what's going on guys so if you clicked on this video you probably own an M1 MacBook Air or are looking at the M1 MacBook Air in comparison to the M4 MacBook Air that I just released this is my personal M1 air that I've had since launch with 256 GB of storage yes I've survived with the base storage option by Apple don't let any other Tech tuber tell you otherwise and a 16 GB of RAM more on that later now I'll be comparing it to the newly released M4 air just like our new sponsor for today
nobody so right out the gate I just want to let you know up front that if you fit into these three types of people just click off the video and don't subscribe because I don't want you messing up my audience demographic because the people who do watch my channel do usually watch towards the end of the video um so a if you are a tech Enthusiast and the only you care about is having the latest and greatest stuff just to say you have it while undermining another person's wants and needs not welcome B benchmarks well
B for Benchmark anyway uh Benchmark elitist where the only thing you really care about is making your purchase decisions solely based off synthetic benchmarks and what comes higher on a graph or lower based on some test not welcome and C if you are a super fan of a brand yes that includes Apple Fans my audience is regular consumers trying to make ends meet enjoy life and want to make a purchase decisions without all the marketing from the company or influencer so if that is you please subscribe if not take a hike okay so without out
the way let's talk about if you should upgrade the m M1 air to the M4 air the answer is no see how I just gave you the answer up front if this is your first laptop you're getting from Apple or Mac OS or you're upgrading from an Intel MacBook as we say in the South bless your heart I'm impressed you've held out this long then jump into the M4 air might be the best choice let's dive into my regular comparisons and then I'll give you my thoughts at the end of the video first thing I
want to talk about is Price It's the question most people care about to be honest I've seen the M1 air in the US from official retailer starting at $450 my model in particular I've seen around $600 which matches the storage and RAM spec of the th000 M4 MacBook Air now when you put that in perspective is it really worth paying nearly double the answer is no see you guys in the next video well not exactly we still have to outline the differences and improvements Apple has made in order to offer a machine nearly 5 years
later for the same price now my favorite category can touch ID please work thank you my favorite category build quality and design the M1 air in my opinion is one of the best designs by Apple next to the 14in and it's really hard to grasp how thin and light the M1 MacBook Air is until you match it up against another modern laptop by Apple it has that coined wedge shaped design and I'll probably show you guys on the overhead as well where it kind of tapers down and the wedge shaped design and when it comes
to typing is comfortable since it's not just a straight 90° angle on your wrist you see that I mean it's pretty hard to see see how it like comes down to like a little point unfortunately we are only limited to two Thunderbolt ports and a headphone jack those are the only ports that are offered on the M1 air moving over to the M4 MacBook Air it goes towards a more traditional laptop design with rounded Corners so it's flat on both the top and bottom and even these you know things that raise up the laptop are
also flat as well so if you tend to use this on a table it's actually pretty comfortable versus the M1 MacBook Air um the bottom part is a bit rounded off by the way this is the icons skin by dbrand this is the leather one because I know people are going to ask down in the comments below leather has held up pretty well as you can see all that nice patina over the years the ports on the M4 air have been upgraded to Thunderbolt 4 and don't worry too much about Thunderbolt 3 versus Thunderbolt 4
even versus Thunderbolt 5 just know that the higher the number the more you can push peripherals and Storage Solutions using that Thunderbolt number if that didn't make a lot of sense just pick up a USBC Hub on Amazon or even if you walk through Marshalls while you're waiting for the Cashers and you'll be completely fine anyway the ma safe also makes a return as well and you have a headphone jack now people do mention that having an extra Port now that you can charge with Mac safe is enough to upgrade from M1 to the M2
M3 and even now the M4 laptops I think that's kind of absurd because as a person who does use the M1 MacBook Air I've just been so used to Charing charging for USBC for like the past decade and it's something that Apple actually brought back believe it or not they actually took away Mac safe and now they returned it and even though mag safe is available I rarely bring or even charge mag safe because it's just another type of cable that I don't want to bring around and I rather just plug in USBC if I
