Apple announced M5 updates for his MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines early today. With preorders starting tomorrow, March 4, and the new models shipping next week, you might be wondering if it’s time for a new MacBook.

the 15-inch M4 MacBook Air is my current one favorite overall laptopand the 13-inch M4 MacBook Air is the top pick of students. So, the M5 Air has some big laptop shoes to fill. Let’s take a look at what’s changed to help you answer the question: Should you upgrade?

While Apple promises performance gains from the M5 processor, the change I’m most excited to see is the bump in storage. The M4 version offers a 256GB SSD, which is too small for most laptop users. With the M5 Air, the storage floor is raised to a 512GB SSD that won’t fill up too much.

With the removal of the 256GB SSD, Apple also eliminated the $999 starting price of the MacBook Air. The M5 Air starts at $1,099 for an M5 processor with 10 CPU cores and 8 GPU cores, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. But don’t let the higher starting price fool you; the M5 Air is the better deal.

Since I’d advise against anyone buying a laptop with a small 256GB SSD, the cheapest M4 Air I’d recommend costs $1,199. Apple charges $200 for doubling the storage to a 512GB SSD, which also comes with a slight CPU upgrade to an M4 chip with a 10-core GPU.

With the M5 Air, a 512GB SSD comes standard, saving you a $200 upcharge. For my money, the baseline $1,099 M5 Air is better than the $999 M4 Air with a 256GB SSD or the $1,199 M4 Air with a 512GB SSD.

Now, there are two GPU cores to consider in the above comparison. In the two baseline models for the M4 and M5 MacBook Air, you get a processor with a 10-core CPU and an 8-core GPU. And when you add the $200 upgrade for the 512GB SSD to the M4 model, it also adds a slightly upgraded M4 chip with a 10-core GPU.

Therefore, the M5 Air provides a cheaper way to get a 512GB SSD than the M4 version. And if you include the M5 Air processor upgrade to get the 10-core GPU, it adds $100 and you arrive at the same $1,199 price as the similarly configured M4 Air.

Even if you look at the $1,199 M4 Air and the $1,199 M5 Air, the M5 version is the better deal. (At this time of RAM deficiencies that lead to higher laptop pricesgood to see that the price remains almost the same for the MacBook Air.) In addition to the better performance that Apple promises from the new M5 chip itself, the latest MacBook Air has faster memory and a faster SSD. The GPU cores of the M5 chips include neural accelerators to improve AI and ray-tracing performance. The biggest performance gains that Apple claims you can see come from the change in GPU architecture in the area of ​​on-device AI performance.

MacBook Air: To upgrade or not to upgrade?

If you need a MacBook Air with the fastest AI performance, then upgrading to the M5 is a good investment, even if you just bought an M4 Air last year. For the rest of us who need a MacBook Air for general home use, basic office tasks or toting around campus, the M5 Air isn’t likely to offer significant performance gains from the M4 to warrant an upgrade.

Read more: Apple M5 vs. M4

For M2 and M3 Air users, I can also stop if your laptop is holding OK and the battery is still holding a charge. For the fourth year in a row, we haven’t changed the design and are about to overhaul the MacBook Air. We haven’t seen a new look for the MacBook Air since the introduction of the flat chassis of the M2 Air in 2022 that replaced the wedge-shaped M1 Air. I don’t want to buy the last update before we see a new design. In addition, Apple is rumored to have some major changes in store later this year, from a real budget MacBook in a The MacBook Pro with a touchscreen OLED display. Perhaps one of these new models will suit you better.

I can give you a better answer to the upgrade question after I test and evaluate the application, graphics and AI performance of the new M5 MacBook Air. Look for full reviews of the 13-inch and 15-inch M5 Air models on CNET soon.