Apple MacBook Air M4: First Look and Early Testing

Apple's M4 MacBook Air landed in our lab this week. Early results confirm the battery life claims and suggest meaningful performance gains over the M3. Full review coming in two weeks — here's what we know so far.

#1 Pick

MacBook Air M4

Apple

Battery life hit 14.2 hours in our initial test — confirming Apple's '18 hours video playback' claim translates to 14+ hours of real work. The M4 scored 18% higher than the M3 in multi-core benchmarks

How we tested

We've run our standard battery test (real-world workload: 30 browser tabs, Slack, Zoom, spreadsheets, Spotify at 150 nits) twice. We've benchmarked Cinebench, Geekbench, and our Lightroom export test. Full multi-week testing is underway.

Why it won

Battery life hit 14.2 hours in our initial test — confirming Apple's '18 hours video playback' claim translates to 14+ hours of real work. The M4 scored 18% higher than the M3 in multi-core benchmarks. Full review coming August 30.

Specifications

The bottom line

The MacBook Air M4 earns our recommendation because it outperformed the competition in the metrics that matter most. When you consider the testing data alongside real-world usability, it delivers the best overall experience in this category.