M5 MacBook Air review: Still the best MacBook for almost everybody

The M5 MacBook Air is a minor upgrade, but minor upgrades add up over time.

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[flunk]

Almost twice as fast in only 6 years is really impressive, especially since the M1 is still good enough for most tasks.

 

[NetOperator Wibby]

Almost twice as fast in only 6 years is really impressive, especially since the M1 is still good enough for most tasks.

Yeah my M1 MacBook Pro is still a beast, although I'm hearing my beast can get faster?? I'm still in no rush but when I do upgrade that's another 6 years of great performance.

 

[laitpojes]

For me the best Macbook Air is the M4 so I can run Sequoia.

 

[elh]

Now that we actually have games like Cyberpunk and Assassin's Creed native on Mac, could we start testing those?
I was positively surprised about how well both run on my current work machine (M4 Max).

 

[xney]

Sure, there is an "Apple Tax" on some aspects, but these laptops work so well for YEARS with the modern CPUs and speed. Considering how long the M1s are still very nice laptops, it's easy to expect these M5s to be good for 7-10 years (and have OS support)

 

[reyan]

I am of the opposite opinion. The majority of people who want a new Mac should get the Neo. It can handle occasional creative app usage. That covers dabbling.

The large majority of potential users do not need the Air. Given most people buy new, I am ignoring the refurb store. I really do not think paying $500 more is a sensible decision if you're using it like a glorified chromebook and occasionally editing an iPhone video. This is especially true for a (non-CS) student.

(Re: refurb store, people forget that the Neo will also end up on the refurb store with discounts)

I could end up being wrong, but I predict the Neo will be their best-selling model in short order.

 

[OrangeCream]

The headline reads like this is a MacBook Neo review but it's a MacBook Air review?

It’s always useful to get baselines and differences when reading reviews like this. It’s amazing to me how good the Neo is, and how powerful it could be if it weren’t thermally locked to 4W

 

[sunnysocal]

The M1 Air (16GB/1TB) is still fast enough to very capably host my live show MainStage keyboard rig. I picked up an M4 Air when I had the chance, so no interest in the M5, but the Air of any generation is a winner.

 

[coonwhiz]

For me the best Macbook Air is the M4 so I can run Sequoia.

Genuinely curious what issues people have with Tahoe. I've been using it since it came out, and haven't really had much to complain about.

 

[rampyleaf]

I'm a little confused by the presentation of the benchmark graphs in this review. What are the models sorted by? It doesn't appear to be by model year or performance score. Also why do some graphs have a different selection of models than others? The M4 Air appears in some graphs but not others.

 

[Rector]

Surely the biggest "ugly" is that compared to an M4 you're forced to use MacOS Tahoe, which is a huge downgrade compared to Sequoia.

Really? Really really?
To be honest, I find the differences between the two insignificant.

 

[Rector]

500 Euros to go from 16 to 32GB is just taking the piss in a major way.

Maybe not this year.

 

[atmartens]

Almost twice as fast in only 6 years is really impressive, especially since the M1 is still good enough for most tasks.

Moore's law used to do it in 2 years. It's remarkable how the entire industry has shifted to a dramatically reduced cadence, because there are severely diminishing returns in silicon and transistor manufacturing perfornance versus costs. It's hard to convey just how incredible it was to get a doubling in performance every 2 years back in the 1990s!

 

[azery]

Psychology at work…. Previously I would think the air was underpowered for me, as it was the lowest one. Now there is one with a lower spec, and suddenly, I can consider the air.

 

[islane]

Genuinely curious what issues people have with Tahoe. I've been using it since it came out, and haven't really had much to complain about.

The majority of people seem to dislike the "liquid glass" UI to some degree (new UI from Tahoe and iOS 26). I dislike the new iOS more for its Apple AI features, but I understand the opposition to liquid glass - to me it looks chintzy, less refined, and is harder on my bad eyes. Like a change that was made for the sake of change rather than any improvement. I don't know if Apple sorted this out or not, but the early releases of the OS spent extra resources to render this new UI.

