Hi all,
I’m looking for a new laptop mainly for full-stack development (Capacitor Mobile Apps [Android & iOS], PHP, Node.js, MySQL, Docker, front-end frameworks). Thinking about the MacBook Air M4 basic model because of portability and battery, but not sure if it’s powerful enough.
Questions:
Is the base M4 Air fine for dev work (Docker, multiple tools)?
Should I go for higher RAM/SSD?
Any better alternatives (MacBook Pro or Windows ultrabooks)?
Would love your suggestions.
I would say it should be fine. More RAM will always improve performance but the Apple Silicon chips work incredibly well. Unless you’re going to be doing hires video editing or huge photoshop work then you should be fine. The MacBook Air is an incredible laptop.
It's powerful enough, if you can afford getting more RAM I would recommend
With only 256GB SSD you would need to be comfortable bringing an external SSD in case you need more space
I have a Macbook Air M3 24 GB RAM
Recently purchased one of these:
Astonishingly quick little thing (dumped Windows and installed Ubuntu). Build quality is solid all metal. Screen is great and also touch (although OCD when it comes to messy screens so I don't touch it) Memory is soldered however but with 32gb of DDR5 (running at 7467 MHz) I'm alright for the forcible future. 1TB Samsung PM9A1 so is also super quick on that front too. I tried a couple of Macs including an Air, various 'Pro' specs, and a Mini, and to be honest really didn't think that much of them and the OS itself is bloated and full of Apple idiosyncrasies. Sorry Mac fans! This little Lenovo exudes quality is tiny considering its performance and capabilities. Highly recommend it. Can grab it with a 4060 but I saved a few Euro's and just went with the Intel Arc variant as not gaming and for local LLM's we have a dedicated work station so doesn't need to take on that role either... I simply SSH in to it if I want to run any operations that side.
I’m also having Lenovo Yoga 7. But processor is bit old i5 1240P. RAM is fixed 8GB (can’t upgrade)
.
That’s why I was thinking to have a MacBook Air M4 13” 16GB for on-the-way developments.
Just for comparison, i am usng a M1 Mac Mini (8GB RAM) with the latest MacOS, Wappler runs perfectly fine. Also i am using the latest Lightroom and Photoshop with quite big 48MP RAW files - everything is fine.
So a M4 Macbook Air with 16GB RAM should be great, of course more RAM is better 
Have to give it to Lenovo they really are doing a great job with their latest releases. We actually purchased three varying configurations based upon their use cases. Lady who updates our platform in the office has a basic entry Yoga, Management has a middle of the range, and I'm running the slightly higher spec. Very happy with all three. Obviously Apple is the brand everyone believes and expects a 'Dev' to use but I'm not sure that is the case any more... Still they are perfectly capable and most with them seem to be happy. As a non Apple User I just don't like anything about them and like I pointed out the OS is a total joke. I guess if you don't have to use it outside of just firing up your IDE's then you'll not have to interact with it that much... To be honest I really don't understand the appeal of them (don't get me started on warranty and repair issues as that is a mine field). I'd suggest going in and trying them out rather than doing it 'blind' and just ordering one though. Hands on can make a whole lot of difference with regards to purchasing choice.
Thanks @Teodor, confusion cleared. As now my budget allows to have 16Gb 256Gb variant, I can buy it and may hope I don’t need to use my Credit Card for next 4-5 years to buy a new laptop (at least for development purpose)