We’re getting antsy for a more significant redesign, but the MacBook Air 15-inch remains Apple's best value in a big-screen laptop, thanks to a lower starting price, kicked-up CPU performance, and a boost in the base model's memory capacity.

The new MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) is the best 15-inch laptop you can buy for the money, though we'd like to see bigger performance gains in the future.

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:

At the risk of repeating myself from Engadget's MacBook Air M1, M2 and M3 reviews: The M4-equipped MacBook Air is a nearly flawless ultraportable. Even better, it now starts at $999, which is $100 less than before.

Apple's new MacBook Air M4 laptops are here, and we've got them in our testing lab to give you the latest results (and they impress).

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.

The Apple MacBook Air 15-inch M4 may look like its predecessor, but a powerful new chip, an excellent new webcam, and a lower price make it a worthy upgrade.

A worthwhile upgrade to Apple’s almost-everybody laptop comes at an almost-everybody price tag.