The Apple MacBook Air M4 is a fast, quality productivity machine and it now starts at its lowest base price. I just wish it were more blue.

Apple offers three standard configurations each for the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air. The 15-inch MacBook Air in this review is customized with more RAM and storage than the top-end standard configuration, which starts at 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Here are the specs for our review unit:

In Geekbench, which measures overall performance, the MacBook Air M4 hit 3,751 in the single-core test and 14,947 in the multi-core test. That’s 21% faster than the MacBook Air M3. The dual-core result was 23% higher.

Apple rarely offers you more for less, especially in its most popular products with the broadest appeal. It has perfected the measured, iterative year-over-year product cycle. But for the 13- and 15-inch M4 MacBook Airs, Apple has put new chips in its established design while shoring up the device’s biggest flaws and dropping the price by $100.

After a week on pre-order, Apple's refreshed iPad Air with M3 processors is now available to buy immediately and the first pre-ordered ones are arriving in users' hands.

The new sky blue base model seemed likely to be in high demand, but quick checks on countries in timezones where stores are open shows immediate availability … Of these, it’s the M4 MacBook Air generating the most buzz.