Apple MacBook Air M4 vs M3: 5 big differences

Apple has continued its March product launches by outing a new MacBook Air M4 laptop. But there’s more to this upgrade than the latest Apple Silicon boost.

An awful lot within the brand new MacBook Air M4 is consistent with the previous generation. The design, the two display size options of 13-inch and 15-inch, the display tech, the number of ports? They’re all the same.

Aside from an upgrade to the webcam to include the Center Stage tech that keeps you in the centre of the frame, the webcam is pretty similar too.

So what is new in the 2024 upgrade for traditionally the best MacBook model for most people? Here’s how the two stack up.

A great new price

The MacBook Air M4, which comes with 16GB memory as standard, is back under $1,000/£1,000 as the starting price. You can grab the MacBook Air M4 for just $999/£999 which is $100/£100 off the opening gambit for the MacBook Air M3. It’s especially good considering the M2 model debuted at $1,199/£1,249.

Considering before the M2 revamp, the MacBook Air has been Apple’s most affordable and popular machine, the consecutive price drops are a return to the system’s calling. Students can get it for another hundred quid off too.

A fly new colour

Apple is offering the MacBook Air M4 in an invigorating Sky Blue colour this time around, along with the traditional Silver, Starlight and Midnight shades.

The M4 steals the show

The 2024 headlining Apple Silicon chip makes it to the MacBook Air after coming to the iPad Pro, MacBook Pro, iMac and Mac Mini. We’re not sure why the MacBook Air was last in line, ten months on from the first roll out. Anyway, it has the full 10-core CPU, an up to 10-core GPU (8-core as standard), with up to 32GB of unified memory.

The key difference might be the NPU that powers the Apple Intelligence features. Apple says the M4’s 16-core NPU can handle 38 trillion operations per second. The 16-core NPU of the Apple M3 can run 18 trillion operations per second. 

There are also more CPU cores doing the heavy lifting on the M4. Apple upped the core count of the chip, with the M4 featuring 4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores, totalling up to 10 cores. Meanwhile, the Apple M3 only featured 8 cores, made up of 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores.

The M4 chips are also built on the second generation 3nm architecture TSMC. The M3 was built on the first-gen.

More max memory

The 16GB of RAM as standard is an upgrade compared to the M3 model at launch. However, Apple ditched the 8GB base model mid-cycle and offered 16GB to push Apple Intelligence features. So that’s not much of an upgrade on the last few months.

However, the M4 Air offers up to 32GB of unified memory, whereas the M3 version of the MacBook Air maxed out at 24GB. Excellent news for those running multiple memory-hungry apps at the same time. It also narrows the gap between the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

Thunderbolt 4 = 3 displays

Thanks to the upgrade to Thunderbolt 4 ports, the MacBook Air M4 is now capable of powering a pair of external displays, as well as the Mac’s internal display. For users who are running multiple apps and tabs at the same time and like to keep everything visible, the MacBook Air M4 supports a pair of external 6K displays. The MacBook Air M3 had required the lid to be closed if connecting to two external displays.

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