Apple releases new MacBook Air with M4 chip, rare price drop.

Apple unveiled its latest MacBook Air models on Wednesday (March 5) featuring the new M4 chip and artificial intelligence capabilities, with a rare price drop of $100 compared to the previous generation. The aim is to stimulate sales and encourage customers to upgrade their devices.

The new series of laptops equipped with a 13-inch screen has a base price of $999, while the 15-inch MacBook Air starts at $1,199. Pre-orders will begin on Wednesday, with in-store sales starting on March 12.

Both the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models will come with updated chips, consistent with the recent Mac Mini, iMac, and MacBook Pro, and add support for two external displays when the lid is open. The design remains the same, but Apple has included the available 12-megapixel Center Stage webcam found in the current MacBook Pro.

The entry-level model features the M4 chip, a 10-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16GB of unified memory, and 256GB of storage. It can be further configured with a 10-core GPU (matching the base 14-inch MacBook Pro), 32GB of RAM, and 2TB of storage.

Experts believe that this upgrade may not seem significant, but the price drop is impressive, particularly amidst ongoing tariff increases.

However, Reuters reported that the launch of personal computers with AI support following a sales slowdown post-pandemic is expected to drive the recovery of the PC market this year.

Apple Intelligence is a suite of features that can access ChatGPT, including capabilities for composing emails, messages, and editing photos. This AI feature made its debut on Apple iPhone devices at the end of last year, with Apple continuing to roll out these tools in various languages and regions to attract more users.

According to data compiled by the London Stock Exchange, Apple’s Mac sales during the holiday season amounted to $89.9 billion, exceeding analysts’ estimated $79.6 billion.

On the same day, Apple also introduced the M3 Ultra processor, which is expected to offer better performance than Apple’s previous chip generations.

On Wednesday, Apple also launched the new Mac Studio product, with the new processor available as an option for any related models, enabling them to run large language models with over 600 billion parameters.

The new Mac Studio devices are targeted at AI developers, video and photo editors, with a starting price of $1,999.

The Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra chip will come with at least 96GB of memory, while the computer with the M4 Max chip will feature 36GB of memory.