modern games, even some rather graphically-intensive ones. I played a few titles, including a fast-paced racing simulation game, and while it’s never going to challenge the best gaming laptops out there, gaming on a thin and light MacBook Air is possible – something that until recently didn’t seem like a realistic prospect. And, while you won’t be able to crank up visual settings to the max, the games I tried looked very nice on the vibrant 13.6-inch screen. As a PC gamer, it’s also a real novelty to play games on a fan-less laptop – usually, gaming laptops are big and bulky beasts, with noisy fans that keep the powerful components cool, but which can also be distracting. Not so with the MacBook Air.

When Apple announced the new MacBook Air 13-inch (M3), a lot of people noted that the company made a big deal about its AI capabilities. Artificial intelligence, especially when it comes to generating content, is a hot topic at the moment, with many of Apple’s competitors, most noticeably Microsoft and Google, going in hard on the technology. You’ll certainly be hearing a lot about AI laptops this year – and it almost felt like Apple was being left behind.

So, Apple’s focus on the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3)’s AI performance was a pleasant surprise – especially as the M-series chips have actually been ahead of the game for quite a while for AI thanks to the Apple Neural Engine, which has been included since the original M1 chip, and which even back then was pitched as being able to help with machine learning tasks. While Apple’s chip-making rival Intel has only just put out new processors with NPUs (Neural Processing Units) dedicated to AI tasks, we’ve now had three generations of Apple silicon that have this capability – and Apple is now, understandably, making a big deal about it.

The M3 comes with an upgraded 16-core Neural Engine, which Apple claims is “faster and more efficient” than previous versions, making this MacBook Air, in Apple’s words, “the world’s best consumer laptop for AI.” While it’s difficult to confirm this, especially until other laptops with AI-focused chips come out, I saw how the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) coped with cloud-based AI in the form of Microsoft Copilot – which is included in the Mac version of Microsoft Office and is dependent on an internet connection – as well as on-device AI in apps such as Pixelmator Pro and Photoshop. The on-device performance was especially impressive, as everything is handled by the M3 chip – so you can be offline and still make use of AI tools to automate repetitive tasks such as sharpening photos, or generating content like text based on a simple prompt.

The screen and speakers aren’t the best you’re going to get in a MacBook – the far more expensive MacBook Pros offer mini LED technology for stunning contrast and vibrancy, along with ProMotion features that offer faster refresh rates for smooth and snappy scrolling.

The new 15-inch MacBook Air also comes with better speakers – you get six speakers with force-cancelling woofers in the larger model, which offers richer and deeper sounds.

The 13-inch MacBook Air (M3) makes do with four speakers, which to be honest is still a lot for a thin and light laptop, and while this model doesn’t feature Apple’s highest-end tech, it still does a very good job when you’re watching or listening to media, or working on projects. The sound is loud and clear – certainly a far cry from the often tinny speakers in most laptops. The screen is also bright and crisp, and as usual comes with support for the P3 color gamut to help ensure colors are accurate. This means the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) remains a compelling and affordable alternative to the MacBook Pro for content creators.

Performance score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) review: Battery life

Lasts over 14 hours
Charges quickly

The battery life of Apple silicon-powered MacBooks has always impressed, and is one of the reasons why I recommend them so enthusiastically. The MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) continues this – while the M3 chip brings performance increases, it remains impressively efficient, so the battery doesn’t appear to drain significantly faster.

Apple claims the 13-inch MacBook Air (M3) is good for up to 18 hours of Apple TV and up to 15 hours of wireless internet browsing – this is the same theoretical battery lifespan that Apple quotes for the 15-inch MacBook Air (M3). While the 15-inch model comes with a larger 66.5 watt-hour battery, compared to the 13-inch’s 52.6 watt-hour battery, the reason for the parity is most likely due to the larger 15.6-inch screen being more power-hungry.

In our battery life test, where we play a looped 1080p video until the battery dies, the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) managed 14 hours and 19 minutes. That’s a drop from the 16 hours and 6 minutes the M2 version managed in the same test, and may be evidence that the performance gains of the M3 chip have come at a cost to efficiency. Still, the drop isn’t huge, and over 14 hours is still very impressive – you should get through a full work or school day on a single charge, although the more intensive the tasks you perform, the quicker the battery will drain. Impressively, even when gaming, the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) lasted for hours, when usually gaming drains battery extremely quickly.

