The reports had suggested that Apple was not going to reveal a refreshed MacBook Air with an M5 chip during its week of announcementsbut what do you know? Apple went ahead and I did exactly that.
Let’s start with the bad news: Apple is reversing a price reduction compared to last year. He dropped the MBA Powered by M4 Starting Price Drops to $999but for the M5-equipped model, you’ll have to shell out at least $1,099.
The company claimed that the MacBook Air M5 would be able to deliver four times faster performance in AI tasks than the M4 MBA. Compared to the M1 MacBook Air, you’ll get up to 9.5x faster performance, the company said.
In addition to swapping in a more powerful chip, Apple upgraded the starting storage, doubling it from 256GB to 512GB. The company says the SSD delivers “2x faster read/write performance compared to the previous generation.” You can equip the MacBook Air with 4TB of internal storage if you have the desire and the means.
You’ll also get 16GB of RAM to start with. The memory has a bandwidth of 153 GB/s, which Apple says is a 28% improvement over the M4 MBA. The latest MacBook Air can be equipped with up to 32 GB of memory.
Just as was the case with the latest iPad AirApple has upgraded the connectivity hardware. Thanks to the inclusion of the company’s N1 wireless chip, the MacBook Air M5 supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.
As you might imagine, the MacBook Air M5 runs on macOS Tahoe and supports Apple Intelligence features. It features a Liquid Retina display, a 12 MP Center Stage camera, an audio system with Spatial Audio support, and a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, which allow the laptop to support up to two external displays. Apple claims the MacBook Air M5 will run for up to 18 hours on a single charge.
The MacBook Air M5 comes in 13-inch and 15-inch models, with the latter starting at $1,299. It is available in sky blue, midnight, starlight and silver. Pre-orders begin March 4 at 9:15 a.m. ET. The laptops will be available in stores in 33 countries and regions on March 11.
This article was originally published on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/the-macbook-air-m5-starts-at-1099-up-100-from-the-m4-141612909.html?src=rss
