The new M5-powered Air is faster, starts with more storage, and now costs less than its predecessor. If you were upset that the new M5-powered MacBook Air was $100 more than last year’s model, there’s good news: it’s now cheaper. You can currently buy the latest 13-inch MacBook Air with an M5 chip, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD on sale for $949.99 ($150 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. If you prefer a larger screen, the 15-inch model — which is almost identical but adds a louder six-speaker system — is also $150 off, starting at $1,149 ($150 off) at Amazon and Best Buy.
If you want a laptop that can handle everyday work, streaming, and even some graphics-heavy tasks, the latest MacBook Air is a top choice. It’s Apple’s fastest entry-level laptop yet, starting with double the storage of its predecessor, along with significantly faster read and write speeds that rival the M5 MacBook Pro. That means quicker file transfers and smoother multitasking. In testing, my colleague Antonio Di Benedetto imported 1,000 50-megapixel RAW images into Lightroom Classic while exporting a 4K video in Premiere, downloading a game on Steam, and keeping 17 Chrome tabs open. The system slowed down significantly but didn’t crash.
Beyond performance, the latest Air still excels in the basics. Like the previous model, it lasts up to 14 hours on a single charge and features a sharp 12-megapixel Center Stage camera, one of the best webcams in a laptop. It’s also more future-proof with support for Wi-Fi 7 and should hold up well for several years. Overall, it’s a fantastic all-around laptop and a worthwhile upgrade if you’re coming from an older system, especially an M1 MacBook Air or earlier.