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Is it worth waiting for the M4 MacBook Air?

DeepSix said:
I'm still undecided whether or not I'm going to do this. Something tells me I should just wait for the M4 in March. Even though when it comes out it's going to be full price, $200 more.

But mainly because I want to see what new laptops come out in Q1 2025 on the windows side too.

Are you going to buy the 16 at Best Buy?
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So i picked up in jan 2021 air m1 which was released 2 month earlier from bestbuy open box: paid 935 while msrp for 512gb model was 1200.

This m1 air still chugging along as my main computer so looking forward to either that or back to school deal with m4. At this point I don’t care how much i lose in value between now and march.

I also have 16gb ram mbp 14 - I really can’t tell the difference for my workloads for 8 vs 16. I use 12-13gb of ram and m1 does no hiccups with swap.

I would mainly shoot for new cpu as it will be almost twice as fast as m1 while m3 is only 50-60% faster, so I wouldn’t bother exchanging laptops at that point.
 
Howard2k said:
Current plan is an Apple refurbished M4 or M5, 24GB, 512GB. But I haven’t entirely ruled out a brand new M4 when released. Likely I will wait though.
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I wouldn't mind a refurb M4 Pro. I want to see what all the hype is about and compare it to my M1 16 Pro at work to see if it's worth the money. If Apple puts a sale on for M4 Airs with 16GB 512GB, I'd be willing to wait it out. I wish I had waited 3 months before buying the M3 Air to get 16GB, then I would have it right now with no money lost.

That is a very good deal at Best Buy right now. Not only do you get the 16GB ram upgrade for free but an extra $200 off on top of that. Im expecting them to sell out fast.

From reading the reviews, M3 to M4 is a noticable bump. It's the biggest performance bump since Intel to M1. So I think spending the extra $200 for the M4 when it comes out is likely worth it especially since we are close to M4 coming.
 
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ctjack said:
So i picked up in jan 2021 air m1 which was released 2 month earlier from bestbuy open box: paid 935 while msrp for 512gb model was 1200.

This m1 air still chugging along as my main computer so looking forward to either that or back to school deal with m4. At this point I don’t care how much i lose in value between now and march.

I also have 16gb ram mbp 14 - I really can’t tell the difference for my workloads for 8 vs 16. I use 12-13gb of ram and m1 does no hiccups with swap.

I would mainly shoot for new cpu as it will be almost twice as fast as m1 while m3 is only 50-60% faster, so I wouldn’t bother exchanging laptops at that point.
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M1 is still solid even going into 2025. My M1 Pro at work is solid and I've never had any issues with it ever. It's wierd, some people have said the same that they can't notice any improvement with 16GB vs 8GB and then others say it's night and day difference (which I think is an exxageration).
 
DeepSix said:
M1 is still solid even going into 2025. My M1 Pro at work is solid and I've never had any issues with it ever. It's wierd, some people have said the same that they can't notice any improvement with 16GB vs 8GB and then others say it's night and day difference (which I think is an exxageration).
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One just needs to know how to trace limitations. It is not always ram.

But if you are exporting bunch of pictures and videos, then 16gb is twice as fast. 8gb would not lag but it will be slow, meaning you can just browse safari while it is exporting.

If one doesn’t stress all ram at once, then there is no difference between them.

For example, my mbp 14 m1 pro can play 6-8 4k videos from youtube on external screen with no lags, while air m1 lags at 4 videos.
Half of that because of gpu (8 vs 14) but at the same time ram shoots up to 12-14gb of realtime use, which air doesn’t have.
 
DeepSix said:
M1 is still solid even going into 2025. My M1 Pro at work is solid and I've never had any issues with it ever. It's wierd, some people have said the same that they can't notice any improvement with 16GB vs 8GB and then others say it's night and day difference (which I think is an exxageration).
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There's only a difference if you're actually pushing the RAM you have. If you're not fully using 8GB of RAM (which many people might not be), having 16, 32, 64, etc. isn't going to do anything.
 
ctjack said:
One just needs to know how to trace limitations. It is not always ram.

But if you are exporting bunch of pictures and videos, then 16gb is twice as fast. 8gb would not lag but it will be slow, meaning you can just browse safari while it is exporting.

If one doesn’t stress all ram at once, then there is no difference between them.

For example, my mbp 14 m1 pro can play 6-8 4k videos from youtube on external screen with no lags, while air m1 lags at 4 videos.
Half of that because of gpu (8 vs 14) but at the same time ram shoots up to 12-14gb of realtime use, which air doesn’t have.
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joeblow7777 said:
There's only a difference if you're actually pushing the RAM you have. If you're not fully using 8GB of RAM (which many people might not be), having 16, 32, 64, etc. isn't going to do anything.
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After much thinking over the past few days, I decided to make the purchase on a M4 Pro with 512GB and 24GB. As tempting as it was to wait for the M4 Air, the Pro does appeal to me in many ways. Im going to try it out for the time being and see which I prefer, this or my M3 Air.

But having used the M3 Air for 3.5 months now, I just felt that using it with 8GB I was constantly worried about how many apps I would have open and I would close unused ones. I was constantly monitoring the swap file with activity monitor open all the time. I like to multitask (sometimes with heavy apps) and the ram constraint didnt give me a good experience especially when I ran heavier apps. But I will admit, I do love the fanless and ventless design of the Air but I worry about the longevity of the device long term due to no fan. With the extended holiday return poiicy at Best Buy I had to take advantage of the almost 2 months return period. I should know by then which one I will keep long term.

