M4 Air Build Quality

[arcite]

I hazard a guess the main issue with perceived ‘flimsiness’ of the screen has to do with the ditching of the wedge design plus the elimination of the bezel….older air’s, the intel airs had HUGE bezels. That made them super strong, they could survive falling off table, getting stepped on ect…. Current design is definitely high quality, but also more fragile in certain respects. It’s a tradeoff like everything else….the bigger screen, higher performance of the M chips is worth it I’d say. ….but you definitely don’t want to be tossing these M books around too much, they are not indestructible.

 

[Technerd108]

I am so happy to see the wedge design go. It felt like a weak design based on aesthetics over function. I will not argue the elegance of the older designs but they always came with too many compromises. I hated the old huge bezels and many Windows laptops at that time started to look more modern.

Then once Apple redesigned the Pro's so many of us who had complained about the limitations of previous Pro laptops had most of their wishes fulfilled with a much better thermal cooling system that actually worked, ports, incredible screens and speakers and slim bezels all in a really cool industrial design. It represented the pinnacle of MacBook design in terms of performance and feature set. Then the air was redesigned.

The new air while not gaining ports like its Pro siblings still felt so much more capable than any previous gen air ever had. People were testing the air's on heavy GPU related programs like Adobe and others and while they did not perform as good as the Pro models they still could do the tasks. Something that could never be done on a laptop without a fan before m series chips. M2 in the redesigned laptop had better codecs allowing even more impressive performance than m1. Every gen since m2 has only gotten more powerful.

Apple has now given average users an air that is more powerful than we will ever need with better battery life than laptops could ever go before m series. The design language is similar between Pro and air while still retaining their own unique designs.

Quality control on all Apple products has gone down in my opinion over the last 5 to 10 years and while Apple makes exceptional products the chances of receiving some type of small or big defect in the product has gone up greatly meaning that now buyers may have to buy and return a few models to get the "right" one. This is my biggest gripe with Apple not the new designs or build quality. If you get a good QC Apple product it can be one of the most reliable tech devices you own. If you don't you can have a minor issue that never goes away and hampers your experience.

I have been surprised by how much I have enjoyed my m series air. I had a 16" M1 Max and I loved it but for practical every day use it was just too cumbersome so I sold it and got an M2 Air and have never regretted it one bit. The air has been more than enough for me. In the past I only bought the Pro models because Intel models that were airs were just too underpowered. Same with Windows, always got the faster chips and more ram because otherwise you may as well buy a desktop because your experience was going to be slow and painful. Now my older air performs as well as newer high end Intel gaming chips in other laptops with such better thermals and battery life. The M2 is still so good. The hardware on my air is good. I got lucky in the QC lottery.

So maybe the build quality side by side doesn't feel the same or as solid. This doesn't mean it isn't made as well. The smaller bezels alone mean that any laptop you build with very slim bezels will be more fragile than one with thick bezels with more metal framing-simple physics. But I am very happy with the trade off. I will be more careful to enjoy a much more immersive and modern feel. I think design change is getting mixed up with build quality. Something made to be light is inherently going to feel more flimsy than something built strong and tough. The MBP is a great example of thick strong aluminum unibody design. It feels super premium just because of the gauge of aluminum used. While the air has the same design but scaled down for a much lower weight. So you can't use the same thicker gauge aluminum in the air as you do in the Pro and the result is the air feels "cheaper" in the hand because it was purpose built to be portable over being solid like the Pro.

New design changes are very polarizing and I get it. Personally even with the notch I really like the new laptop designs Apple is now using. I am excited to see a change though as now this design has been out for a few years. It doesn't feel old yet but in a couple of years it might be time to see a redesign to hardware in the laptop line up.

 

[mike.coulter]

I mean perhaps some of that is perception. But the form factor isn't what it used to be and that hideous notch is certainly not helping the matters.

M3 vs M1 (the thinner one):
View attachment 2511145

View attachment 2511146

Air is no longer what Air used to define with it's hallmark 'feat of engineering' of those thin edges. Now it's kind of just a boring laptop on a budget, in my opinion.

Putting these side by side like that makes the M1 look like the newer model to me.

Space age laptop.

 

[SmOgER]

Putting these side by side like that makes the M1 look like the newer model to me.

Space age laptop.

I know right. Form factor was the entire point for me of that laptop dating all the way back when Steve Jobs introduced it on stage in an envelope. Moving away from that feels like it's a "regular" range laptop now. With lower price arguably being the only appeal for it.

 

[cjsuk]

Glad the wedge is gone. It no longer looks like I've been self-harming when using one.

 

[ignatius345]

I just moved from an M1 Air to an M4 Air. I've had Mac laptops going all the way back to the G3 PowerBook era.

I loved the M1 Air design, and while the internals of the 2020 i5 Air were a bit lacking, it also felt solid. Before that I had a couple of 11" Airs in a row. All very solid, all had what I think of as that "Zippo lighter" quality where they felt very tough when closed, and over time picked up nicks and scratches (and even the occasional dent) with a sense that the machine was wearing in and getting some character.

