- Ahead of Apple Experience event, Apple has unveiled the latest M5 MacBook Air.
- Starting at $1,099, the light-weight laptop brings the latest lineup of chipset i.e. Apple M5 SoC.
- It also features a 12MP camera, 512GB of storage expandable up to 4TB and support to spatial audio.
The ‘Apple Experience’ event is a big day for the Cupertino-based giant on Wednesday, and ahead of the event, Apple unveiled the M5 MacBook Air laptops along with upgraded MacBook Pros. With a price tag of $1,099 and an Apple M5 SoC under the hood, the MacBook Air reignites the iconic slim form factor clad in a durable aluminum frame. Here’s what we know about the major reveal.
The latest M5 MacBook Air laptops brings a meaty matter at your disposal
Apple launched the almighty M5 MacBook Air powered by the latest-gen M5 SoC. The chipset has a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU, a neural accelerator on each of its GPU cores, and a third-generation ray-tracing engine on board.
The M5 MacBook Air is theoretically 4x faster than its predecessor, the M4 MacBook Air, and in fact, if you compare it with the M1 MacBook Air, the magnitude is 9.5x faster. The MacBook Air is capable of powering resource-heavy tasks such as 3D rendering and gaming with ease. We have a unified memory bandwidth of 153GB/s, a 28% increment over the last-generation M4 SoC.
We have Bluetooth 6 and Wi-Fi 7 support on board thanks to the bespoke N1 wireless networking chip brought to you by Apple. The M5 MacBook Air brings a base storage of 512GB, double that of what the M4-powered MacBook Air brought to the table. Additionally, the new SSD on board delivers 2x faster performance in read/write compared to the M4 chip. Finally, you can extend the storage all the way up to 4TB, which is 8x the base storage.
Moving forward, we have a 12MP Center Stage camera on top with a three-mic array and immersive speaker setup with Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio support. The laptop uses Liquid Glass UI brought on board by macOS Tahoe. There are a ton of Apple Intelligence features on board, such as Live Translation on the Message app, Shortcuts action with AI models to create automation, a Reminders app that can categorize actions, etc. There’s a feature to relay cellular calls from nearby iPhones.
Pricing and availability
The latest M5 MacBook Air is available in two sizes. The 13” M5 MacBook Air is priced at $1,099 (retail) and $999 for education. Moving on, we have a larger 15” M5 MacBook Air with a price tag of $1,299 that goes down to $1,199 for education. Just as with the iPhone 17e, the pre-orders for the refreshed MacBook Air will commence on March 4 at 6.15 am PST, with the shipping and availability commencing as early as March 11.
