Pigs will fly before Apple launches a MacBook Air with a more advanced chip than what launched in the MacBook Pro less than a year earlier! Not to mention it being a 2 generation leap (M3 to M5) in just 1 year! That'd be insane!There's nothing in the rumor mill to even remotely suggest it. The M5 seems pre-mature but boy-oh-boy it would stun the world if that was what was announced tomorrow!
Apple's M5 chip is rumored to be in mass production - but we're still waiting for M4 MacBook Airs
Talk about being ahead of the curve...www.techradar.com
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
m4 Macbook Air?
- Thread starter kp98077
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
And hope the M4 gets released within that time span.
I don't think there will be a substantial difference between the M3 and M4 other than the CPU. You may get a couple of extra cores, GPUs, in a M4 over the M3. Most people would not even notice the difference.
I would seriously consider the M2 as they are at really good prices right now. If your needs require more robust resources, then a M2 may not be a good choice. But personally, I would put the extra money M3/M4 costs and put that into more memory and storage on a M2 machine.
Unless you just want a M4. Then go for it.
I have gotten so used to having a triple monitor support for work so this is my main thought for the M4. If M3 had that I would jump on it in a heartbeat
Mac16,12 - Geekbench
Benchmark results for a Mac16,12 with an Apple M4 processor.
browser.geekbench.com
Mac16,12 - Geekbench
Benchmark results for a Mac16,12 with an Apple M4 processor.
browser.geekbench.com
Yea, here is the article!
Initial M4 MacBook Air benchmark reveals same GPU power as M4 iPad Pro
A benchmark has allegedly surfaced that could be by the upcoming M4 MacBook Air refresh, a possible sign of an impending launch for the budget portable Mac.
Maybe next week?
That article missed the OpenCL score posted above.Yea, here is the article!
Initial M4 MacBook Air benchmark reveals same GPU power as M4 iPad Pro
A benchmark has allegedly surfaced that could be by the upcoming M4 MacBook Air refresh, a possible sign of an impending launch for the budget portable Mac.appleinsider.com
Maybe next week?
Anyhow, I'm not sure yet if I am going to buy in March or whatever, or wait until June for the Back-To-School Promotion. In Canada it will likely be CA$200 (~US$140) off.
dont think its gonna be released till after the iphone 16e to let that have its moment
so early march like i have said before
so early march like i have said before
Metal was around 47700 for the M3 MacBook Air with 10-core GPU. So M4 10-core GPU represents about a 15% increase.
(The table says M3 8-core, but I think it must be the 10-core, since that's expected for the M3 MBA with 10-core GPU.)
Last edited:
Apparently for MacBook Air there is just a short window between benchmark leak and product announcement:
Analysis and Typical Time
Analysis and Typical Time
- MacBook Air M2: 6 days
- MacBook Air M3: 3 days
Depends on the location, but in Canada, the M2 MBA isn't a stellar deal, especially considering the fact it came out 3 years ago. The M3 MBA came out last year, so it should have much longer OS support.
It will be interesting to see which model they discontinue next month. Will they keep the M2 model around as the budget entry level model, or will they discontinue the M2 and turn the M3 model into the budget entry level model? If the latter, then we will see a price drop on the M3 (and the leftover clearance M2 models might go even cheaper).
However, the best value IMO might be in June with the M4. M4 edu + Back-To-School Promotion will be a very good deal.
Cool! How were you able to figure that out? Hopefully they announce it next week.
I asked an AI but we’re not allowed to post AI stuff so I just included a summary instead of the actual AI output.
And what if it comes out in 3 weeks, not 2? I don't think that this is a wise move unless you absolutely NEED a new MacBook right now.
I did, but not exhaustively. I initially asked both Grok and Copilot. Copilot wasn't up to the task at all, but Grok for the M2 brought up this article from July 9, 2022:
First Benchmark Result Surfaces for MacBook Air With M2 Chip
An early benchmark result for the new MacBook Air has surfaced, providing a closer look at the M2 chip's performance in the notebook. In a...
www.macrumors.com
From the same article:
And Grok commented, paraphrased, July 9 to July 15 is 6 days, which lines up.
It's possible that there were earlier leaks, Copilot seems to think that there was a leak of M2 MB Air benchmarks in June of 2022 but when I tried to follow the cited document it was unable to give me a working link. Grok wasn't able to verify the June 2022 leak from multiple prompts. There WAS a leak of MacBook Pro benchmarks in June, which might be why Copilot was confused, but again with the link not working it's tough to call.
I didn't check in any detail for the M3 leaks.
Just randomly wondering if Apple might still be going back and forth on pricing with the new tariff regime.
Absorb the tariff cost and lower margins on a high volume model, raise just the Air price making it less attractive, raise prices across the board etc.
I see US store availability for the higher stock configurations continue to be low, but they keep (barely) replenishing the base models. Almost as if they’re just kicking the can down the road by a week every week.
It also appears, anecdotally, that third party retailers like Best Buy and Amazon aren’t getting their inventory replenished for all configurations either.
Absorb the tariff cost and lower margins on a high volume model, raise just the Air price making it less attractive, raise prices across the board etc.
I see US store availability for the higher stock configurations continue to be low, but they keep (barely) replenishing the base models. Almost as if they’re just kicking the can down the road by a week every week.
It also appears, anecdotally, that third party retailers like Best Buy and Amazon aren’t getting their inventory replenished for all configurations either.
Last edited:
Yea stock is definitely dwindling in my area (Long Island, NY). I think we may get an announcement/press release on Monday and a release Friday, February 28th. If they are updating marketing and displays in the stores for the iPhone 16E, might want to do it all in one shot. We may also get a press release for the iPad and iPad Air next week as well. Could even be a multimedia hands-on event for all the new products, there wasn't one for the iPhone 16E yet.