Apple MacBook Air 13.6" M4 Midnight 2025

The Apple MacBook Air M4 is a ridiculously good thin and light laptop that nails the basics. It's fast, silent, and has a stunning display, with battery life that lasts all day. Just be ready to live that dongle life and maybe grab an external SSD instead of paying Apple's insane storage upgrade prices.

The M4 chip is the star of the show here, and it delivers. In our CPU benchmarks, this thing sits in the 75th percentile, which means it's well above average for the laptop category. That might not sound earth-shattering, but remember, this is a fanless laptop that sips power. It rips through everyday tasks like web browsing, document editing, and photo management without breaking a sweat. The 10-core GPU lands in the 69th percentile, so it's solid for integrated graphics. You can do light video editing in Final Cut Pro or play some Apple Arcade titles without issue. Just don't expect to run Cyberpunk 2077 at max settings, our gaming score for this machine is a sad 24.1 out of 100. This is not a gaming laptop, and that's fine.

Where the performance really shines is in the snappiness of everyday use. Apps open instantly, switching between a dozen Safari tabs and multiple Spaces is buttery smooth, and the 16GB of RAM means you won't hit a wall with basic multitasking. The 512GB SSD is in the 55th percentile for storage speed, which is middle of the pack. It's fast enough that you won't notice it, but if you're moving massive 8K video files around, you'll probably wish for something quicker. For 99% of people buying this laptop, the performance is going to feel like overkill in the best way.

Stacked up against the Microsoft Surface Laptop, the MacBook Air M4 pulls ahead in raw CPU performance and battery endurance. The Surface Laptop has a nicer 120Hz touchscreen and a slightly more modern design, but the M4 chip just runs circles around the Snapdragon X Elite in sustained workloads. If you're deep in the Apple ecosystem, this isn't even a contest. The HP OMEN Transcend 14 is a totally different beast, it's a gaming laptop with a dedicated GPU, so it destroys the Air in any 3D task but weighs more and has a fan that'll spin up like a jet engine. The MacBook Air is silent. For creative pros looking at the MSI Prestige, the Air offers a better screen and build quality, though the Prestige has more ports. And if you're even glancing at the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 or Lenovo Legion Pro 7i, you're in the wrong aisle, those are gaming powerhouses that the Air can't touch in GPU performance, but they're also twice the weight and have half the battery life.

Value is where things get a little tricky. The base model with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD is a genuinely good deal for what you're getting, especially if you can snag it at the lower end of the $999 to $1629 price spread we've seen. If you're shopping around, Best Buy often has the most competitive pricing on these. But the second you start upgrading the RAM or storage through Apple, the price balloons into "are you kidding me?" territory. A lot of buyers in our user sentiment data just give up and buy an external SSD instead of paying Apple's upgrade tax. Compared to a Windows ultrabook like the Microsoft Surface Laptop, the MacBook Air gives you a better chip and longer battery life for a similar price, but you lose the touchscreen and the higher refresh rate display. It's a trade-off, and for most people, the Air's raw efficiency wins.

The Apple MacBook Air M4 is basically the default answer if you're looking for a thin and light laptop that just gets out of your way. We're talking about a 13.6-inch machine that weighs 1.24kg and packs Apple's latest M4 chip with a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU. The base model comes with 16GB of unified memory and a 512GB SSD, which finally feels like a proper starting point for a laptop in this price range. It's built for students, commuters, and anyone who values portability above all else, and our database shows it's in the 90th percentile for compactness among all laptops. If you've been searching for a new MacBook Air and wondering if the M4 is worth it, the short answer is yes, especially if you're coming from an Intel model or even an M1.

That Liquid Retina display is a 2560x1664 IPS panel hitting 500 nits of brightness with P3 wide color. It's not a high-refresh-rate gaming screen, but for everything else, it's a standout. The screen quality lands in the 88th percentile, and it shows. Colors pop, text is sharp, and it gets bright enough to handle a sunny coffee shop window without making you squint. The 60Hz refresh rate might feel a little dated if you're used to a 120Hz phone screen, but honestly, macOS animations are smooth enough that most people won't care.

Port selection is, well, very Apple. You get two Thunderbolt/USB-C ports, a MagSafe charging connector, and a headphone jack. That's it. Our data puts the port situation right at the 50th percentile, which is a polite way of saying it's aggressively average. You'll probably want a dongle or a USB-C hub if you plan on plugging in more than one thing at a time. But the build quality is top-tier, the backlit Magic Keyboard is a joy to type on, and the 1080p webcam is finally good enough that you won't look like a potato on Zoom calls.

Skip the MacBook Air M4 if you're a gamer or someone who needs serious GPU horsepower for 3D rendering or heavy video work. The integrated graphics just aren't built for that, and our gaming score of 24.1 out of 100 makes that painfully clear. You'd be much happier with something like an ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 or a 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro chip. Also, if you absolutely need more than two USB-C ports without a dongle, this laptop will drive you nuts. Look at the MSI Prestige or a Dell XPS instead.

The MacBook Air M4 is the best thin-and-light laptop for most people, period. It's not the most exciting machine, but it executes the basics so flawlessly that it's hard to recommend anything else at this price. The performance is snappy, the screen is beautiful, and the battery just keeps going. Our user sentiment data backs this up with a 92 out of 100 score, and the recurring themes are all about speed, portability, and that lovely keyboard. The only real friction point is storage. Apple's upgrade pricing is a joke, and the base 512GB can feel tight if you keep a lot of media locally.

Should you buy this? If you're a student, a writer, or anyone who needs a reliable laptop that you can toss in a bag and forget about, absolutely. If you're a video editor working with massive 8K timelines or a gamer who wants to play the latest AAA titles, you should look elsewhere. For everyone else, this is as close to a no-brainer as it gets in the laptop world right now.