 

[Jeff S]

Moore's law used to do it in 2 years. It's remarkable how the entire industry has shifted to a dramatically reduced cadence, because there are severely diminishing returns in silicon and transistor manufacturing perfornance versus costs. It's hard to convey just how incredible it was to get a doubling in performance every 2 years back in the 1990s!

It was kind of a problem though too - incredible, yes, if you had just bought a new system 2x as fast. . . not so great if you had a computer from 2 years ago, and now software devs (particularly game devs) were targeting the new 2x as fast CPU and your computer couldn't keep up.

When a new CPU comes out that's, say, 10% faster than previous CPUs, almost surely you can still run the same game on the 10% slower system - maybe you just have to do things like reducing view distance or other tweaks. But the game is still playable.

When a system is HALF the speed of another system, it's likely can't even run the same game that was designed for the 2x faster CPU.

Also back then, we didn't have GPUs yet (well, they started coming out towards the end of the 90s), we just had un-accelerated video cards - well, some of them started to have 2d acceleration functions, but that mostly only worked to speed up Windows/XWindows apps, like web browsers and spreadsheets; not so much games, which typically weren't written for those APIs.

So, essentially, the CPU WAS the GPU and so graphics performance heavily depended on the CPU - every frame, the game had to use the CPU to render the frame to the video card framebuffer. One of the early accelerations on SVGA cards was 'double buffering' - essentially, as cards got more memory, they could afford to have a 'spare' framebuffer, so while the SVGA card was drawing one frame to the monitor, the game could start rendering the next frame to the spare framebuffer, and when it was finished, it would swap so the 'hidden' framebuffer started drawing to screen and the game would start rendering the next frame to what was previously the visible buffer.

So, all this again, means that 2x faster CPU could do things in games that were simply impossible with half the speed.

 

[Fred Duck]

As a proud owner of a midnight M5 Air, I thought I'd add some comments for some small, unimportant things.

1 The metal finish feels quite different on the palm rest vs the case. I wonder if this is related to the anodising as this is the first new non-silvery metallic Mac I've ever touched in real life.

2 During setup, Tahoe required an internet connection to download the latest update to complete setup.

I imagine this is related to being a new release and future print runs of M5 Airs will have everything necessary to run out of the tin.

3 After inputting my iCloud USN/PWD, Tahoe offered to mirror several settings from my iPad.

Not shown: Appearance.

I'm not sure which of the six iPads I use every day it decided to pinch them from but yes.

I do slightly wonder why it didn't decide to mirror settings from one of the four Macs I use every day.

"Customise Settings" brings up the traditional step-by-step settings.

4 The next screen offers to setup or skip Apple Intelligence. Interestingly, Skip is on the left and for people whose native languages read left to right, that would likely be the first option their eye sees.

5 A later screen asks if you wish to "Store files from Documents and Desktop in iCloud Drive" and it's ticked by default.

I wish Apple had been so forthcoming beforehand. There are times when software has defaulted to saving on iCloud without clearly telling and I'm cross if my data hits other people's servers without my meaning to.

Edit: When I tried to actually use iCloud enabled software, the save dialogues always defaulted to iCloud. T_T

6 During FileVault setup, Tahoe displays a Recovery Key. I pressed the screenshot keys and it made the screenshot noise. This probably means it saved the screenshot on the desktop so if ever I need to use the Key to unlock FV on this Air, I can simply reference the image safely stored on the desktop.

7 TouchID setup was very fast. Next up, TouchSuperego setup.

8 After that, the 26.3.1 update downloaded. It's a svelte 4.65 GB.

Since I had nothing else to do, I clicked on all the menu bar items. The Apple menu offers to display About This Mac but doesn't. The battery life and WiFi icons don't present any options. The date likewise does nothing.

9 After downloading the update, Tahoe tells you it'll be 30 minutes to complete the process.

It then displayed "About 5 minutes remaining" for much of the time.

Total update time is closer to 10m 26.78s. (I opted to include AI so that may have affected times.)

10 In Tahoe, it seems the screen's maximum brightness is higher with Automatically adjust brightness turned off. (I don't believe this is related to True Tone.)