need to charge my laptop and if I need to charge another device like my phone or something or my airpods um I'll just use the other USBC Port it's not like I really need more than two if you need more than two I'd say just pick up a dongle or here's your option the M4 MacBook Air the only argument I can see is if you're taking your laptop to Public public places or you have children or pets that tend to have your laptop fling across the room plug it in with Mac safe otherwise USBC is
the way to go in my opinion one less cable to worry about the other thing that I want to mention as well is that I'm so confident in the battery life of the MacBook Air that I don't even bring my charger when whenever I go out because I know it's pretty much going to last the whole day however if you think you're going to benefit from having Max safe and two Thunderbolt ports the M4 MacBook Air is the clear winner the last thing I'll mention in design is the laptop feel and what do I mean
by laptop feel it's for one I don't know how we have a laptop reviews without actually talking about how the laptop feels in your lab anyway M1 in my opinion is more comfortable to use in my lap just because of its taper design but with the the M4 MacBook Air with its more boxy shape but it's still roundedness around the edges I would say they're both comfortable and you won't be unhappy with either I would just say this has a bit more comfortability in the lap the M4 runs a bit hotter so just make sure
to wear multiple pants or use a pillow when using this for extended periods of time or just use like this laptop thing I got on Amazon for like 15 bucks not sponsored by the way seriously the next major category is the display an important component of a laptop or any product because it's the thing we interact with with our eyes so it's not tangible but our eyes are sensitive to things that aren't Pleasant I have no idea what I was trying to say but as you can see here the display looks more pushed out and
has a notch at the top versus the old school box display that we have on the M1 MacBook Air personally it doesn't bother me that much I know for some people the same people I said not subscribe or watch my videos will go absolutely crazy that the M1 air has such thick bezels in 2025 but the reality is once you use it for a couple hours you'll probably forget what other displays look like especially if you don't constantly compare it to other machines on a daily basis that's like shopping for a TV and saying wow
these both look incredible even though the newer one may have slightly Slimmer bezels get brighter but at the end of the day you see a colorful image the contrast is essentially the same except the newer model is double the price of the old one and when you bring it back to your place without comparing it to the newer model it still looks better than like the 8 or 10y old TV you just replaced think about it that way now objectively the M4 air display is better on paper and in real life the screen does in
fact get brighter the bezels are in fact fact Slimmer fat um and it does have a bit more of a Sheen to it compared to my M1 air but it could just be my M1 air needs a bit of cleaning I would give the edge in terms of the overall display to the M4 MacBook Air though it is a really nice display to look at compared to the M1 air the trackpad and keyboard I won't spend much time here um there's some minor changes to the font and such but in terms of the keyboard and
the typing experience it's more or less the same if you used a MacBook keyboard for like the past 10 years and you managed to skip over the whole butterfly craze um you're not going to have a hard time adjusting from M1 M4 or even some of the older MacBooks up until now the trackpad from what I've used so far it doesn't feel any less clicky or responsive on my M1 air than it does on the M4 the one thing I will mention though is the function row is larger on the M4 air as you can
see here on the M1 it's just you know half the size of the regular key and touch ID is this but on the M4 air you can see that the function row is much larger and the touch ID kind of resembles on what we get on the magic keyboard but it really doesn't affect how you type or use the keyboard daytoday now the speakers are an interesting test and I'll give you my thoughts after um but I'll let you guys guys take a listen and give you my thoughts [Music] so the M1 air sounds tiny
in comparison to the M4 air where it sounds more open is the best way that I would describe it the M1 air does sound slightly louder but loud doesn't necessarily mean better I rather have a slightly quieter more balanced audio profile than a louder one that gets tiny if you don't listen on max volume I'd say they're both pretty comparable um but if you enjoy listening to content on the go um and the speakers alone I'd say the M4 air is the winner another great upgrade I would say is the camera and microphone to some
