Apple’s new MacBook Air with M5 chip is now official, and it ships with a minimum storage of 512GB and includes the fast N1 wireless chip.
MacBook Air Takes Giant Leap Forward with M5 Chip, Wi-Fi 7, 512GB of Base Storage, 16GB RAM, and More
If you think the M4 MacBook Air is a great value notebook, then allow me to introduce you to the M5 MacBook Air.
M5 Comes to MacBook Air
The chip that powers the MacBook Air now lives inside the MacBook Air, ensuring excellent performance in a wide range of tasks.
The M5 chip in the MacBook Air comes with a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU. Apple says this upgrade brings 4x faster AI performance compared to the M4 model, and up to 9.5x compared to the M1 model.
Apple made some comparisons to older models of the MacBook Air, and it makes up for a very geeky read:
Up to 6.9x faster AI video enhancement performance in Topaz Video when compared to MacBook Air with M1, and up to 1.9x faster than MacBook Air with M4.
Up to 6.5x faster 3D rendering with ray-tracing performance in Blender when compared to MacBook Air with M1, and up to 1.5x faster than MacBook Air with M4.4,
Up to 2.7x faster image processing performance in Affinity when compared to MacBook Air with M1, and up to 1.5x faster than MacBook Air with M4.
Web browsing is up to 50 percent faster when compared to a PC laptop with an Intel Core Ultra X7 processor, and more demanding tasks get up to 2x faster performance.
Fast SSD, Double the Storage
Instead of shipping the MacBook Air with 256GB of storage, Apple is bumping that up to 512GB. Apple also says that these new SSDs are twice as fast compared to the M4 model.
For the first time ever, you can configure the M5 MacBook Air with a 4TB SSD. It’s great for times when you want to keep a ton of files for offline use, or love editing large video footage from your MacBook Air instead of an external drive.
Wi-Fi 7 and N1 Wireless Chip
The MacBook Air is meant to be used in a truly wireless environment, which means Wi-Fi performance is extremely important. That’s why Apple is shipping the new MacBook Air with the N1 wireless chip.
With N1, the MacBook Air gets a huge upgrade to Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. This ensures improved wireless performance across the board, and things like AirDrop and other Apple services will offer improved reliability and performance compared to older MacBook Air models.
Price and Availability
In terms of price, Apple is changing things a bit. The new MacBook Air now starts at $1,099, while the 15-inch model starts at $1,299.
Apple says you can pre-order the new MacBook Air on the 4th of March, and it will be available in stores on the 11th of March.
