Apple’s MacBook Air has always been the laptop for everyone: students, creatives, and people who want something that works without drama. After upgrading the iPad Pro and the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 chips back in October 2025, the Cupertino giant has finally refreshed the MacBook Air with the new M5 chip.
Beyond the new chipset, the M5 MacBook Air also brings upgraded storage, a new wireless chip, and a higher starting price. Here’s everything that’s new with the M5 MacBook Air.
M5 chips bring significant improvements
The headline upgrade is the new M5 chip, and the number that stands out is AI performance. Apple claims the M5 is up to 4 times faster at AI tasks than the M4 and up to 9.5x faster than the M1.
The memory bandwidth has increased to 153GB/s, a 28% improvement over M4, making multitasking and app launches feel more fluid. It also brings 1.5X times better 3D rendering and ray-tracing performance in apps like Blender, and twice the AI video performance in Topaz Video.
Double the base storage
This is the part that should get people excited. Apple has doubled the starting storage to 512GB. For the first time, you can configure the MacBook Air with up to 4TB of internal storage.
The M5 MacBook Air also features a faster SSD, delivering twice the read and write speeds. So not only do you get more space, but accessing your files and loading apps will also be quicker.
A few other things worth mentioning
The M5 MacBook Air now ships with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, powered by Apple’s new N1 wireless chip. As with last year’s model, the base configuration starts at 16GB of RAM, with options to upgrade to 24GB or 32GB.
The rest of the design remains unchanged: it’s still fanless, thin, and lightweight, with up to 18 hours of battery life, a 12MP Center Stage camera, and a Liquid Retina display.
It runs on macOS Tahoe, introducing the new Liquid Glass design language, a change that may feel refreshing or divisive, depending on your perspective.
Pricing and other details
The 13-inch starts at $1,099 ($999 for students), and the 15-inch starts at $1,299 ($1,199 for students). Note that the $1,099 model features the binned version of the M5 chip, with a 10-core CPU and 8-core GPU. If you want the full, unbinned version, you’ll need to spend an additional $100.
Pre-orders open March 4, with availability from March 11. If you’re on an M1 or M2 MacBook Air, this is a compelling upgrade. And if you’re switching from Windows, there has never been a better time.
