This week, Apple refreshed most of its Mac lineup with the M4 chip. The iMac now runs M4; the Mac mini now runs M4 or M4 Pro; and the MacBook Pro runs the M4, M4 Pro, or M4 Max. One major Mac product that surprisingly didn’t get an M4 refresh this time around, however, is the MacBook Air. Apple’s entry-level MacBook still comes only in either M2 or M3 options, so if you want an M4 laptop, you have to go Pro.
That might sound like grounds for disappointment, but it’s not. In fact, the “new” MacBook Air Apple rolled out this week is officially my new pick for the best MacBook for most people. Pick one up, and I wager it will be the last laptop you buy for a long time.
At first glance, it looks like there’s nothing new about the MacBook Air. And in fact, there really isn’t. But what has changed is that Apple is no longer selling a model with 8GB of RAM. Now when you shop directly from Apple, the company only offers 16GB of RAM in the base model, but it has kept the old 8GB base model price of $999—and Amazon and Best Buy have already matched the new price and configurations too.
In short, a laptop that used to cost a minimum of $1,199 is now $200 less expensive. That, my friends, is what I call a value.
The successor to the M1 MacBook Air
Apple launched the M1 MacBook Air back in November of 2020. An efficient, high-performing machine, the $999 price tag made it the laptop to beat. In the following years, Apple rolled out new MacBook Airs with design refreshes and faster chips, but the 2020 M1 Air kept dropping in price, and remained robust enough to satisfy the needs of average users, and then some.
The M1 kept the best value crown until earlier this year. As recently as April 2024, three and a half years after it originally launched, I still dubbed it the best MacBook for most people, especially considering you could find it in stores for as low as $699. The M2 MacBook Air (originally released in 2022) really only stole the crown from the M1 once its price started to drop as well. If you were looking for a MacBook Air during October Prime Day, for example, the $749 M2 Air was a great choice.
But now with double the RAM, the M2 Air deserves your consideration more than ever.
What makes the “new” M2 MacBook Air so great?
The M1 Air, while still an excellent machine in late 2024, looks a bit outdated these days, mirroring the design of the 2018 MacBook Air. That includes the screen large bezels, which, while not a deal breaker, contribute to its dated look. The webcam is also lower quality than you might wish, and since the device only comes with two USB ports, you’re down to one when you’re charging it.
The M2 Air, on the other hand, is a “new” Mac. It sports Apple’s current design language, which means its more squared-off than the M1’s (admittedly iconic) tapered design. It also has a larger display for the form-factor: The M1 has a 13.3-inch display, while the M2 has a 13.6-inch display, extending the screen area edge-to-edge, and a more modern look, including the “notch” cutting into the display where the webcam is housed.
Speaking of the webcam, the M2’s webcam is 1080p, a bump up from the M1’s 720p camera. And while it also comes with two USB ports, it also supports MagSafe charging, which means you can magnetically charge the MacBook while keeping your two ports free for other devices. (It still supports USB-C charging, if that’s what you prefer.)
Of course, the M2 chip is objectively better than M1, but not by a whole bunch. Comparing base model chips, M1 has an 8-core CPU and a 7-core GPU, while M2 has an 8-core CPU and an 8-core GPU. In benchmarking, that upgrade represents a subtle bump in performance between M1 and M2, but nothing crazy. Most tasks M2 can handle, M1 should be fine with, as well.
On paper, the M2 MacBook Air is an all-around better laptop than its M1 predecessor. That’s nothing new: The M2 Air has been out for over two years now, so this discussion is quite old. Plus, the price difference was what kept these two machines in stiff competition. Sure, the new features of the M2 model were enticing, but you could save $300 or more by opting for the M1, and that made it easy to recommend for most people.
Flash forward to October 2024, however, and the story has changed.
Thanks for the memory
The last four years have been a great time to be a Mac user. Apple silicon (its M-series chips) have been such a success, it’s made many of us forget about the previous four years, during which MacBooks were plagued by serious issues, not least of which was their infamous butterfly keyboards. (I still miss the Touch Bar though.)
However, as great as every Mac has been since the first M1 machine appeared in 2020, there was one fundamental bad habit the company could not shake: including only 8GB of RAM in the standard model. To provide a quick, oversimplified explanation, RAM (or memory) allows you to do more things at once on your computer. If you tend to single-task, you might not notice the limitations of 8GB of RAM. But if you’re firing off emails while texting photos to friends while keeping a million browser tabs open in the background (including a YouTube playlist or a Netflix show), even your M1 Mac might struggle to keep up.
Previously, the base model for every M-series chip (minus the Pros and Maxes) came with 8GB of RAM. If you were worried about needing more RAM in the future, you were forced to consider upgrading to at least 16GB of RAM, which cost $200 extra. Suddenly, that $999 laptop was looking more like a $1,199 laptop, which wasn’t the same value Apple advertised.
That’s why this week’s “new” M2 MacBook Air is such a big deal. For the first time since the M1 MacBook Air in 2020, a $999 laptop purchased direct from Apple is an amazing deal. Only 8GB of RAM in 2024 is questionable, but 16GB is a no-brainer. Most people will not need that much RAM for their day-to-day tasks, no, but it insures the machine will serve them well for years. There will come a day when 8GB of memory is simply not enough to run macOS well, or use inefficient apps like Chrome, but the users who bought a MacBook with 16GB of RAM won’t suffer for it.
That’s not just good news for MacBook Air fans: Apple changed the rules for all its Macs this week. The base M4 iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook Pro all now come with 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB. It’s just particularly exciting news for Apple’s best value Mac.
The M2 Mac could last you a long time
We’re four years into the Apple silicon era, which is long enough to see how well these chips hold up, but also not long enough to know how long Apple plans to support its new hardware. That being said, after nearly half a decade, the M1 is still going strong. My 2021 iMac has no trouble keeping up with my daily multitasking workflow, even if I do notice speed differences between it and my MacBook Pro with an M3 Pro chip. For most tasks, the M1 is just fine, and I expect that to be the case for the foreseeable future.
This is also true of the M2, only more so. It’s one generation newer than M1, which means in all likelihood, Apple will support it at least a year longer than M1. In the far future, when Apple does eventually stop shipping new versions of macOS for M2, they will likely still issue security updates for some time after that, so users can continue using their Macs safely even without getting any new features. Even then, there will be third-party options, like OpenCore Legacy Patcher, that will offer ways to install new versions of the macOS on unsupported machines.
All that to say, spending $999 on an M2 MacBook Air today is likely one of, if not the best laptop buying decisions most of us can might right now. Sure, you can spend more to get the additional benefits of an M3 MacBook Air, or even an M4 MacBook Pro, those machines will last you as well. But if you have a grand to spend on a computer today, my choice is the M2 MacBook Air, all day, every day. I would be shocked if you needed a new machine before November 2034. As much as I’ve stressed that 8GB of RAM is a limitation, even M1 machines with that limited memory are working fine in 2024. The M-series Macs are just excellent machines, and this one is possibly the best value MacBook the company has ever produced.
A final pro tip: If you’re tempted to save $100 by buying the 8GB M2 MacBook Air from Amazon, don’t. Instead, buy the M2 MacBook Air through Apple’s Education Store. Apple will take that $100 off anyway. The deal is open to everyone, so you’ll get that extra memory essentially free of charge.
