First Time MacBook: M4 Air or M5 Air?

[iPhone-Guy]

I’ve had an iPad Air with M1 with a Magic Keyboard for a while now but there’s a host of reasons that I want a MacBook (Air) now including
• How often I’m using AI and keeping lots of tabs open
• Basically no storage (60 of 64 gigs used)
• Lack of using the touchscreen
• More reasons to try out Mac only apps such as XCode
• My longing to get a Magic Keyboard for the trackpad forever
• Clearly worsening battery life
Which one should I get? And why of course 🙂
EDIT: I would use it for my college classes, web browsing, and have started dabbling in app/website development. I also use AI a lot and have noticed my M1 iPad Air getting slow when I have multiple and/or large chats with ChatGPT or Claude open. Photo and short video editing has also been an interest and hobby for me a long time but I only have apps for it on my phone and would like to learn about it more in depth

 

[!!!]

I'd go for the refurb M4, find one with more storage and RAM rather than spending more on a newer CPU. You don't mention what you'd actually use it for besides typing into text boxes in a website.

 

[iPhone-Guy]

I'd go for the refurb M4, find one with more storage and RAM rather than spending more on a newer CPU. You don't mention what you'd actually use it for besides typing into text boxes in a website.

edited!

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Refurb (from Apple) all the way. Best bang for the buck.

 

[delsoul]

I’m a bit unsure if you mean MacBook Air or MacBook Pro, but for your uses, a MacBook Air m4 or m5 would be more than plenty powerful enough. I currently have an air m4 with the 10 cpu 10 gpu 16gb ram and a 2021 MacBook Pro 14” M1 Pro base with 16gb ram. The air m4 absolutely runs wild on it in most all tasks and battery life. I used my M1 Pro for all of my undergrad and graduate studies (MS-ADTA), it was not an issue at all since most everything is cloud based these days, especially your classroom work at the college/university. If my old pro could handle huge models, datasets, graphing, etc and the Air m4 is actually more powerful…it’ll be enough for you too. Only get the pro if you REALLY want the speaker and screen upgrades. If you don’t need those, save yourself some money and look for an Air m4 or an Air m5 if you insist on having the newest version.

 

[Sal09]

…..

 

[dmr727]

Yep, save the money and get the refurb M4. It's a fantastic machine.

 

[padams35]

M5 with educational discount since you call out AI use. There shouldn't be any difference with your current use of on-cloud AI, but M5 benchmarks significantly higher for on-device models if you later transition to local AI (and the education pricing isn't that much higher than Apple refurb)