Apple has updated its MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lineups with new M5-series chips and doubled base storage, while raising prices across the board. The announcements arrived Monday alongside the iPhone 17e and M4 iPad Air, ahead of a separate in-person event planned for Wednesday in New York City.
MacBook Air Gets M5, Costs More
The MacBook Air moves from the M4 to the M5 chip, matching the processor Apple introduced in the MacBook Pro last fall. The hardware changes are otherwise limited: base storage doubles to 512 GB with faster SSD technology, and the laptop gains Apple’s N1 wireless chip supporting Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. RAM stays at 16 GB.
The price increase is straightforward. The 13-inch model now starts at $1,099, up $100 from before. The 15-inch starts at $1,299, the same $100 jump. Preorders open Wednesday, with sales beginning March 11. Both the 13-inch and 15-inch sizes remain available.
MacBook Pro: M5 Pro and M5 Max
The more significant chip news sits in the MacBook Pro. Apple is expanding the M5 family with the M5 Pro and M5 Max, now available in 14-inch and 16-inch configurations.
Both chips support up to 18 CPU cores, broken down as 12 performance cores and 6 “super” cores, compared to 16 cores on the M4 Max. The M5 Pro scales to 20 GPU cores; the M5 Max reaches 40. Apple claims the M5 Pro delivers 30 percent better multithreaded CPU performance over the M4 Pro, while the M5 Max offers a more modest 15 percent CPU gain over its predecessor.
On the AI side, Apple says both chips deliver over 4 times the peak CPU compute for AI tasks compared to the previous generation, alongside 20 percent better GPU performance, driven by higher memory bandwidth and an updated Neural Engine.
Beyond the chip and storage upgrades, the MacBook Pro hardware is effectively unchanged since 2021. Port selection, Mini-LED display, speakers, webcam, and the claimed 24-hour battery life all carry over from the M4 models released in late 2024.
Pricing reflects the doubled base storage. The 14-inch M5 Pro starts at $2,199, the 16-inch at $2,699, both $200 higher than last year’s machines. The M5 Max configuration begins at $3,599.
A more substantial MacBook Pro redesign is reportedly still coming later this year, with Bloomberg noting last week that Apple plans to introduce an M6 chip, an OLED touchscreen, and a thinner chassis in a future refresh.
Studio Display Returns After Four Years
Apple also refreshed its external monitor lineup for the first time since 2022. The new Studio Display keeps its 27-inch, 5K panel with standard LED backlighting but adds a 12-megapixel camera with Desk View support, two Thunderbolt 5 ports capable of daisy-chaining up to four displays, and a six-speaker system Apple says produces 30 percent deeper bass. Brightness maxes out at 600 nits of SDR, identical to the previous model.
Apple also introduced the Studio Display XDR, which replaces the larger 32-inch Pro Display XDR despite arriving in a smaller and lower-resolution form factor.
Photo by Davide Scutellaro on Unsplash
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