Here’s a bit of a riddle for you. The MacBook Air M1 was released back on November 17, 2020. In terms of dog years and computer years, it’s basically a young buck but not a youth. But it’s also damn cheap. Not just cheap for an Apple laptop, but cheap at just $650.
Well, $650 for any MacBook is pretty slick, and the M1 is no slouch. It’s certainly world’s faster than the early-2020 MacBook Air with the Intel i5 that I still occasionally use, so it’d be up to the task of normal laptop usage.
new, and still fast enough in 2025
This is no refurbished model. Hell, I don’t even know where Walmart happened to find a bunch of previously unused MacBook Air M1s sitting idle somewhere for the last few years. Apple typically keeps the current and previous generations around, cycling out the older ones as if they’re haunted and they can’t wait to get rid of them.
We’re now on the fourth generation of MacBooks designed around Apple’s in-house-designed Apple chips. The M1 was the first, and the M4 was just released on March 12, 2025. On the MacBook family tree, this is a scroll-up situation.
Does it matter, though? While you can score a sweet deal on the MacBook Air M4 today for $889, that’s still close to a grand. You want the Apple slickness of its macOS operating system and Magic Trackpad and all that, but at a more manageable price.
Given its age, it’s reasonable to wonder if it’s up to the task of handling Google Workspace, Zoom, emails, internet browsing, and all that. It absolutely is. I wouldn’t edit video or intensively edit RAW photo files on it, but for the sort of low-lift tasks for which most people use their laptops, the MacBook Air M1 still offers brisk performance. It’s no M4, but then it’s not priced like an M4 is, even on sale.
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