Apple on Tuesday announced new MacBook Air models with the company’s M5 processor, catching it up with the iPad Pro and 14-inch MacBook Pro that received an M5 bump last year. Now, you can get Apple’s latest silicon without needing to spend a premium for a MacBook Pro. The new M5 MacBook Air has a higher starting price than its predecessor but still costs hundreds less than the cheapest MacBook Pro.
Like the M4 before it, the M5 chip has a 10-core CPU with four higher-performance cores and six lower-power cores. There’s also an integrated 8- or 10-core GPU. Each M5 GPU core includes a Neural Accelerator to boost AI and ray-tracing performance.
The M5 MacBook Air refresh incorporates a new generation of SSDs, which have speedier read and write performance than the last generation. The latest models also feature Apple’s N1 wireless chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 connectivity.
Read more: Apple Launches MacBook Pros With New M5 Pro, M5 Max Chips
M5 MacBook Air pricing
The M5 MacBook Air starts at $1,099 and includes the M5 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. The previous M4 version started at $999 but had only a 256GB SSD. Doubling the storage to 512GB costs $200, which raises the price to $1,199. So, the M5 Air is actually $100 cheaper than the M4 Air with a 512GB SSD.
The 15-inch MacBook Air with the M5 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD costs $1,299. That’s $100 more than the starting price of the previous version. But if you compare the price of each 15-inch Air with a 512GB SSD, the M5 is $100 cheaper.
As before, students can buy the M5 MacBook Air for less. With the Apple education discount, the 13-inch M5 MacBook Air costs $999, and the 15-inch M5 MacBook Air costs $1,199.
The latest MacBook Air models can be configured with up to 32GB of RAM and, for the first time, up to 4TB of storage. This M5 refresh does not include any external design changes, and the colors are the same tried-and-true hues from the M4 MacBook Air.
Preorders start March 4, and the M5 MacBook Air will start shipping on March 11.
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