The MacBook Air M5 is official, now with Apple's latest silicon to deliver even greater performance to one of the best laptops today. Better yet, its price is staying exactly the same as its predecessor.
Announced during Apple's March event, the all-new MacBook Air M5 is more of an internal spec bump rather than a major revamp, just like previous generations. However, its upgraded silicon brings a significant boost in power, and it now boasts the same chipset as the impressive MacBook Pro M5.
Like the MacBook Air M4, you can expect the same 13- and 15-inch models to choose from, vivid Liquid Retina displays, 12MP webcam and a utilitarian design. They come in sky blue, midnight, starlight, and silver colors.
The MacBook Air M5 will be available for $,1099, which is a $100 price increase over last year's model. Pre-orders start Wednesday, March 4, and it will officially launch on March 11. In the meantime, here's what you need to know about Apple's latest MacBook Air.
MacBook Air M5: Specs
MacBook Air M5 |
MacBook Air M4 |
|
Price |
$1,099 |
$999 |
Display |
13.6 inches (2560 x 1664) |
13.6 inches (2560 x 1664) |
Chipset |
Apple M5 |
Apple M4 |
Memory |
16GB |
16GB |
Storage |
512GB |
256GB |
Battery life |
18 hours (rated) |
18 hours (rated), 14 hours 15 minutes (tested) |
Ports |
2x Thunderbolt 4 / USB-4, 1x MagSafe, 1x headphone jack |
2x Thunderbolt / USB-4, 1x MagSafe, 1x headphone jack |
Connectivity |
Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 |
Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3 |
Colors |
Sky Blue, Silver, Starlight, Midnight |
Sky Blue, Silver, Starlight, Midnight |
Dimensions |
11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches |
13.4 x 9.5 x 0.4 inches |
Weight |
2.7 pounds |
3.3 pounds |
MacBook Air, now with M5
As you can see, not much has changed with the all-new MacBook Air M5. As we've expected, it's more of an incremental update, but one that offers major benefits in performance and even battery life.
With M5, the 3nm process delivers significant improvements in graphics and faster SSD read/write speeds. Plus, we can expect 4x faster performance for AI tasks than MacBook Air with M4, and up to 9.5x faster than MacBook Air with M1.2 This makes it an incredibly capable platform for AI. However, its battery life that's now rated at 18 hours.
The chip itself has the same 10-core CPU, with 4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores, and 10-core GPU, but this time with 153GB/s memory bandwidth compared to the M4's 120GB/s.
Here's the performance you can expect from M5, after benchmarking the MacBook Pro M5:
Laptop |
Geekbench 6 single-core |
Geekbench 6 multi-core |
|---|---|---|
M5 MacBook Pro 14-inch |
4288 |
17926 |
M4 MacBook Air 13-inch |
3751 |
14947 |
M4 MacBook Air 15-inch |
3799 |
14921 |
Of course, we'll have to do our own testing once we get our hands on the MacBook Air with M5, but this gives us a good idea of the performance gains to expect — and they're pretty significant.
Otherwise, the laptop stays largely the same compared to its last few generations (since the MacBook Air M2, by the way). That means a 13.6-inch (2560 x 1664) or 15.3-inch (2880 x 1864) Liquid Retina display, 16GB of unified memory (RAM), two Thunderbolt 4 ports with a 3.5mm headphone jack and upgradeable configurations. But it does get upgraded to 512GB of starting storage
The MacBook Air is easily the best MacBook for most, and with the new M5 update, Apple's popular laptop just got a whole lot better. And while it gets a $100 price increase, it's getting double the starting storage in a frame that's smaller and lighter than the M4 version. Stay tuned for our upcoming reviews!
Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds.
More from Tom's Guide
- The touchscreen MacBook Pro OLED is coming with a 'new interface' — and it could be the biggest upgrade in years
- Apple smart glasses have a secret weapon against Meta Ray-Bans — and it's Tim Cook's 'next big thing'
- Apple announces F1 partnerships with Netflix, Tubi and IMAX for 2026, along with incredible Multiview features