If i do decide to sell the Air, Im going to have to do it next month. But with the current black friday sales, im not looking forward to how much I would get back for it. Its going to hurt. But lets see which I prefer to keep of the two first.
 
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I suppose it's possible this will go up to 32GB RAM due to the limitation upgrade on the chip, and potentially an extra port now that the m4 supports it?
 
hiddenpower said:
I suppose it's possible this will go up to 32GB RAM due to the limitation upgrade on the chip, and potentially an extra port now that the m4 supports it?
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I can see Apple limiting the 32GB option to the M4 MBP and having the M4 Air top out at 24GB.

Regarding the extra port- I doubt it, it would require a change to the industrial design of the MBA that I don't think Apple are willing to do until a proper redesign.
 
GZR said:
I can see Apple limiting the 32GB option to the M4 MBP and having the M4 Air top out at 24GB.

Regarding the extra port- I doubt it, it would require a change to the industrial design of the MBA that I don't think Apple are willing to do until a proper redesign.
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Drilling an extra hole is not a problem - base mbp 14 did exactly this.

32gb is very plausible as long as people willing to drop 400 extra for apples upgrade pricing.
 
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ctjack said:
Drilling an extra hole is not a problem - base mbp 14 did exactly this.

32gb is very plausible as long as people willing to drop 400 extra for apples upgrade pricing.
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I'm presuming the base would become 16gb, and 2 memory upgrades +400 would get you to 32gb, replacing the current upgrade path for 24gb
 
It's worth waiting if you can be patient for three month.
It's supposed to be realeased an m4 16gig at the same entry price.
Then speculations about a 12mpix webcam, some screen coating... Who knows. Hopefully no price increase.

M4 has better battery life and perf by 20%
It's what I read, the reality I don't know, can probably be very different from those reviewer/online magazines...

I was interested in the black Friday m3 rebate and then in the gift card apple. it seems so much of a bait to me, that I canceled order. Still it's great laptop just don't want to regret not being patient a bit.
 
Honestly I own an M2 Pro and I'm absolutely thinking of going to an Air moving forward as long as they get the ProMotion.. I don't need all this performance.

What I will do moving forward is equip minimum 24GB of RAM
 
I think it's worth waiting for M4 Air. Why? Because it will have noticeably better battery life than the M3. I notice that the battery life on my M4 Pro is noticably better than my M3 Air battery.
 
Mitochondrion said:
I am coming from the 15-inch Touch Bar MacBook Pro with 32 GB RAM and 1 TB storage configurations. It is my main computer and the MacBook Air is a secondary computer for me. It is not a computer to replace my main computer. I will eventually upgrade my main computer to an Apple silicon 16-inch MacBook Pro but it can wait.
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You say that now but when you see the speed of the air's you'll change your mind ;)

I had a top of the line 16 inch intel i9 MacBook Pro, 64 gigs of ram, best graphics card, and my M2 Air smoked the **** out of it in everything including things like Houdini simulations and was a third of the price. It even finished Blender renders faster than my $5000 i9 machine.
 
chrono1081 said:
You say that now but when you see the speed of the air's you'll change your mind ;)

I had a top of the line 16 inch intel i9 MacBook Pro, 64 gigs of ram, best graphics card, and my M2 Air smoked the **** out of it in everything including things like Houdini simulations and was a third of the price. It even finished Blender renders faster than my $5000 i9 machine.
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I ended up upgrading to a 16-inch M4 Pro MacBook Pro! :)
 
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DeepSix said:
Wow nice! What made you choose the 16 over the 14? I use a 16 M1 at work and it's big.
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13/14-inch MacBook Pro is small for me. My previous Mac is a 15-inch Touch Bar MacBook Pro. So, naturally 16-inch MacBook Pro would be the size I choose. It doesn't feel that much bigger than my 15-inch MacBook Pro but then I am used to it.
 
Mitochondrion said:
13/14-inch MacBook Pro is small for me. My previous Mac is a 15-inch Touch Bar MacBook Pro. So, naturally 16-inch MacBook Pro would be the size I choose. It doesn't feel that much bigger than my 15-inch MacBook Pro but then I am used to it.
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16" Pro doesn't feel big until you get your hands on the 14. It's night and day but I will admit that the 16" Pro screen is a delicious to use.
 
I'd really like a 32GB MacBook Air, hopefully apple won't skip it, but the base Mini has 32 GB option too, so I'm hopeful.
 
geta said:
The last M4 MBP also has a 32GB RAM option, so hopefully the new MBA will have that as well.
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This is entirely just a guess on my part, not based on any actually information, but I have a feeling the M4 Air will only offer 16GB and 24GB memory options. More than that will be for Pros, which I don't think is unreasonable since the Air is more intended for light use. Even 24GB is overkill for most MBA users.
 
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DeepSix said:
16" Pro doesn't feel big until you get your hands on the 14. It's night and day but I will admit that the 16" Pro screen is a delicious to use.
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You know what I would love to do? Line up the 13", 14", 15" and 16" Mac computers side by side and compare them. I wish I had family members or friends who have these different sizes and ask them to bring their Mac computers over and I will compare them side by side.

Technically, you could do this at the Apple Store but it is a nightmare as the store is always busy and there is usually somebody using a Mac.

YouTube videos nor images don't quite measure up for me. It's one of those things you need to see for yourself, like the nano-texture display.
 
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