{"id":219500,"date":"2026-03-03T14:21:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T19:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/03\/the-new-m5-macbook-air-is-here-should-you-upgrade\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T14:40:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T19:40:11","slug":"the-new-m5-macbook-air-is-here-should-you-upgrade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/03\/the-new-m5-macbook-air-is-here-should-you-upgrade\/","title":{"rendered":"The New M5 MacBook Air Is Here: Should You Upgrade?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New M5 MacBook Air Is Here: Should You Upgrade?<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/tech\/computing\/the-new-m5-macbook-air-is-here-should-you-upgrade\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-03-03 14:21:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.cnet.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Apple announced M5 updates for its MacBook Air<\/span><\/span> and MacBook Pro lines<\/span><\/span> earlier today. With preorders starting tomorrow, March 4, and the new models shipping next week, you may be wondering if it’s time for a new MacBook.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 15-inch M4 MacBook Air <\/span><\/span>is my current favorite overall laptop<\/span><\/span>, and the 13-inch M4 MacBook Air<\/span><\/span> is the\u00a0top pick for students<\/span><\/span>. So, the M5 Air has some large laptop shoes to fill. Let’s take a look at what’s changed to help you answer the question: Should you upgrade?<\/p>\n

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 offered a 256GB SSD, which is too small for most laptop users. With the M5 Air, the storage floor has been raised to a 512GB SSD that won’t fill up so fast.<\/p>\n

In getting rid of the 256GB SSD, Apple also did away with the MacBook Air’s $999 starting price. The M5 Air starts at $1,099 for a 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.<\/p>\n

Since I would advise against anyone buying a laptop with a puny 256GB SSD, the cheapest M4 Air I would recommend costs $1,199. Apple charged $200 for doubling the storage to a 512GB SSD, which also came with a slight CPU upgrade of an M4 chip with a 10-core GPU.<\/p>\n

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

\"Apple <\/p>\n

The M5 version looks identical to the M4 MacBook Air and comes in the same four colors: silver, starlight, sky blue or midnight.<\/p>\n

<\/span> Josh Goldman\/CNET<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, there are two GPU cores to consider in the above comparison. In both baseline models for the M4 and M5 MacBook Air, you get a processor with a 10-core CPU and 8-core GPU. And when you added the $200 upgrade for the 512GB SSD on the M4 model, it also added the slightly upgraded M4 chip with the…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New M5 MacBook Air Is Here: Should You Upgrade? https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/tech\/computing\/the-new-m5-macbook-air-is-here-should-you-upgrade\/ Publish Date: 2026-03-03 14:21:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":219501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/a\/img\/resize\/83d20b2f7d9f61fdd744c0cd91330d19ecf6651f\/hub\/2025\/12\/11\/9fd689e9-3a34-4067-8db6-fd3b4d509c60\/macbook-air.png?auto=webp&fit=crop&height=675&width=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[50,51],"class_list":["post-219500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-macintosh","tag-macbook-air","tag-macbook-pro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219500"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219502,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219500\/revisions\/219502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}