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With its price-friendly iPhone 17e and M4 iPad Air yesterday, Apple announced some updates to the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and the rarely refreshed desktop display line.
The MacBook Air has now been updated to the latest M5 chip. It’s a relatively modest upgrade, but it’s accelerated by Apple’s latest processor debuting in MacBook Pro last fall. There are no other major hardware changes—it now has 512 GB of storage starting with “faster SSD technology”—but you can get the Air with either a 13- or 15-inch screen size.
This laptop also has Apple’s N1 wireless chip, which is included Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 for the latest connectivity standards. It still comes with the standard 16 GB of RAM, and unfortunately, there’s a $100 price bump to account for the extra storage. It starts at $1,099 for the 13-inch model and $1,299 for the 15-inch model. Apple says you can pre-order it tomorrow, with sales starting March 11.
More interestingly, Apple has expanded the M5 chip series to the M5 Pro and M5 Max, which are now available in the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro. As with previous generations of Apple silicon, the “Pro” and “Max” configurations greatly increase multi-core CPU and graphics performance.
The M5 Pro and M5 Max can be configured with up to 18 CPU cores (12 performance cores and 6 “super” cores), up from 16 on the M4 Max. The M5 Pro can scale up to 20 GPU cores, while the M5 Max reaches 40 GPU cores. Thanks to higher memory bandwidth, more efficient Neural Engine, and improved GPU architecture, Apple says the M5 Pro and M5 Max have “more than 4X peak CPU compute for AI” compared to the last generation and offer 20 percent better GPU performance.
The new MacBook Pros don’t include any other hardware changes; things remain the same since 2021 — same port selection, Mini-LED display, speakers, and webcam. Even the claimed 24-hour battery life is unchanged from the M4 models, which come out in late 2024. Interestingly, as recently as last week, Bloomberg reported that Apple plans to launch a more significant update to the MacBook Pro later this fall, reportedly debuting the M6 chip, an OLED touchscreen, and a thinner chassis.
Like the MacBook Air, all versions of the M5 Pro or M5 Max MacBook Pros have double the storage and a slightly higher starting price. With 1 TB, the 14-inch M5 Pro now starts at $2,199, and the 16-inch model at $2,699. That’s $200 more than last year’s machines. Meanwhile, the price of the M5 Max starts at $3,599.
