I used Apple's 15-inch M4 MacBook Air for a week — it's like last year's model, but with an extra shot of espresso

The MacBook Air 15-inch M4 (starting at $1,199) is a fantastic choice for anyone seeking an alternative to the 13-inch MacBook Air M4 and 14-inch MacBook Pro M4.

Like the MacBook Air 15-inch M3, this updated laptop features a thin design in a sturdy aluminum frame. And while larger and heavier than its 13-inch counterpart, it’s still portable enough to travel with comfortably. The new Sky Blue color also makes this elegant laptop look more luxurious.

Don’t let its familiar design fool you into thinking this is the exact same laptop as before. Besides the powerful Apple M4 chip inside, this model features a new 12MP camera to help you look your best during video calls. It also supports up to two external monitors and all the latest Apple Intelligence features for macOS Sequoia.

It would be easy to dismiss the 15-inch MacBook Air M4 as just a super-sized version of the 13-inch model. However, its larger design and lower cost than a MacBook Pro will be exactly what some are looking for. Toss in the aforementioned design, fast performance, great battery life, and vivid display, then you have another winning MacBook.

The MacBook Air 15-inch M4 earns a spot in our best MacBooks and best laptops lists. Find out more in my full review.

MacBook Air 15-inch M4 review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? The MacBook Air 15-inch M4 is a larger version the 13-inch model. It sports an M4 chip, a new 12MP webcam, dual external monitor support, and a new Sky Blue color.
• Who is it for? For folks who want a larger MacBook Air or a more affordable alternative to the MacBook Pro.
• What does it cost? The 15-inch MacBook Air starts at $1,199 on Apple's website, which is $100 less than the previous M3 model. This laptop starts with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
• What do we like? We like the lightweight design, fast M4 performance, vibrant display, sharp 12MP camera, and lower starting price.
• What don’t we like? Desk View doesn’t work as intended on a laptop.

MacBook Air 15-inch M4 review: Specs

MacBook Air 15-inch M4 review: The ups

There’s a lot to like about the MacBook Air 15-inch M4, including its thin design, powerful performance, excellent battery life, new 12MP camera, and big and vibrant display.

Thin and light design

The MacBook Air 15-inch M4 features the same design as its two immediate predecessors. I’m not complaining since I’m still a fan of that sleek and minimalist design.

As before, this laptop measures 13.4 x 9.5 x 0.4 inches and weighs 3.3 pounds — making it easy to travel with wherever you go. The larger size means more room on the sides and bottom of the keyboard deck, which makes typing on this laptop’s keyboard feel great.

Though thin and light, the laptop’s sturdy frame ensures it doesn’t bend or flex. The lid is just as firm and doesn’t wobble even when you’re walking with the laptop open. And while sturdy and rigid, the lid is easy to open and close with one hand.

Port selection is as thin as the laptop, but you get what you need. This includes a pair of Thunderbolt 4/USB-C ports, a headphone jack and a MagSafe charging port. This laptop supports dual external monitors at the same time, even when you have the lid open.

Lastly, I really enjoy our review unit’s new Sky Blue color, which subtly changes depending on lighting conditions. Sometimes, the laptop appears blue, while other times, it might seem more silver-ish. It’s a small detail that sets this laptop apart from similar devices.

Vibrant display

Besides the M4 chip inside, this laptop’s main selling point is its beautiful 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display.

Like before, it pumps out vibrant images at a sharp 2,880 x 1,864 resolution and smooth 60Hz refresh rate. It’s perfect for watching videos, surfing the web, gaming and more.

The display does a great job of making everything pop off the screen. The green hues of a lizard’s scales appear sharp and defined in a 4K video I fired up. Though this isn’t an OLED display, the Liquid Retina panel delivers nice contrasts between dark and light elements.

Our lab tests confirm my anecdotal experience. While the MacBook Air 15-inch M4 doesn’t quite hit 500 nits of brightness as Apple claims, it comes very close. We also see good color reproduction (sRGB and DCI-P3) and color accuracy (Delta-E). These values are similar to the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro and far better than the Acer Swift 14 AI.

Overall, the MacBook Air 15-inch provides fantastic picture quality.

Fast M4 performance

Like every other M4-powered device we’ve tested, the MacBook Air 15-inch offers speedy performance for all manner of tasks.

During work, where I usually have Slack and dozens of Chrome tabs open, the laptop never once slowed down. Even when I fired up a YouTube video, I never experienced a hint of slowdown.

As expected, the 15-inch MacBook Air M4 did fantastically in our suite of benchmark tests. For instance, on Geekbench 6, which tests overall CPU performance, Apple’s notebook outpaced competitors like the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro and Acer Swift 14 AI.

