1 min readFollowing yesterday's iPad announcements, Apple has announced a new MacBook Air and a new Mac Studio with its latest M4 chipsets.
Notably, the MacBook Air with M4 is launching at a cheaper price than its predecessor: $1,699. The M3 variants started at $1,799. While $100 may not be a massive price cut, it is still unusual to see tech get cheaper these days.
Other than price, the big change is the move to an M4 chipset. Apple says this makes the new MacBook Air twice as fast as the M1 model from 2020.
There are a few other quality of life improvements, however. These include a new 12MP webcam, and the ability to use two external monitors while using the internal display. On the last generation, you had to close the screen to get two external displays working.
Lastly, there's a new colour: sky blue. This replaces space grey, and sits alongside silver, midnight, and starlight in the family.
On the base model you'll get 16GB of memory and 256GB of storage. These can be upgraded to a maximum of 32GB of memory and 2TB of storage.
The MacBook Air with M4 is still available in a choice of 13-inch or 15-inch models. As aforementioned, the 13-inch model starts at $1,699, while the 15-inch model starts at $2,099.
Pre-orders are available now ahead of a March 12 release date.
Notably, Apple is no longer selling the M3 or M2 MacBook Air.
On the Max Studio front, the new variant is available with either an M4 Max chip or an M3 Ultra. Apple says the M4 Max model is up to 3.5 times faster than an M1 Max Mac Studio, and the M3 Ultra option is up to twice as fast as the M4 Max.
Not much else has changed on the high end Mac, but Apple has swapped out Thunderbolt 4 ports for faster Thunderbolt 5 options. You'll get four Thunderbolt 5 ports on the M4 Max version and six on the M3 Ultra.
The M4 Max model can be configured with up to 128GB of memory, while this increases to 512GB for the M3 Ultra.
Pricing for the Mac Studio starts at $3,499 for the M4 Max version, or at $6,999 for the M3 Ultra.
As with the new MacBook Air, pre-orders are open now ahead of March 12 release date.
