MacBook Air M5 review: a small update for the ‘just right’ Mac

Not much has changed with the new MacBook Air for 2026: It now has an M5 chip, Wi-Fi 7, and faster storage that starts at 512GB instead of 256GB. It’s just as excellent a computer as last year’s model, even if it’s a shame it’s $100 more expensive.

there has been a big change To Air. The MacBook Neo now exists, and it’s a wonderful little computer for $500 less than the base 13-inch Air. The existence of the Neo doesn’t invalidate the Air or make it redundant, and I doubt the Neo will destroy much of the Air’s sales. The Air is a more capable, faster and smoother machine. However, having Neo underneath it paints it in a new light. Now it’s a step-up upgrade from the Neo that still leaves plenty of room for the stronger MacBook Pros above it.

But is Vayu now an awkward middle child or a perfect middle ground? I have good news on that front.

Everything from my reviews of the 13- and 15-inch M4 MacBook Air holds true for the new M5 models. (This time I only have the 15-inch, but the changes are similar in both sizes.) The screen is bright, colorful, and accurate enough for some color-sensitive tasks. The keyboard is solid. The 12-megapixel center stage camera is the best built-in webcam. The battery easily lasts an entire work/school day and even longer. (I easily got 13 to 14 hours on a full charge while web browsing, messaging, and a little music and video streaming, with minimal sleep and brightness between 50 and 100 percent.) And the six-speaker setup on the 15-inch model still gets loud as hell for such a thin laptop.

The biggest change for the new MacBook Air is all about speed, taking an already good performing laptop and making it a little faster. The new M5 chip with a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU is identical to the one I tested in the updated 14-inch MacBook Pro last year. As you can see in our benchmark tests below, the new 15-inch M5 Air’s scores are slightly lower across the board than the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M5, which is expected since the Pro has a fan for thermal benefits. The M5 Air is slightly faster than last year’s M4 Air, with the biggest gains in GPU performance and some multicore tests (like 3D rendering in Cinebench).

But the biggest advantage of the M5 Air lies in its storage speed. According to our Amorphous Disk Mark tests, read and write speeds are a little more than twice as fast as the M4 Air, as claimed by Apple. This brings the Air on par with the M5 MacBook Pro and pretty close to the astronomically expensive M4 Max 16-inch MacBook Pro I tested in 2024 (although the new M5 Max has since blown everything away with its twice as fast read and write speeds).

These faster speeds make transferring and copying files much easier, and they help keep things running a breeze when you really push it and swap memory. As a little torture test, I simultaneously imported more than 1,000 50-megapixel RAW images into Lightroom Classic while exporting 4K video into Premiere and Too 17 Downloading a game on Steam while leaving a Chrome tab open. The Air immediately increased its RAM and went about 20GB into swap. It slowed down and overheated, but it didn’t crash. (Of course, if you really want to do all these things at the same time… you’ll need a MacBook Pro.)

If you bought last year’s M4 MacBook Air, there’s no reason to consider or even envy an upgrade – you’re still set for a long time with an excellent laptop. Yes, the new M5 Air is a generation ahead, and its better chip, faster storage, and Wi-Fi 7 support make it even more future-proof. But I wouldn’t bother upgrading unless you’re on an M1 or older Mac – maybe an M2 Air, and that’s only if you’re pushing it so hard that it’s getting slow and frustrating.

And this brings me to the MacBook Neo. If you’re a first-time Mac buyer or don’t have any OS updates on an Intel MacBook, the $600 or $700 MacBook Neo may be all you need. If you’re interested in creative work like Adobe apps, the Air is worth the extra money. And if you live day to day in content creation, you will have to decide once again to reach even more for some version of the MacBook Pro.

This is the blessing and curse of Apple’s upgrade funnel. There’s something for everyone, and the series always has an upgrade to tempt you: a bigger screen, more storage, more RAM, a more powerful processor, etc. No matter your needs, Apple probably has a good aluminum-clad computer that’s perfect for separating you from your money.

If you were willing to spend around $1,000, the MacBook Air used to be the default choice – certainly not a modest sum, but that’s generally the level at which laptops are found. really good. Now there’s a great option for lighter users with the Neo for $600. And Pros are still for the real professionals out there (and techies who want something even better, if we’re honest with ourselves).

The MacBook Air now sits comfortably in the middle. It is extremely slim and travel-friendly. It is a well-balanced performer for all except heavy content creation and graphics-intensive tasks. It also has features like a fast Thunderbolt 4 port, fast MagSafe charging, a large haptic trackpad, and a backlit keyboard. Which is all the reason why this week I convinced a close friend to make a deal to refurb a 13-inch M4 Air instead of buying a Neo. I knew that his needs required more power, and he valued future security more.

Now with the MacBook Neo, I view the MacBook Air as a jack-of-all-trades computer. It’s still one of the best laptops around, with the latest M-series chips that ensure it’s in it for the long haul whenever you hop on this train – possibly as long as seven or maybe 10 years. Even though the Air is now the middle child between the Neo and Pro, for many it is still Apple’s “perfect” Goldilocks laptop.

Photography Antonio G. By Di Benedetto/The Verge