Apple has made a stunning marketing claim for the new MacBook Air equipped with the M4 chip. Specifically, Apple claims the new MacBook Air is up to 23 times faster than the previous generation Intel-based model. However, there are some details that need to be paid attention to.

First, Apple said it compared a new 2025 MacBook Air with a 10-core M4 chip and 32GB of memory to a 2020 MacBook Air with a quad-core Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB of memory. Both MacBookAirs are equipped with 2TB solid-state drives. These are the best specs of every MacBook Air now or in the past.

Therefore, it has been many years since Apple compared the new model to its own Intel-based MacBook Air.

Second, Apple said its testing included using the super-resolution feature on a 4.4MB image in its image-editing app Pixelmator Pro, which it now owns. This feature uses machine learning to increase the resolution of images while retaining sharpness and detail.

So the "23x performance improvement" claim relates to a specific task.

Here's Apple's detailed instructions:

Apple conducted this test in January 2025 using pre-production 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air systems equipped with Apple M4, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU and 32GB of memory, as well as MacBook Air systems equipped with 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, Intel Iris Plus graphics processor and 16GB of memory and configured with 2TB SSD. Tested using Super Resolution and PixelmatorPro3.6.14 with a 4.4MB image. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Air.

What about other tasks? Apple provides some more comparisons:

-Spreadsheet calculation performance in Microsoft Excel is 4.7 times faster than the fastest Intel processor-based MacBook Air and 1.6 times faster than the 13-inch MacBook Air with M1.

- Video editing in iMovie is 8x faster than the fastest Intel processor-based MacBook Air and 2x faster than the 13-inch MacBook Air with M1.

- Edit photos in Adobe Photoshop 3.6x faster than the fastest Intel processor-based MacBook Air and 2x faster than the 13-inch MacBook Air with M1.

For most users, these statements seem more realistic.

Ultimately, while the 23x claim may be a bit of an exaggeration, any MacBook Air with an M1 chip or newer will certainly be significantly faster than any model based on an Intel chip.

You can pre-order the new MacBook Air now on Apple's online store, and it will start arriving on Wednesday, March 12.