Another thing I really appreciate about the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) is that even when it’s unplugged there’s no impact on performance. Other laptops usually throttle performance when on battery power to prolong battery life, but the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) doesn’t seem to do that – at least not in any noticeable way. That, combined with the long battery life, makes the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) a brilliant laptop for people who want a device to work on when out and about. Using the included charger, the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) charged to over 50% in under an hour. As with other MacBooks, the new 13-inch MacBook Air also does a great job of conserving battery life when not in use, so you can leave it for several days, open it up and you’ll still have battery. To prove this – and as a nice touch too – the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) comes fully charged out of the box, so you can set it up and start using it straight away.

Battery score: 4.5/5

Should you buy the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3)?

Buy it if...

You're after the best laptop in the world
Apple has done it again with an incredible laptop that isn't outrageously expensive and will cope with almost any task you throw at it.

You want a laptop to work on while travelling
The 13-inch formfactor is ideal for taking this laptop out and about with you, and the long battery life will also help.

You don't need extreme power
The MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) offers brilliant performance, so if you don't need a MacBook Pro for heavy creative tasks, the Air is a great alternative.

Don't buy it if...

You want a big screen
The 13.6-inch screen makes the MacBook Air a great portable device, but some people may prefer the 15-inch model for working on.

You want the cheapest Mac
The M2 MacBook Air has a new price cut, and the Mac mini both offer lower costs of entry if you want a modern Mac.

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) review: Also consider

If our Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) review has you considering other options, here are two laptops to consider...

How I tested the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M3)

I used the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) for most of the week
I used it as my day-to-day work laptop
I ran several apps and games throughout my time using it

The MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) was announced on Monday, March 4, and by Tuesday I was at Apple's headquarters in London to test out the new laptop. I also received both the 13-inch and 15-inch models to fully review, and have been using the 13-inch model primarily throughout the rest of the week.

I used the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) for various work tasks, including writing some of this review, while also testing out various apps including Adobe Photoshop and Ableton Live 11. I also watched a few movies and TV shows, and played a couple of games as well.

I've reviewed almost all of Apple's MacBooks for TechRadar over the past 10 years, as well as hundreds of Windows laptops and Chromebooks, and used this experience, alongside my time with the MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) to draw my conclusions.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed March 2024

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) review: Bigger, bolder, faster, better

5:00 pm |

Author: admin | Category: Computers Computing Gadgets Laptops Macbooks | Tags: AI, Death Stranding | Comments: Off

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M3): Two-minute review

Sometimes I struggle to explain why someone might choose a larger, heavier MacBook Air 15-inch over the regular super light and thin MacBook Air. It's an especially difficult conversation because, aside from size, there are no functional differences between the new Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) and equally-new MacBook Air 13-inch (M3).

Aesthetically, they have the same design. MacBook Air left the wedge look behind a couple of years ago (and officially canceled it this year with the removal of the M1 MacBook Air) and now sports a flat and still pleasing slab look. Both MacBook Airs are made of recycled aluminum and an anodized midnight black finish that does a decent if imperfect job of repelling fingerprints (space black on the MacBook Pro hides the prints a little better).

The Magic Keyboards and trackpads are essentially the same, including the quite useful Touch ID/power/sleep button.

They have similar, spatial-audio-capable sound systems that I like (though I tend to use AirPod Pros with them so as not to disturb my office mates). Due to the larger size of the MacBook Air 15-inch, however, you get two extra speakers (six rather than four), and the 15-inch model's speakers include force-canceling woofers that offers decent bass without causing distracting vibrations.

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch M3 REVIEW — (Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

Ultimately, it all comes down to size. The MacBook Air 15-inch offers significantly larger palm rests, which makes my typing experience that much better. The screen, though no sharper than the MacBook Pro 13-inch's 224ppi Liquid Retina display, adds hundreds of pixels to make it the most expansive MacBook Air experience available.