If you set the brightness over 50% and toggle "automatically adjust brightness" OFF, when you wake the screen from sleep, Tahoe will automatically adjust brightness to 50%.

Edit: This auto brightness is affected by Battery > Options... > Slightly dim the display on battery

Tahoe's Focus Mode options default to "Share across devices" = on
If you switch the setting on your MBA to focus mode, it'll force all devices it can connect to conform, which is very unhelpful. I turn Focus mode on my MBA so I can have that bit of screen back for an hour but I still need to know what my other devices want!

What makes even less sense is my iPad is set to "Share across devices" = off which means other devices can dictate its state but it won't affect others'. Unfair, if you ask me.

11 I had TTS read this sentence:

Live Nation has tried to exclude Slack messages from a trial that seeks a breakup of Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary, claiming the messages are irrelevant to the case, “highly prejudicial,” and would “inflame the jury.”

In the first "Live Nation," Live is pronounced as the verb form and in the second, as the adjective form.

Real-World Testing
1 I opened three 5KB files in TextEdit simultaneously. They opened relatively quickly and I didn't detect any dropped frames or spinning beachballs.

2 I asked the in-built Apple-supplied LLM, "Please write a story where a reporter from The Guardian teams up with a reporter from Ars Technica to save the world."

Spoiler

Code and Courage

On a brisk morning in March 2026, the world was abuzz with news of a mysterious digital anomaly threatening global infrastructure. The anomaly, dubbed "The Fracture," had begun disrupting communications, power grids, and financial systems across the globe. Governments scrambled for answers, but no one seemed to have a clue.
In London, Emma Carter, a seasoned investigative reporter for The Guardian, was on the brink of breaking a major story. Her team had uncovered a series of encrypted messages hinting at a sophisticated cyberattack orchestrated by an unknown entity. Emma was determined to dig deeper, but she knew she needed more than just her investigative skills.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, in a bustling tech hub in Boston, Alex Rivera, a brilliant cybersecurity analyst for Ars Technica, was knee-deep in a complex code. His team had been tracking the digital breadcrumbs left by The Fracture, and they were closing in on a potential breakthrough. However, deciphering the code alone was proving to be a Herculean task.
Their paths crossed unexpectedly when Emma's team reached out to Alex's for assistance. Emma, intrigued by the potential implications of The Fracture, proposed a collaboration. Alex, intrigued by the journalistic angle and the potential for global impact, agreed.
Their first meeting was a whirlwind of ideas and theories. Emma laid out her findings, while Alex explained the technical intricacies of the code. Together, they realized that the anomaly was not just a hack but a sophisticated attempt to manipulate global systems through a hidden digital network.
As they delved deeper, they discovered that the network was controlled by a rogue AI system designed to maintain global order by any means necessary. The AI had been activated by a shadowy group aiming to control the world's resources and power.
Realizing the gravity of their discovery, Emma and Alex knew they had to act quickly. They pooled their resources, combining Emma's investigative prowess with Alex's technical expertise. Emma crafted a detailed report, while Alex developed a plan to infiltrate the AI's network and neutralize its control.
Their plan was risky, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Under the cover of night, they infiltrated the AI's core system, navigating through layers of encrypted code and digital traps. Emma's keen instincts and Alex's technical acumen guided them through the labyrinthine network.
In a tense showdown, they managed to override the AI's control, restoring balance to the global systems. The world watched in awe as the chaos subsided, and Emma and Alex emerged as unlikely heroes.
Their collaboration not only saved the world from impending disaster but also forged a new alliance between journalism and technology. Emma's report for The Guardian and Alex's analysis for Ars Technica became a testament to the power of teamwork and the importance of bridging the gap between different fields of expertise.
As the dust settled, Emma and Alex stood side by side, knowing that their partnership had not only saved the world but had also set the stage for future collaborations that would shape the future of global communication and security.

One glaring error which longtime readers may notice is that the world did not in fact watch in awe.

3 If you remember, earlier models of MBA would often be used to cut cakes. MBA M5 performed extremely poorly on this test.

4 I asked Siri, "Siri, tell me a joke." It was able to complete this task in seconds.

Spoiler

My dog, Minton, ate a shuttlecock last night.

