93 MacBook Air M4 (early 2025) 13"

MacBook Air M4 (early 2025) 13"

This of course violate all my rules, but in the past I've had to deal with 5 Macs: a PowerPC, a mac mini, and three laptops. Except for the last one (an M2) very disappointing in how long one can use it before Apple doesn't support it anymore.

Ordered on April 30, 2025. Said I'd never pay apple a dim, so i got it for $845 on Amazon, on sale, but used coupons and refunds such that it's a zero sum for me personally.

Here are the specs:

  M4 (SOC)
  16GB memory (on chip!)
  256GB drive (on chip!)
  fanless
  touchID

The specs are not something I'd normally want for real work, but this is just for small development, ensuring if it works on MacOS as well as on Linux. I'll likely have to use an external drive for bigger data. 16GB is not ideal, but both memory and disk space on such Apple devices drives up the price too much compared to an external device.

Good, Bad and Ugly impressions:

-: magsafe - proprietary magnetic charger (on left)
+: two thunderbold (on left), but they can charge with usb-C
+:
-: no charge port on the right
-:
+:
-: no buttons by the touch pad, it's an apple

This page was last modified on 01-May-2025 by teuben@astro.umd.edu.