degree um for the microphone the camera for sure has an upgrade take a listen and watch so this is a microphone and a webcam test on the M1 MacBook Air you guys let me know how it looks and sounds this is ideal lighting um by the way if you want to do like the whole portrait background like this where you can blur automatically and even do the studio you can do that on the MacBook a or M1 you can also do the fancy background as well just because it is an M processor you can really
do a lot of fancy stuff um but unlike the nice things that we have when it comes to um the M4 MacBook Air I don't have the whole um Center Stage if I move around it really just stays stationary um you can do the reactions too so once again pretty cool stuff but let's go ahead and switch to a lower light condition to see how the camera faes so now I'm in more of a lower light condition on the M1 MacBook Air and this is where I would say this it just falls apart um even
if I stay stationary it's I would say it's pretty hard to discern where I am it's super grainy um but in terms of the microphone I'm sure you can hear me it's actually dimming even more I have no idea what the webcam is trying to do um but this is the quality I have to sneeze I'm going to go ahead and stop it so if you wanted to do any type of low light webcam please get the M4 MacBook Air this is just not acceptable this is a microphone and webcam test on the M4 Mac
bucket air you guys let me know how it looks and sounds this does have Center Stage so if I were to like go down a little bit move over to the left or move over to the right I mean I I really know but you know the camera does follow me tries to keep me centered if more people enter in the frame it does try to keep everyone within the focus um also has a availability to do the desk view I can do the same thing where I have portrait mode Studio light the background as
well um so really I would say the the advantage here is the center stage how you're able to like move around have a more I guess natural feel with the camera no matter where you are and once again this does have reactions so lame so this is where a lot of webcams start to struggle in lower light condition so I'm just assuming that I have like a lamp or my light's not on that High um and I would say if I move around it's really hard to discern who I am it's just as it's as
if I'm on a CCTV and someone reported me to the cops but if you're stationary and you're pretty close to your screen because your screen is giving you brightness it's okay I would say it's not spectacular but you know if you're moving around trying to do stuff the webcam is just not that great um but stationary I'd say it's decent specs are an important category and if you want to take advantage of some of the most common configurations such as the base specs like in the M4 air in particular um 200 56 GB of storage
and 16 GB of RAM on the M1 air side if you want to get 8 GB of RAM and 256 256 GB of storage I actually recommend people not to go to Apple unless apple is your only resource or you're in a country where buying direct from Apple or a thirdparty authorized retailer is your only option that's because the common configuration can actually found at retailers here in the US such as Best Buy Walmart Amazon Micro Center and many many more for cheaper and regularly regularly go on sale if you need to configure the machine
in any way you can spec up the M4 air to get up to 32 GB of RAM but they both still cap out at 24 terab of internal storage the more telling difference that I guess most people care about is M1 versus M4 now no matter what Benchmark I show you the M4 is going to outperform the M1 in almost every category it's three generations later and I hope apple and their Engineers have made improvements to Apple silicon nearly 5 years later now just because it's better in charts doesn't necessarily mean you'll need the performance
here's what it boils down to cuz I don't need this to be a 20-minute video I don't want to deter you from the M4 air because it is the better chip however if you are doing everyday task that can be done on the web browser or you're using things like the Microsoft Suite FaceTiming friends and family watching Netflix Disney plus hearing there dare I say dabble in a little bit of coding because I've ran plenty of things in Docker on this M1 air still to to this day before arm was fully migrated over um back
in 2020 the M1 air is going to do it just fine M1 through M4 will do it fine and you probably won't notice a difference unless I told you even when you start to introduce things like photo editing video editing programming don't really want to include AI modeling here but regardless M1 all the way up to M4 can do it however the real reason I would sway people over to the M4 air is if you do more intensive stuff on a daily basis if it's every now and then I would say you're probably not going
to notice too much if you get M1 all the way up to M4 but if you start to do it every day you're going to notice pretty quickly so that leaves me to talk about my conclusions and my recommendations on choosing between M1 versus M4 if you already own M1 it might seem enticing to upgrade to the new kit on the Block but if you don't need the performance and the M1 isn't struggling for you then just stick with it because Tech aside from a financial standpoint the longer you hold on to your product the