And that's what it comes down to – more space. Is that worth an extra $200? Perhaps. I've been using the MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) for the better part of a week and already am a little spoiled by the extra screen real estate and roomy keyboard base.

It still bothers me that, despite the larger, thicker, and heavier chassis, the 15-inch MacBook Air offers no more battery life than its substantially smaller sibling. Still, having a powerful M3 chip inside makes this a big-screen workhorse that might turn a few heads from the pricier MacBook Pro 14-inch that can also be configured to feature an M3 chip. Sure, you give up an SD card slot, an HDMI port, a little bit of battery life, and that higher-resolution screen, but you get a larger screen, a slightly lighter system, and save $300.

Overall, I think for those who demand more screen real estate (without connecting it to up to two external displays – but while keeping the laptop closed), the 15-inch MacBook Air is the right choice.

Compared to the 15-inch laptop market, the MacBook Air 15-inch M3 will maintain its leadership position atop our best 15-inch Laptop buying guide. It's better looking, faster, and either comparable or more affordable than many of the top-tier models available from Dell, HP, and Razer (I'm not talking about heavy, bargain basement 15-inch models, by the way).

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) review: Price and availability

Announced on March 4, 2024
Shipping March 8
Base model is $1,299 / £1,399 / AU$2,199

The Apple MacBook Air 15-inch M3 (2024) begins shipping out globally to customers on March 8, 2024.

The base model starts at $1,299 / £1,399 / AU$2,199 and ships with an M3 CPU (8-core CPU and 10-core GPU ), 8 GB of unified memory, and a 256GD SSD. The system is configurable to up to 24GB of memory, and 2TB SSD. My test unit arrived with 16GB of memory and a 512GB SSD, a configuration that would run you $1,499.

While it can be hard to directly compare Intel Core i7 systems with those running Apple silicon, the price of the MacBook Air 15-inch M3 base model still compares favorably to Core i7 systems like the Dell XPS 15.

Price score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) review: Specs

The Apple MacBook Air 15-inch M3 (2024) is available in three configurations that essentially add memory and storage but otherwise leave the base system unchanged.

You get your money's worth, but I do think it's time for the base model of all MacBook Airs to start with at least 512GB of storage.

Each of these options can be configured to add more memory (up to 24GB), and add storage up to 2TB.

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) review: Design

Larger 15-inch screen
Design unchanged from M2 MacBook Air 15-inch
The Midnight finish rebuffs fingerprints

I know some people still mourn the loss of the MacBook Air's original wedge shape and like to imagine what that would look like on a 15-inch model, but the slab look of the new MacBook Airs (now on their second generation) has grown on me. The recycled aluminum chassis is all clean lines and buffed corners.

The dimensions of this M3-sporting MacBook Air match those of the last 15-inch model. It's still 0.45 (11.5mm) inches thick (a hair thicker than the 13-inch model, which is 11.3mm thick), 13.40 inches wide, and 9.35 inches deep. The portable weighs 3.3 lbs, which is a little more than half a pound heavier than the 13-inch model. That's still pretty lightweight for a 15-inch model. However, as much as I like this big screen, I still prefer carrying the lightest possible laptop and would probably choose the 2.7 lb. MacBook Air 13-inch over this one.

Apple offers the MacBook Air in a variety of colors (silver, starlight, space gray, and midnight) but my preference is for the new midnight, which like space black (available on the MacBook Pro 14 M3 Max I reviewed last year) is anodized to cut down on fingerprints. Because midnight is not as dark as the black, it's not quite as successful at hiding all of my fingerprints. I hope that future MacBook Airs get the awesome space black option.

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The MacBook Air 15-inch M3 design is, in some ways, cleaner than that of the MacBook Pro. Where the latter has fine speaker grills on either side of the keyboard, the MacBook Air 15 – which has room for speakers – is all smooth metal. I like the look of it.

Apple's Magic Keyboard remains one of my favorite ultraportable typing experiences. There's a pleasing amount of travel and response and, of course, lots of room to work. Similarly, the force touch trackpad is huge and responsive. I still wish Apple would offer an update where you could draw on the touchpad using an Apple Pencil (a guy can dream, can't he?).

