Apple's new MacBook Air is 23x faster than a previous model, but there's a catch

Apple states the new MacBook Air is 23x faster than the last Intel-based MacBook Air, which featured a quad-core Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB of RAM.

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Apple's new MacBook Air features a 10-core M4 chip and 32GB of RAM, which is an astounding 23x faster than the Intel-based model. Notably, the comparison includes both models at their highest specifications. But is it really astounding? The Intel-based model was released in 2020, which means Apple is comparing the new MacBook Air to a laptop that was released five years ago.

The Apple nonsense doesn't stop there, as the purported 23x "faster performance" is a figure derived from a specific test that consisted of using the Super Resolution feature on a 4.4MB image within the image editing app Pixelmator Pro. How about other tasks? Apple writes in the fine print that the new MacBook Air beats the Intel-based model in spreadsheet calculation performance by up to 4.7x and is just 1.6x faster than the 13-inch MacBook Air with an M1 chip.

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Moving to video editing within iMovie, the new MacBook Air is 8x faster than the Intel-based MacBook Air and 2x faster than the 13-inch MacBook Air with an M1 chip. In Adobe Photoshop testing, the new MacBook Air was 3.6x faster than the Intel-based MacBook Air and 2x faster than the 13-inch MacBook Air with an M1 chip. As for web browsing, the new MacBook Air was "up to 60 percent faster when compared to a PC laptop with an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor, and more demanding tasks get up to 2x faster performance."

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Judging from the aforementioned figures, it's clear Apple is cherry-picking the highest number it gained throughout testing. But that isn't what is unusual, as that is common practice for tech companies selling products. What is unusual is the comparison between a product released in 2025 and a product released 5 years ago.

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The reason for this is the massive performance jump Apple achieved with its own in-house silicon (M-series) compared to the Intel-based models, and if Apple decided to compare its latest models against its previous generation, the numbers gained from the tests would be a lot smaller, making marketing for the latest generation a lot less eye-catching.

Apple likely justifies using these comparisons for marketing the latest generation as most consumers aren't upgrading their laptop every year or even every couple of years. But where is the cut-off? Is Apple still going to be comparing the MacBook Air it releases in 2027 to the Intel-based model from 2020?