MacBook Air Laptop 13-inch Apple M4 chip, Built for Apple Intelligence, 10-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16GB Memory, 256GB SSD Storage
Beyond an OLED display, rumored features include a touch screen, a Dynamic Island, M6 Pro and M6 Max chips, a thinner design, and built-in cellular connectivity. We highly recommend skipping these models, as the MacBook Pro is expected to receive a major redesign with an OLED display and more as soon as late 2026. The chip also lacks Thunderbolt support, so the new MacBook would likely be equipped with regular USB-C ports, with slower data transfer speeds and external display limitations. With the A18 Pro chip, the lower-cost MacBook might have only 8GB of RAM, whereas all current MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models start with at least 16GB of RAM. The chip's performance is similar to the M1 chip, so this new MacBook could effectively be a replacement for the old MacBook Air with the M1 chip, which Apple still sells through Walmart for $599.
Why is this the best overall MacBook Pro?
Apple has taken a slightly different approach this year, presumably to push more iOS 26 updates as quickly as possible. "The M5 Max may be the first Apple GPU to break 250,000 on the Geekbench 6 GPU compute test. Even the M3 Ultra, with its 80 GPU cores, landed just a hair under it. If Apple can get there with half as many GPU cores in just two processor generations, that’s an impressive pace of improvement." "Those are pretty stellar estimated scores for the top-end M5 Max. Around 4,500 for single-core CPU performance is a lot, but over 31,000 for the multi-core score is astounding. That’s in the same league as chart-topping 64-core AMD Threadripper CPUs. While discussions last week suggested a radical redesign to move the hardware to the corner of the iPhone display, voices with a strong track record say FaceID will remain in the centre of the iPhone display. When measured as a standard rectangular shape, the screens are 14.2 inches and 16.2 inches diagonally (actual viewable area is less).
Beyond these, we laptop test the display with a high-end colorimeter and brightness tester — to ensure you're getting a great panel for the price. However, older MacBook with Intel chips (i.e. those sold in 2019 and earlier) will not support Apple Intelligence. That being said, when all the features are fully available, every MacBook on this list will meet these requirements — touting a Neural Engine on the chipset and over 16GB of RAM. We're still waiting on that fully-smartened up version of Siri (which will use Google Gemini), and a lot of the promises made back then haven't been fulfilled yet.
Sustainability features
The eye-popping Liquid Retina XDR display offers up to 1,600 nits peak HDR brightness. Enjoy immersive gaming thanks to the exceptional graphics capabilities, gorgeous XDR display and six-speaker sound system with Spatial Audio. Compose, record and mix across thousands of tracks with hundreds of plug-ins in real time. Save time with predictive code completion in Xcode. Copy images, video or text from an app on your iPhone or iPad. Even if you’re charging your phone in another room, you can still access all your favourite apps.10
How do we test every MacBook?
In our color-accuracy tests, the M4 Air met Apple’s claims of 500 nits of brightness, and it reproduced colors across the sRGB and DCI-P3 color spaces well enough for professional creative work. This is a great price for a laptop that can last you for years to come. The Apple MacBook Air (13-inch, M4, 2025) is the best MacBook for most people. At this writing, Apple offers eight different laptops in multiple configurations. Apple’s tech support is routinely rated above that of most, if not all, other PC and phone makers, and Apple Stores and Apple authorized service providers offer accessible in-person tech support and repairs in many locations.
M4 compared to previous MacBook Air models.
Having only two ports for both charging and connecting peripherals is a bit limiting, but only if you’re frequently connecting flash drives or other things to your laptop. Each port supports charging, 40-gigabits-per-second data transfers, one external display, and basic USB peripherals such as flash drives, printers, and mice. The M1 Air has a headphone jack on its right side plus two Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports on its left side for connectivity and charging, so you need adapters or new cables to connect your other devices.
Thanks to Continuity, you can move seamlessly across devices to share files and photos, hand off tasks and even control your iPhone from your Mac. Apple Intelligence is designed to protect your privacy at every step. Mac is optimised to handle the world’s most advanced AI apps. Apple silicon, and every major subsystem that powers it, is designed for AI — creating a platform that comprehensively unites hardware, software and ecosystem. Faster Neural Filter and function performance in Adobe Photoshop46
- This is mainly noticeable when logos are shown, and you can obviously provoke this issue, but is usually not noticeable in practice.
- Apple has moved on a lot in terms of performance since the wedge MacBook Air.
- MacBook Pro also supports both Wi-Fi 6E52 and Bluetooth® 5.3 to connect to the internet and your wireless devices.
- Squarish 7-inch screen for controlling smart home products, listening to music, making video calls, and more.
- It strikes the ideal balance between performance, portability, and price.
- From automatic camera frame centring to AI image upscaling to running the latest large language models, you’ll be more productive and creative than ever.
We included the two PugetBench tests for Adobe Photoshop as well as Premiere Pro, but please keep in mind that the benchmarks only work with the emulated versions of the apps. Thanks to the integrated emulation via Rosetta 2, you can also use apps that were made for Intel Macs (if there is no native version yet, for example). It is hardly surprising that the subjective performance impression is excellent and the increased single-core performance helps as well.
I’m a certified display calibrator through the Imaging Science Foundation, and responsible for all of Wirecutter’s computer monitor coverage. I’m a writer at Wirecutter covering computer monitors, laptops, tablets, and 3D printers. But with the M5 version of the MacBook Pro, you can enjoy a high-end Mac’s upgraded features without having to pay hundreds more for the Pro-level chip. The fantastic Liquid Retina XDR display is detailed and bright enough for use outdoors, and it has better speakers and more ports than a MacBook Air. The Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch, M5) is a little better than the 13-inch M4 MacBook Air in every way. It has a bright, high-resolution display, a comfortable keyboard and trackpad, and an upgraded 12-megapixel webcam.