As you might expect the MacBook Air 15-inch M3 is not packed with every port you can imagine or need. There is, however, a pair of Thunderbolt ports capable of driving up to two external displays (but only with the laptop closed). I used my test system with it connected to a Targus 7-port universal USB-C adapter, which was then connected to a 24-inch HD display. The ports are also useful for data and power. They both sit on one side of the laptop, next to the MagSafe charge port. On the other side is that vestigial 3.5mm headphone jack that audiophiles will appreciate. Apple should add one more USB-C port on this side of the laptop. Maybe they will the next time they redesign the MacBook Air.

One of the big (get it?) selling points of the 15-inch MacBook Air is the expansive Liquid Retina display. It's still 224ppi but where the 13-inch MacBook Air's 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display offers a resolution of 2560 x 1664 pixels, my 15-inch MacBook Air's 15.3-inch display offers a 2880 x 1864 resolution, which means hundreds more pixels and a lot more screen real estate

There is a lot to love about this display. It supports 1 billion colors and and the P3 wide color gamut. This means that everything from the depressing Netflix movie Spaceman to games like Death Stranding Directors Cut looks excellent. 500 nits is not necessarily the brightest screen, but I found the display viable in all manner of light situations.

I have grown used to the rather larger notch at the top of the screen, which accommodates the Facetime camera. That 1080p camera is also excellent for Google Meets, and Zoom conferences. One person told me I looked "crystal clear" during our one-on-one video meeting, while another, who was part of a more bandwidth-constrained group meeting, told me I looked a bit cartoonish.

Design score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) review: Performance

Powered by M3 chip
It does it all
All the power and intelligence you need for local AI tasks

Benchmarks

Here’s how the MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

Geekbench 6.2.2 Single-Core: 3,102; Multi-Core: 12,052 Battery Life (Web Surfing test): 15 hours and 3 minutes

In Apple silicon's short history, there has yet to be a shred of disappointment. Every iteration builds on the last in spectacular fashion. I've tested every Apple silicon update from the initial M1 to this new class of M3 chips and, without exception, each one is as blindingly fast and as efficient as an SoC (System on Chip) can be.

Without Apple silicon, the MacBook Air 15-inch would be a relatively lightweight, big-screen laptop bursting with Apple's signature style but perhaps weighed down a bit by Intel's still underperforming desktop-class silicon.

With the M3, my MacBook Air 15-inch is fast, flexible, and ready for just about anything. Its Geekbench 6 numbers are noticeably higher than those of the previous-class M2 MacBook Air 15-inch.

In real-world use, the ultrabook is as effective an everyday browsing and information-gathering system as it is a platform for intense image editing and a wide array of onboard and in-the-cloud AI operations.

In Adobe Photoshop, I asked the Firefly Generative AI platform to create a whole picture based on a thumbnail of a house in the hills. The result came instantly and looked real but also dreamy.

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Running Adobe Firefly (Image credit: Future)

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When I asked the local AI engine Freechat for a presentation on horology, it quickly spit out an outline for all my slides. It would not, however, create the slide images. And when I asked Microsoft's Copilot for images, the cloud-based app took a bit longer but I eventually got a bunch of pictures of "A middle-aged bald guy with glasses using a laptop in the middle of a magical park".

I tried the same prompt with the local AI tool DiffusionBee (it lets you download the image models to the MacBook) and while it was a bit faster, the results were not nearly as good.

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local and cloud-based AI — A Microsoft Copilot test (Image credit: Future)

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If you're wondering why I'm suddenly talking about generative AI in the context of a MacBook Air, blame Apple. The company's been doing AI forever and has built every Apple Silicon SoC with an onboard Neural Egninge but only recently started touting its AI bona fides because, well, everyone else is doing it.

To be fair, it's clear to me that whatever generative AI skills Apple introduces at WWDC 2024 in June, the MacBook Air 15-inch M3 will be ready for it.