The laptop also performed well in our Handbrake video transcoding test, where it transcoded a 6.5GB 4K to 1080p much faster than its rivals.

Gaming performance can be good for some games while questionable for others. When I tested Resident Evil 4, which is a title optimized for Apple silicon, I experienced relatively smooth frame rates that were higher than 30 fps but not quite 60 fps. The graphics look awesome thanks to M4 features like hardware-accelerated mesh shading, ray tracing and Dynamic Caching.

The MacBook Air 15-inch M4 had mixed results in our gaming benchmark test. Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Civilization VI ran acceptably at 1200p resolution, but Borderlands 3 and Total War: Warhammer III struggled to hit even 30 fps.

Conversely, the 14-inch MacBook Pro featuring the same M4 chip delivers better gaming performance. This makes sense given how the MacBook Air has a fanless design and lacks the Pro’s active cooling, which offers better sustained performance.

Great battery life

The M4 MacBook Air 15-inch doesn’t quite hit 18 hours of battery life as Apple claims, but I doubt most will complain about this notebook’s stellar endurance.

In our battery test involving continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi with the display set to 150 nits of brightness, the MacBook Air lasted for 15 hours and 14 minutes.

That’s 3 hours less than the 14-inch MacBook Pro, but as I said, that laptop features active cooling for sustained performance. Still, I doubt many people will complain about a laptop that only endures for 15 hours.

Updated 12MP webcam

Both M4-powered MacBook Airs now have a new 12MP Center Stage camera meant to help you look your best during video calls. As you can see from the photo above, the camera does an excellent job of capturing all the details on my face and in the background.

The Center Stage feature keeps you in-frame by zooming and panning whenever you move around. I tested this feature during a Google Meet call and the featured worked as advertised.

Overall, the 12MP camera is a nice upgrade to the old 1080p camera of the previous model.

Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence is a prominent feature on macOS Sequoia that could be useful for some folks. This includes a smarter Siri, image generation, assistive writing features and more.

As I’ve written before, Writing Tools is my favorite Apple Intelligence feature. It can proofread, rewrite and change the tone of what you’ve written. For example, you can make your writing sound friendly, professional or concise. Writing Tools can also summarize long documents.

Though I think OpenAI’s Dall-E 3 does a better job of generating images, Image Playground is still fun to use. You can either type out prompts or speak them out loud to Siri, and you’ll get a simple image in seconds. You’re also able to drop AI images into Notes and other programs.

Siri is now more conversational, but Apple’s digital assistant isn’t perfect. It does a decent enough job of telling you the weather or showing nearby restaurants. But if you ask more complex questions, such as what it recommends for dinner, Siri will struggle to provide answers beyond “whatever you like.”

As I said in my iPad Air M3 review, you can use Apple Intelligence to remove things from photos or add AI-generated images to video projects. If you’re a professional photographer or videographer, these tools could be useful. If you’re not, then they’re at least fun to toy around with.

MacBook Air 15-inch M4 review: The downs

It’s hard to find many faults with the MacBook Air 15-inch since it does so much right. That said, there is one glaring problem that undermines one of its unique features.

Desk View is awkward

Like the MacBook Pro 16-inch M4 Pro I reviewed, the MacBook Air 15-inch M4’s Center Stage camera has a feature called Desk View, which lets you share what’s on your desk with others you’re in a call with. This feature works well on the latest iMac M4, but the same isn’t true for the MacBook Air.

To get whatever you want to show to others in-frame, you’ll have to move the MacBook Air far from you, about a foot or so away. This might be difficult or impossible if your desk isn’t big enough. If the laptop is too close, all anyone will see is your chest. Trying to type while the laptop is so far can also be challenging.

Though I think Desk View is a great feature for the iMac M4, it doesn’t work seamlessly on MacBooks.

MacBook Air 15-inch M4 review: Verdict

The MacBook Air 15-inch M4 isn’t all that different from its predecessor but it’s still excellent for anyone interested in a larger Air laptop.

I like its fast performance, long battery life and superb display quality most of all, but I also appreciate the updated 12MP camera and new Sky Blue color. And with a sticker price that’s $100 less than the M3 model, this laptop is almost too good to be true.

That said, if you own the M3 model, you don’t need to upgrade since that’s still a brilliant machine that can do almost anything the new version can—including all the same Apple Intelligence features. In short, you’re not missing much by not upgrading.

Though I would recommend the $999 13-inch MacBook Air M4 for most people, its 15-inch sibling is easily my second recommendation. It’s one of my favorite laptops of the year so far.