MacBook Air (M4, 2025)
Now starts with 16GB RAM. Sky Blue and Sky Black new colors. Exceptional Apple Intelligence performance.
Apple finally made 16GB the baseline. That is the whole story, and it is a bigger one than it sounds. The 8GB entry configuration had persisted across M1, M2 and M3 while browsers got heavier and Apple Intelligence started wanting memory of its own, and reviewers had complained about it for years. Fixing it made the cheapest Air meaningfully more durable a purchase at the same starting price. Apple's marketing framed the extra memory as headroom for on-device AI rather than as answering the complaint, which is a tidier story and roughly the same outcome. Sky Blue and Sky Black joined the colors. The design did not otherwise change, in 13 and 15-inch sizes, still fanless, still MagSafe. M4 brought steady incremental gains over M3 rather than anything dramatic, which is what this line does now. Reviewers were pleased. Years of the same criticism went away in one straightforward decision, and the Air stayed the laptop most people should buy.
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Processor Deep Dive
Apple M4
AppleBuilt on an advanced second-generation 3nm process, M4 brought faster CPU and GPU cores along with a significantly more capable Neural Engine tuned for on-device Apple Intelligence workloads, all while remaining entirely fanless in the Air's slim chassis. Against contemporary Intel Core Ultra and Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite ARM-based Windows chips, M4 maintained Apple Silicon's substantial efficiency and sustained-performance advantage. Paired with a new 16GB unified memory baseline standard across the lineup, this configuration meaningfully improved the entry-level Air's real-world multitasking and on-device AI headroom compared to the long-standing 8GB base of prior generations.
Compatible Operating Systems
macOS Sequoia 15.3.2
Launch OS2025
Launched as the debut OS for the M4 MacBook Air with its new 16GB memory baseline.
macOS Sequoia 15
Compatible2025
Remains actively supported and updated as of the most recent macOS releases, with expanding Apple Intelligence features.
Reviews & Reception
The M4 MacBook Air was warmly praised for finally raising the base memory configuration to 16GB, widely seen as the single most impactful and overdue improvement to the entry-level lineup.
Bumping the base model to 16GB of memory is the single best change Apple could have made here, quietly fixing years of valid criticism about the entry-level Air's value.
M4 is a solid, efficient chip, and while the year-over-year gains over M3 are modest, the extra baseline memory makes this the most sensible entry-level Air yet.
The new Sky Blue color is lovely, and combined with the memory bump, this is easily the best value MacBook Air Apple has ever offered.
This remains the laptop we recommend to nearly everyone, and finally starting at 16GB of RAM removes the last real asterisk on that recommendation.