Review Apple MacBook Air M4 - Return of the Mac!

I wasn’t planning to write this review. Indeed, I hadn’t originally planned to buy the device in question at all. You see, I’ve had to leave my job of over five years due to burnout and an underlying ongoing health issue. As a result, money is generally very tight and large investments aren’t really on the cards. As of the time of writing, I’m still unemployed, and it’s unlikely that this will change anytime soon. So when the keyboard on my 2017 Intel MacBook Pro 13” with TouchBar started having keyboard issues back in early 2025, I wasn’t originally planning to replace it. However, an unexpected tax refund I received back in Spring 2025 left me with a bit of breathing space for large investments. As a result, I jumped at the chance to grab a 2025 13” MacBook Air M4 when it became available at a 23% discount during the Amazon Prime Day Sale. By some magic the Seattle box pushers managed to deliver it the next day!

First Impressions

It's been a while since I've had a brand new MacBook arrive in its box!

It might be a fingerprint magnet, but I just love the Midnight colour way on the newer MacBook Air models!

The rest of the device is equally gorgeous, and the screen just pops!

Oh. My. God! That’s how my review notes for the MacBook start and honestly, I can’t think of a better way to kick off this part of the review. It is simply a gorgeous machine! Despite the discount, I only opted for the baseline 13” model, although to be fair, I have always considered 13” the maximum for a MacBook Air, especially now that Apple has killed off the classic wedge shape of the series, something I will never forgive the company for! Anyway, wedge-related vendettas aside, the machine is simply stunning, especially in the midnight colourway that I opted for. It basically turns the machine into a chameleon, seemingly changing colour from near enough black to a myriad shades of dark blue depending on how the light hits the chassis. The colour-coordinated charging cable in the box is a nice touch too, although I’m somewhat disappointed by the fact that the power supply is just pure white. To top it off, the aluminium body feels rock solid, despite the fact that the MacBook only weighs in at 1.24 kilogram.

The wow factor continues once you open the lid. The device boots up instantly and setup was as quick and painless as you’d expect from Apple. The display is just gorgeous, crisp, with vibrant colours and much brighter than I’d expected. The camera notch feels a bit goofy at first, but I quickly got used to that to the point where I don’t really notice it anymore. 

Everyday Use

This is why I prefer smaller laptops. The 13" MacBook Air just about fits onto a café table.

The MacBook Air has been my daily driver since July 2025 and whilst I’m not a power user, I’m by no means going easy on it. I regularly use it on the go, and do everything on the machine from standard office work to gaming, photo editing in Photoshop/Lightroom, the occasional bit of video editing and software development using VS Code. And despite me having opted for the base model with 16GB of unified memory and 256GB of storage, this thing just flies! The device does get warm when subjected to prolonged heavy workloads, but I’ve only managed to get it to the point of thermal throttling once, after a seven hour Stellaris session. And even then, it wasn’t exactly game breaking, the two expansionist neighbours I was dealing with were a bigger headache. Contrary to the cries of certain users on the r/macbookair subreddit, storage isn’t that much of an issue either. Granted, I don’t have too many games on my machine anyway, but even so, I’ve never found myself pressed for storage on my 256GB MacBook. I do always have my trusty Samsung SSD with me for really large files though when I leave the house with my MacBook though, so maybe that helps with any storage anxiety as well.

My MacBook in its natural environment, being used as a blogging machine in a café.

When I got my original MacBook Air back in 2013, one of its main uses was that of a writing/blogging machine and even now, over a decade later, this is still one of the main uses of this MacBook Air. In fact, I’m using it to write this very review. As such, the keyboard is a key component for me. Now even during my MacBook Pro interlude, I never really minded the much decried butterfly keyboard mechanism on the 2017 MacBook Pro, but even so, the keyboard on the MacBook Air M4 is a definite step up in quality. My typing style is rather robust, but even so, the key travel is excellent and typing just feels right for lack of a better term. The trackpad is a bit of an issue at times, but that’s an issue that this particular southpaw has had with every MacBook going back to 2013.

The MacBook Air M4 is a surprisingly capable developer machine, especially when you're using your iPad as a second screen using Sidecar!

I mentioned further up that I’ve been using my MacBook Air for software development. To be more precise, I attended a software development bootcamp from August to December 2025 that covered the whole gamut from frontend work with HTML, CSS and, regrettably, JavaScript, to backend work with Python, PostgreSQL and Django. The MacBook was my development machine for the entire course, using VS Code as my IDE. Even during the three onsite hackathons that took place as part of the course, my MacBook never struggled to keep up, even when using my iPad Air as a second screen using Sidecar. In fact, using Sidecar whilst at the same time charging the iPad Air through USB-C was the only way for me to drain the battery of my MacBook in less than a day. I know that these days, the actual computer part of a MacBook only makes up a small part of the entire device, with the entire rest being given over to batteries but still, the battery life feels like Apple is either conspiring with the chaos gods or secretly using Star Trek technology. Seriously, I just can’t kill the battery in less than a day unless I really set my mind to it. Also, reintroducing MagSafe charging on the MacBook is a godsend. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve tripped over the charging cable, but thanks to the magnetic charging cable, the only thing that’s suffered damage so far is my ego.

The Downsides

Now, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the downsides of this machine. I’ll be honest with you there aren’t that many. For starters, I’m not the biggest fan of the placement of the USB-C ports on the machine. They’re just a little too close together for my taste, especially since I use Yubikey hardware keys for authentication and 2FA. Things get cramped rather quickly when you have an SSD or external screen connected. Thankfully, you’re not reliant on USB-C for charging thanks to both MagSafe and the seemingly infinite battery life, so that defuses this particular issue somewhat. Charging is a bit of a downside though, since the included charger only allows for 30W charging, far less than the 70W charging that the MacBook itself is capable of.

The biggest issue for me is that, when shut down, pressing any key will boot up the MacBook. In normal use, this isn’t much of an issue, however, cleaning the device can quickly turn frustrating. Also, I could write about the shortcomings of MacOS 26 Tahoe, both real and imagined, but to be honest, none of those really impact everyday use of the device. Indeed, the very fact that my biggest gripe with the device affects my ability to clean it really speaks for itself.

Conclusion

I titled my Amazon Review for the M4 MacBook Air “The Everyday Laptop to beat!”, and that pretty much describes my feelings about this machine. It’s just the ideal everyday computer as far as I’m concerned. It’s light enough to be easily portable, has plenty of power under the hood even for demanding tasks, battery life that is frankly obscene, and is just an absolute joy to use. Yes, MacOS 26 is a bit rough around the edges. But honestly, I’ve seen worse. If you’re in the market for a new laptop and are looking for a general-purpose machine, the MacBook Air M4 is definitely the laptop to beat!