The MacBook Air 15-inch M3 is also an able gaming system. I played Death Stranding: Directors Cut and Asphalt 8 (with a connected PlayStation Controller). The M3 is well-equipped to handle HD-level gameplay on both games. I tried cranking the resolution up to the max on DeathStranding, but the frame rate sputters to well below 30fps. If you want to play AAA games on this laptop at a smooth 60fps, you'll want to keep the resolution at an HD level (1920x1080). In that setting, I could still see the texture of Léa Seydoux's skin.

On the connectivity front, Apple upgraded the WiFi from Wifi 6 to WiFi 6E. Bluetooth is the same as it was on the last model: 5.3.

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If you're wondering why I'm suddenly talking about generative AI in the context of a MacBook Air, blame Apple. The company's been doing AI forever and has built every Apple Silicon SoC with an onboard Neural Egninge but only recently started touting its AI bonafides because, well, everyone else is doing it. To be fair, it's clear to me that whatever generative AI skills Apple introduces at WWDC 2024 in June, the MacBook Air 15-inch M3 will be ready for it. The MacBook Air 15-inch M3 is also an able gaming system. I played Death Stranding: Directors Cut and Asphalt 8 (with a connected PlayStation Controller). The M3 is well-equipped to handle HD-level gameplay on both games. I tried cranking the resolution up to the max on DeathStranding, but the frame rate sputters to well below 30fps. If you want to play AAA games on this laptop at a smooth 60fps, you'll want to keep the resolution at an HD level (1920x1080). In that setting, I could still see the texture of Léa Seydoux's skin. On the connectivity front, Apple upgraded the WiFi from Wifi 6 to WiFi 6E. Bluetooth is the same as it was on the last model: 5.3. — Playing DeathStranding on a MacBook Air 15-inch M3 (Image credit: Future)

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Part of the reason you want this (or really and MacBook) is because of the platform. MacOS is not only a mature operating system. it's one that manages to feel unencumbered by its years of existence. Apple's managed to marry its fast and efficient Apple silicon with a desktop-class OS without any noticeable compromises.

This is a system that works, is flexible, and never crashes. Better yet, all your favorite apps already work on it. Perhaps even more exciting is that macOS and Apple Silicon are slowly but surely becoming a viable platform for gaming. AAA titles like Lies of Pi feel perfectly at home and, I can tell you, they are a joy to play on the large 15.3-inch display.

Performance score: 4.5/5

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) review: Battery life

Lasts almost 18 hours
Still charges quickly

If you want to know why I love the current generation of MacBooks, it's not just because of their good looks and blazing performance: It's the battery life. I absolutely love a laptop that can deliver a full day of work without being plugged in.

Apple promises 15 hours of web browsing and 18 hours of video streaming. In our Future Labs tests and my anecdotal ones, the MacBook Air 15-inch M3 lives up to those promises. We got over 15 hours of continuous web browsing. I spent the better part of a day unplugged and only truly taxed the battery when I played Death Stranding, a game that can zap a full battery in a matter of a few hours (I had a similar experience when gaming on the MacBook Pro 14 M3 Max).

My only criticism is that I wish the larger MacBook Air 15-inch provided more battery life than the smaller MacBook Air 13-inch.

Battery score: 4.5/5

Should you buy the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M3)?

Buy it if...

You're looking to marry thin and light with a big screen
You won't get more battery life but all that screen real estate is enticing.

You want Apple Silicon without the price or heft
This 15-inch laptop is a great alternative to the pricier entry-level MacBook Pro.

You want the best-looking 15-inch laptop
No one makes laptops like Apple and macOS is one of the most reliable platforms on the planet.

Don't buy it if...

You value portability above all else
This is a MacBook Air that comes perilously close to blowing the "air" part of the name. It's light for 15 inches but also over 3 lbs.

You want more battery life for the size and money
Apple still can't figure out how to make a 15-inch MacBook Air that gets more battery life than its much smaller MacBook Air 13-inch sibling.

Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) review: Also consider

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How I tested the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M3)

I used the MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) for most of the week
I used it as my day-to-day work laptop
I ran a number of cloud and local Generative AI operations on it

I received the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) at the start of the week and, after quickly unboxing it, adopted the laptop as my work system.

I used it to produce stories, edit photos, play games, watch movies, read content, and generate AI-based images and text.

I've been testing laptops and technology for over 30 years.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed March 2024