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Literally a day after announcing an M3 update to its iPad Air, Apple has finally announced the long-awaited M4-powered MacBook Air. The laptop is a direct upgrade to the M3 Air launched last year, but comes in $100 cheaper at AU$1,699, and is launching on 12 March.
As far as improvements, the new laptop features an new 12MP front-facing ‘Centre Stage’ camera, which will automatically frame you for video calls, and the extra power afforded by the M4 (as well as support for up to 32GB of RAM) should improve performance in ‘professional’ tasks, such as video editing, photo editing, and spreadsheets.
It’ll still come in 13” and 15” varieties, but also comes in a new colour, sky blue, complete with a matching power brick.
It’s a pretty compelling upgrade to what is already one of the best laptops on the market, and the fact that it’s $100 cheaper – at least at the base model – is a welcome shift in Apple’s pricing.
Tech Specs
| MacBook Air 13” and 15” | |
| Price | 13” starts at AU$1,699 15” starts at AU$2,099 |
| Display | 13.6” Liquid Retina IPS LED display – 2560×1664 native resolution – 60hz refresh rate 15.3” Liquid Retina IPS LED display – 2880×1864 native resolution – 60hz refresh rate |
| Processor | Apple M4 Chip – Up to 10-core CPU – Up to 10-core GPU – 16-core Neural Engine |
| Memory | 16GB unified memory – Configurable up to 32GB |
| Storage | 256GB SSD – Configurable up to 2TB |
| Ports | MagSafe 3 charging port 2x Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports 3.5mm headphone jack |
| Battery | 13”: 53.8 watt hour LiPo Battery 15”: 66.5 watt hour LiPo Battery |
| Measurements | 30.41 cm x 21.5 cm x 1.13 cm Weight: 1.24kg |
Mac Studio goes Ultra
Alongside the new MacBook Air, Apple also showed off an update to the Mac Studio: the company’s professional-focused desktop option, which now comes equipped with last year’s M4 Max processor or, if you need some serious power, the newly launched M3 Ultra.
The new Mac Studio starts at AU$3,499 for the M4 Max model, while the M3 Ultra starts at AU$6,999 – and can be configured up to AU$22,149 for the absolute bleeding edge.
According to Apple, the M3 Ultra makes the new Mac Studio the “most powerful Mac ever made”, which has been built to tackle CPU and GPU intensive workloads, such as 3D work in Blender, and can deliver up to twice the performance of the M4 Max in such tasks. That’s largely because the M3 Ultra features up to 32 CPU cores, 80 GPU cores, and 32 NPU cores, and can be configured to have up to 512GB of unified memory. For reference, that’s more than any normal person would ever need, but places the Mac Studio as one of the fastest desktops for computational or graphical work on the market right now.
Plus, the Studio now features six Thunderbolt 5 ports (up to 120 Gb/s), which allows fast external storage use, connecting something along the lines of an eGPU, or connecting up to eight 6K resolution monitors. Again, most of this is more than any normal person would ever need, but its pretty impressive for those of us working in computing-heavy work.
Also, it’s worth noting that this time Apple put the power button on the back of its Studio, unlike the recent Mac Mini which controversially put its power button on the bottom.
If you’re interested in checking out the MacBook Air or Mac Studio, you can do so at Apple’s website.