So, now I have the M4. It's definitely a better machine in every measurable way than the M1, but I have to confess that 2 months in I'm still finding myself picking it up pretty gingerly. I don't feel the solidity I felt with the M1 and previous Airs. I feel like the tapered front edge of the M1 slipped better into my bag, and made it obvious at a glance which way it opened. I'm not hating on the M4 by any means. It's an incredible machine, but I have to say it just doesn't quite have the solid feeling I got from the previous Airs I had.

Also, even 2 months later, I still find the notch annoying as hell. Sorry. I get why it's there and the new camera is nice -- but I'm not sure the tradeoff is worth it to me.

 

[ignatius345]

Switching from an 11" MBA to a MacBook Pro made me miss the old wedge design. That was a nice bit of industrial design.

One of Apple's best. I used my last one up to 2020, waiting for them to stop crippling laptops with the cursed butterfly keyboard.

 

[Bungaree.Chubbins]

I just moved from an M1 Air to an M4 Air. I've had Mac laptops going all the way back to the G3 PowerBook era.

I loved the M1 Air design, and while the internals of the 2020 i5 Air were a bit lacking, it also felt solid. Before that I had a couple of 11" Airs in a row. All very solid, all had what I think of as that "Zippo lighter" quality where they felt very tough when closed, and over time picked up nicks and scratches (and even the occasional dent) with a sense that the machine was wearing in and getting some character.

So, now I have the M4. It's definitely a better machine in every measurable way than the M1, but I have to confess that 2 months in I'm still finding myself picking it up pretty gingerly. I don't feel the solidity I felt with the M1 and previous Airs. I feel like the tapered front edge of the M1 slipped better into my bag, and made it obvious at a glance which way it opened. I'm not hating on the M4 by any means. It's an incredible machine, but I have to say it just doesn't quite have the solid feeling I got from the previous Airs I had.

Also, even 2 months later, I still find the notch annoying as hell. Sorry. I get why it's there and the new camera is nice -- but I'm not sure the tradeoff is worth it to me

My brother is still using that old 2012 MacBook Air. It just keeps chugging along!

You said it all very well. I love my MacBook Pro, it seems solid, and going from a decade old mobile i7 to an M3 Pro is a huge leap, I still miss the old wedge design.

And the notch!

Maybe I should look at getting a secondhand M1 Air.

 

[SmOgER]

My brother is still using that old 2012 MacBook Air. It just keeps chugging along!

You said it all very well. I love my MacBook Pro, it seems solid, and going from a decade old mobile i7 to an M3 Pro is a huge leap, I still miss the old wedge design.

And the notch!

Maybe I should look at getting a secondhand M1 Air.

I was thinking the same. A tempting option to replace my windows laptop and have a go at Mac OS again.

 

[icymountain]

I think this thread is mixing up things a lot.

It is fair to dislike the notch (I do not love it, far from that, but I understand that it reduces the laptop area, for a given screen area as the webcam does not require extra spece) or the moving away from the wedge design (I have mixed feelings about it; overall, I think I prefer the "new" form factor as it is thinner overall), but these are not build quality issues.

They are (perfectly reasonable) personal preferences (that one may share or not).

 

[shinkansenwarrior]

I bought my M1 Air FOR the wedge design as I had previous Airs with the same design. It is iconic and I felt a bit sad when they made the design somewhat mainstream losing its uniqueness.
Considering later a 15 inch Air as an upgrade but all I can say about that M1 Air is it's built solid.
I cannot open the lid without the whole machine lifting up!! I wish it was a little lighter but build quality for this Air is high. The M1 Air will go down in the Mac Museum as a masterpiece. I will keep this machine as a backup once I decide to upgrade. I love the machine. I know the latest gen Airs will no doubt feel a bit different during usage but it is what it is... I will look forward to the positives of an upgraded CPU/GPU, better screen, WiFi 7, thunderbolt 5 ports and other goodies. We cannot decide what Apple decides to do with their next gen hardware. You do have the option of the refurb store which is great also. I hope you find the right modal for you.

 

[Dust-by-Monday]

I mean perhaps some of that is perception. But the form factor isn't what it used to be and that hideous notch is certainly not helping the matters.

M3 vs M1 (the thinner one):
View attachment 2511145

View attachment 2511146

Air is no longer what Air used to define with it's hallmark 'feat of engineering' of those thin edges. Now it's kind of just a boring laptop on a budget, in my opinion.

To get rid of the notch, change the resolution. It works great and doesn’t hinder quality.

 

[Jackbequickly]

Nothing wrong with the MBA M4 build quality!

Nothing!

 

[throAU]

And in fact the M4 is lighter. The argument is just silly. Both are small and thin, but the M4 is thinner (at the thickest point) and lighter. It’s just not wedge any more.

Yeah the wedge was just about claiming a thinness number for part of the thing, the reality is it needs enough space to fit the thickest part of the machine.