It’s a double treat for Apple fans. Hot on the heels of an M3-powered iPad Air announcement, the tech giant has unveiled more upgrades to its notebook and desktop range, starting with the MacBook Air.
Powered by the M4 chip, the new MacBook Air will come in 13- and 15-inch sizing options like before, alongside an all-new colour: sky blue, joining the existing selection of midnight, starlight, and silver. It boasts a 10-core CPU, an up to 10-core GPU, and support for up to 32GB of unified memory, with Apple claiming a 100 percent increase in speeds compared to 2020’s M1 model.
Additionally, the machine offers support for up to two external displays alongside its leading built-in Liquid Retina panel, an 18-hour battery life, and a new 12MP Centre Stage camera. Users can also expect hardware-accelerated mesh shading and ray tracing for more realistic game performance, alongside the full suite of Apple Intelligence features like Mail Summaries, Smart Replies, Cleanup in Photos, and more.
The 13-inch MacBook Air with M4 is available for pre-order from 7 March at a starting price of S$1,499, S$100 less than before, while the 15-inch model comes in at S$1,799. Once macOS Sequoia 15.4 rolls around next month in April, files, photos, messages, passwords, and other content on the iPhone can be accessed from the Mac by signing in to the associated Apple Account, activated when both devices are brought close to each other.
As for the Mac Studio, the workhorse has been upgraded with M4 Max and M3 Ultra oomph. The former, built for creative professionals and GPU-intensive tasks, sports an up to 16-core CPU, an up to 40-core GPU, over 500Gbps of unified memory bandwidth, and a Neural Engine that reportedly is three times faster than M1 Max.
Touted as the most powerful chip in a Mac, the M3 Ultra features up to a 32-core CPU with 24 performance cores — 50 percent more than any previous Ultra chip — and up to an 80-core GPU, alongside over 800Gbps of unified memory bandwidth. According to Apple, the Mac Studio with M3 Ultra is set to be twice as fast as the M4 Max, delivering up to 2.5 times the performance of M1 Ultra.
Both models are the first in the family to inherit the company’s advanced graphics architecture, including dynamic caching, hardware-accelerated mesh shading, and a second-generation ray-tracing engine. The Thunderbolt 5 ports also allow for external storage, expansion chassis, and hub solutions, delivering transfer speeds of up to 120 Gbps, three times faster than the previous generation.
The new Mac Studio with M4 Max starts at 36GB of unified memory and can be configured up to 128GB, versus 96GB and 512GB, respectively, on the M3 Ultra variant. It starts at S$2,899 and will be available to order soon.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
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Kevin Low
