{"id":228325,"date":"2026-03-27T16:58:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T20:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/27\/ive-tested-every-macbook-air-in-recent-years-heres-why-the-time-to-upgrade-is-now\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T17:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T21:45:10","slug":"ive-tested-every-macbook-air-in-recent-years-heres-why-the-time-to-upgrade-is-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/27\/ive-tested-every-macbook-air-in-recent-years-heres-why-the-time-to-upgrade-is-now\/","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;ve tested every MacBook Air in recent years &#8211; here&#8217;s why the time to upgrade is now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/macbook-air-m5-review\/\">I&#8217;ve tested every MacBook Air in recent years &#8211; here&#8217;s why the time to upgrade is now<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/macbook-air-m5-review\/\">https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/macbook-air-m5-review\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-03-27 16:58:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.zdnet.com\">www.zdnet.com<\/a><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"g-text-xxlarge g-text-xxlarge-bold\">Apple MacBook Air M5 (15-inch)<\/h2>\n<h4 class=\"g-text-large g-text-large-bold g-outer-spacing-bottom-xsmall\">pros and cons<\/h4>\n<p> <strong class=\"c-prosCons_title u-text-lowercase g-outer-spacing-bottom-xsmall u-block\">Pros<\/strong> <\/p>\n<ul class=\"c-prosCons_listElement\">\n<li><span>512GB of storage standard<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>Faster SSD read\/write speeds<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>Same thin and light build<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> <strong class=\"c-prosCons_title u-text-lowercase g-outer-spacing-bottom-xsmall u-block\">Cons<\/strong> <\/p>\n<ul class=\"c-prosCons_listElement\">\n<li><span>Incremental upgrades compared to M4<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>$100 more expensive<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>Battery life is about the same<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>more buying choices<\/span> <\/p>\n<p>Follow ZDNET:\u00a0<span class=\"c-commerceLink\"><span>Add us as a preferred source<\/span><\/span>\u00a0on Google.<\/p>\n<p>Apple&#8217;s MacBook Air is no longer the baby in the family. In fact, it&#8217;s looking rather grown up these days. Last year, the MacBook Air got a free upgrade to a baseline 16GB of RAM. This year&#8217;s <span class=\"c-commerceLink\"><span>MacBook Air M5<\/span><\/span> follows that up with an increase to 512GB of standard storage. The SSD is also twice as fast as the M4 &#8212; an impressive increase in read and write speeds for just one generation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With core hardware improvements, form factor maturation, and the addition of the Neo to Apple&#8217;s lineup, the Air is less the Pro&#8217;s younger sibling and more the &#8220;laptop for everybody&#8221;, with enough horsepower to compete with the Pro on many tasks.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Also: MacBook Neo review: My biggest concern with Apple&#8217;s near-perfect budget laptop<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Following in that vein, the <span class=\"c-commerceLink\"><span>MacBook Air M5<\/span><\/span> also comes with a $100 price increase, starting at <span class=\"c-commerceLink\"><span>$1,099<\/span><\/span> for the base 13-inch and <span class=\"c-commerceLink\"><span>$1,299<\/span><\/span> for the 15-inch with 16GB of memory and 512GB storage. To be honest, I&#8217;m not mad at the slightly higher cost, as it&#8217;s justified, especially with future-proofed support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 from its N1 networking chip.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>All of this is to say that the MacBook Air is no longer the entry-level laptop, instead better considered as the &#8220;Goldilocks&#8221; model &#8212; and still the Mac I&#8217;d recommend to most people.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"c-bestListDeals_hed u-text-center\">Best laptop deals of the week<\/h3>\n<p>Deals are selected by the CNET Group commerce team, and may be unrelated to this article.<\/p>\n<h2>Impactful isn&#8217;t always sexy\u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>These core improvements aren&#8217;t the most flashy features to the average consumer, but when considered together, they add up to a value boost that not only keeps the Air relevant but also solidifies its performance as one of the best ultraportables on the&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/macbook-air-m5-review\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve tested every MacBook Air in recent years &#8211; here&#8217;s why the time to upgrade&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":228326,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/a\/img\/resize\/e9ef05f4e44f07028f2089b194beb98b9dcb4af9\/2026\/03\/18\/94cebcd9-e067-4516-b1cf-8e4ca5d132ce\/dsc09879.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&height=675&width=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-228325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-macintosh","tag-macbook-air"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228325"}],"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=228325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":228327,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228325\/revisions\/228327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}