Apple’s new M4 MacBook Air is an all-around easy product to recommend to just about anyone. But what about if you already have a recent model and are unsure about upgrading? Here’s how the new M4 MacBook Air stacks up against the M2 MacBook Air.
Four big upgrades with the M4
Overall, there are a lot of similarities between Apple’s M4 and M2 MacBook Air models. But when it comes to differences, here are four big ones:
- Chip
- RAM
- Camera
- External displays
M4 chip: While it’s unlikely that the M2 chip will feel slow any time soon, Apple still has some nice upgrades with its more recent M4. It has a 10-core CPU vs. the 8-core M2, and delivers up to 1.5x faster CPU performance over M2. GPU and Neural Engine improvements should lead to noticeable graphics-intense and AI upgrades too.
RAM: The M4 MacBook Air starts at 16GB of RAM and can be configured up to 32GB. Its RAM increases are undoubtedly related to future-proofing for AI advancements, but should bring boosts to your present day computing too.
Camera: MacBook cameras haven’t always been great, but the new 12MP Center Stage camera in the M4 Air is a solid upgrade. It comes with support for Desk View and 1080p HD video recording—all improvements over the M2 Air’s 1080p FaceTime HD camera.
External displays: If you work with external displays, the M4 Air brings a key change. Now you can connect up to two monitors, even with the MacBook Air’s lid open, giving you three displays total. The M2 Air can drive only a single external monitor.
Smaller M4 improvements you may still care about
The four features above are the heavy hitters, but there are some smaller updates and tweaks included in the M4 MacBook Air, such as:
- Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum microphone modes that you won’t find on M2
- Wi-Fi 6E on M4 vs. Wi-Fi 6 on the M2
- Thunderbolt 4 on M4 vs. Thunderbolt 3 on M2
- Sky Blue is M4-only, and the latest Midnight color includes the fingerprint resistance first added on the M3 model
- M4 supports AV1 decode, if that matters to you
- Finally, one very tiny change: the mute key now makes more sense
M4 MacBook Air vs M2 MacBook Air: Wrap-up
Apple’s M4 MacBook Air makes for a compelling buy at $999, but whether you should upgrade or not comes down to whether the new features actually matter to you.
Better external display support is a big change, but if you never connect to more than one monitor, it won’t make a difference. Same for the 12MP Center Stage camera—if video calls aren’t a big part of your life, you may not care.
But if these additions would impact your daily computing, then combined with the speed improvements offered by the M4, a new MacBook Air might just be worth it.
Do you plan to upgrade from an M2 MacBook Air to the M4? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments.
Best Mac accessories
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
<