In addition to two new monitors, Apple unveiled a refreshed lineup of MacBook Air laptops, giving its entry-level computers a new chip, more storage, and some other reasonable updates.
The main update in the new MacBook Air generation is the M5 processor. It is a 10-core CPU with a 10-core GPU and a Neural Processing Unit. Apple says that the new MacBook Air delivers up to 4x faster performance for AI tasks than the MacBook Air with M4, and nearly up to ten times faster than the MacBook Air with M1. There is also faster unified memory at 153GB/s, which is a 28% improvement over the M4. Other performance figures include up to 6.9 times faster AI video processing, up to 6.5 times faster 3D rendering with ray tracing, and up to 2.7 times faster image processing when compared to the M1-powered MacBook Air from 2020.
Another big change is the storage. At long last, Apple is finally ditching the 256GB configuration. All the base 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models now start at 512GB, and users can spec their machines up to 4TB. Apple also claims better storage performance with up to two times faster read/write speeds.
Finally, the MacBook Air M5 comes with a new N1 chip, Apple"s custom wireless network processor that supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. No cellular connectivity on Macs yet, though.
The rest of the MacBook Air remains unchanged. It is available in the same colors, the same chassis, and the same ports. Displays are also unchanged, and they retain their notch, the 60Hz refresh rate, and up to 500 nits of maximum brightness.
All the updates and bigger storage come at a cost, though. The base 13-inch MacBook Air now starts at $1,099, while the 15-inch MacBook Air will set you back $1,299. Preorders will begin on March 4, and general availability is expected on March 11.