If you’re looking for a laptop that will still perform well years from now, Apple’s latest MacBook Air Hard to beat. Now, in particular, is a good time to pick it up, as you can currently purchase the 13-inch MacBook Air with an M5 chip, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD at Amazon ahead of Memorial Day for $899.99 ($200 off), which is a new low price. The 15-inch model, meanwhile, is on sale for $1,099.99 ($200 off) at Amazon or $1,149 at Best Buy in select colors.
Unless you need a laptop for demanding workloads like intensive gaming or 3D modeling, the M5 Air is the laptop we’d recommend to most people. Apple’s latest model is faster and better at handling everyday workloads than the new MacBook Neo, whether that means handling dozens of tabs or tackling some light video editing. The 2026 iteration is even better value than before, as it has double the base storage, allowing for more apps and files. Storage performance is also impressive, with read and write speeds rivaling the M5 MacBook Pro, so transferring files and multitasking feels lightning fast.
Apple’s mid-tier laptop excels in other ways too. Its sharp, vibrant display makes everything from spreadsheets to Netflix shine, and it’s both thin and light enough to make it easy to carry in a backpack. It lasts about 13 hours on a single charge – more than enough for a full day’s use – while its 12-megapixel center stage webcam delivers best-in-class performance. Sure, none of these are huge steps up from previous models, but considering how good the MacBook Air has become in recent years, sometimes you need some subtle improvements.
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