more value you're getting out of it if your laptop is hitching or causing you frustration it's time to upgrade as a matter of fact let me give you an example for example this is my Acer laptop if your laptop looks something like this that was not intentional but if you have to like prop your laptop against the wall for it to stand up it's time to upgrade okay if you are still on Intel once again bless your heart I really don't know how you're holding out this long um the laptops aren't featured here but I
would say at a minimum get M3 if not M4 is a nice starting point if money is an issue M1 air is going to be fine trust me because these M machines are not built the same as the Intel ones getting a 4-year-old Intel MacBook nowadays would just be probably one of the worst decisions you can make um but these M machines are just I hate to say it they're just not built the same as the Intel ones speaking about not being built the same in a literal sense the M4 laptops are built in Vietnam
fun fact the rest are built in China so what am I going to do with my M1 air I'll still keep it because it still does everything I need it to do I already have a Mac Mini that does most of my heavy intensive stuff and if I need to do even more crazy stuff well I can just SSH from this MacBook Air to my Mac Mini or my home server the only thing I really hate about my M1 air is that the battery life kind of sucks now but that's because I've been using this
laptop like a desktop for the past four years and I'm actually not surprised because having to be plugged in for nearly four years and still getting mostly all day battery life I would say is still pretty impressive I think people are forgetting the impact the M1 air had when it first released and I keep saying this to this day I don't think Apple realized maybe they did how good of a laptop the M1 air was when it came out for $1,000 and still to this day I would recommend this laptop to my family and friends
if they didn't want to break the bank and just wanted to have a good laptop that serves their needs if they do like very minimal um task on the laptop I don't know why I Ed it that way but you you get what I'm trying to say if they have an iPhone it enhances the entire Apple experience as well because believe it or not the target audience for the MacBook Air and this is something that people need to understand from like a product perspective you always got to think about your target audience the MacBook Air
isn't made to be doing video editing and like AI stuff even though it can do it that's not its intended purpose the MacBook airs target audience for a lot of people in this world I don't want to throw out statistics like 99% of people but a lot of people who need a LP top if they want Mac OS the air lineup is made for you if you want Center Stage which I think is actually pretty awesome better display better speaker fast charging with an extra mac Safe Port and if you intend to use it and
most importantly um want longer software support because I have a feeling by like 2028 maybe even 2030 if Apple's crazy enough that the M1 air is going to be phased out and no longer supported but it's think it's still going to run pretty much fine the M4 air is the way to go in that regard just keep in mind $1,000 versus almost half off that can pretty much do more or less the same thing which one do you really need I'm just saying consider the M1 or stick with it for a couple more years the
M1 changed the game and at a lower price point it is still changing the game in the used Market my recommendation upgrade the RAM over the storage trust me you'll thank me later if you do any sort of development or what to get into want to get into programming or even edit 4K videos 16 GB of RAM will give you a better experience than more storage if you do both double thumbs up for me don't click the uh thumbs up button twice cuz you'll just like the video and then unlike It Anyway guys I appreciate
every single sub like and comment super close to 1 th000 subscri thousand 100,000 subscribers as always guys much love job well done and I can lean with it and I can rock with it with the base spec 256 250 just to say you have it while undermining another person's one that was so perfect that was so perfect then jump into the M4 air might be the best joints twice that pretty much M that pretty much match that pretty much that pretty much M that pretty much that pretty much Ma that pretty much matches the specs
that you see on the latest M4 MacBook Air hey hey hey hey hey hey hey ports have been upgraded to Thunderbolt 4 with M4 I'm just kidding now people mention how now people mention now people mention how now people for the M4 air it would be the 16 GB um Ram module what am I even saying then just stick Wick it with it I'm almost said Wicked what the heck [Music] oh [Music]
