MacBook Air M5 Praise
Early reviews are calling the 2026 MacBook Air M5 the top ultraportable for its combination of build quality, speed, and upgraded storage — a signal that Apple Silicon continues to land in thin‑and‑light segments. The praise reinforces the hardware side of Apple’s edge AI story. (x.com)
Apple raised the MacBook Air’s starting price by $100, with the 13‑inch now beginning at $1,099 and the 15‑inch at $1,299. (pcmag.com) Apple doubled base storage to 512GB and offers configurations up to 4TB, saying the Air uses faster SSD technology. (apple.com) Independent Blackmagic Disk Speed Test results reported by reviewers put M5 Air read speeds around 6,473 MB/s and write speeds around 6,558 MB/s, outpacing some M4 Pro builds. (notebookcheck.net) The M5 inside the Air ships with a 10‑core CPU and an up‑to‑10‑core GPU that includes a Neural Accelerator in each core, which Apple says delivers up to 4× faster AI performance versus M4 and up to 9.5× versus M1. (apple.com) M5 increases unified memory bandwidth to about 153 GB/s and includes a 16‑core Neural Engine, while reviewers note the Air’s base configuration now includes 16 GB of unified memory. (apple.com) PCMag’s lab test recorded an 18:04 battery runtime and a tested weight of roughly 2.7 pounds, and other reviews highlighted Apple’s thin all‑metal chassis and continued fanless operation on the Air lineup. (pcmag.com) Apple equipped the M5 Air with its N1 wireless chip for Wi‑Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and the machine opened for pre‑order March 4 with availability beginning March 11. (apple.com)