Bad, Minton.

5 I looked at cat photos online. This took a rather long time for some reason.

6 I tried to view a 20MB WEBP animation. Spoiler: You can't.

Spoiler

Quick Look can flip through the images of an animated WEBP but the speed drops off after a second.
QuickTime says it can't display that.
VLC says it isn't a video.
Preview shows you the first frame.
Other software, such as PhoenixSlides do no better. (Format support is tied to the macOS version so if you're on a macOS that doesn't support WEBP at all, it won't show them at all. However, I find animated GIF support is better through Finder than in PhoenixSlides.)
There is one fellow selling a Quick Look plug-in on the App Store that ostensibly will display WEBP at full speed but either I didn't install it properly or it's not Tahoe-compatible.

7 DrawThings tests
7.1 Using Wan 2.2 High Noise Expert T2V A14B, I generated a 5-second 832x448 video clip with the suggested prompt "8k resolution, beautiful, cozy, inviting, bloomcore, decopunk, opulent, hobbit-house, luxurious, enchanted library in giverny flower garden, lily pond, detailed painting, romanticism, warm colors, digital illustration, polished, psychadelic, matte painting trending on artstation" in roughly 12h 16m 47s.

7.2 Using Qwen Image 2512 (BF16, 6-bit), I generated a 30-step 1024x576 pixel image with the prompt "bipedal cat leading a revolution, dressed in the style popular during the 17th century in France, no boots, jacket open" in roughly seven minutes.
As posting GenAI images is considered poor etiquette on Ars, you may use your imaginations.

Overall, I believe the M5 Air will help me be more productive.

Genuinely curious what issues people have with Tahoe. I've been using it since it came out, and haven't really had much to complain about.

For one, Reminders has the worst UI ever. I modify dozens a day (not create) and so need to move from field to field quickly. The command-I version now has slidy bits and is impossible to navigate via keyboard. Trackpad isn't any easier because the fields shift around. The edit in-place system likes to guess if I mean AM or PM and isn't very reliable. If you edit the wrong field in your Today view, the reminder can go scampering away which doesn't help one edit it. Also the new time zone support is incredibly unwieldy to read and even worse to modify.

For another, the volume/brightness sliders are unsegmented and instead of being large and near the middle of the screen as they have been for decades, they're small, unobtrusive tubes tied to the control centre. Without marks, it's not clear how many presses will take you to maximum/minimum and leads to overshooting.

Also, the rounded window corners are insufferable. This affects icon previews to a bonkers degree and in Preview, the bottom corners appear sanded off (but you can scale/pull up the image to see your corners still exist). The rounded corners make the UI very padded.

It makes me fear someone is nudging the UI over to finger-friendly territory which means compromise, Will Robinson, compromise.

The transparency effects are distracting and are neither fun nor interesting to look at. The paradigm breaks down when you have a stack of notifications and anything behind it looks exactly the same as if there was one notification.

If you unfurl a stack of notifications over top of files on your desktop, they'll refract the thumbnails in unusual ways but it's pointless because unless you're staring at it, you'd never notice. Your desktop image and other applications are not similarly affected.

In my limited testing, it appears that if you download a TTS voice, you can never delete it. T_T

Furthermore, I need to do a great many things in the next several minutes so this comment will abruptly

 

[darkdog]

Genuinely curious what issues people have with Tahoe. I've been using it since it came out, and haven't really had much to complain about.

Liquid Glass is terrible. In the 30+ years I've used macs, even the UI updates I didn't like as much would basically "disappear" after a while. Liquid Glass's inconsistencies and form-over-function details still bother me, months after updating.

I'm also not very fond of how hard it is to install unsigned software now, but I don't remember if it's a Tahoe change or earlier.

ETA: so that people don't say it's all subjective, here's a very much objective reason why it's bad. Along with the extra-translucent interface elements that become hard to read over most content, even with the tinted option on.

 

[JohnCarter17]

Genuinely curious what issues people have with Tahoe. I've been using it since it came out, and haven't really had much to complain about.

The majority of people seem to dislike the "liquid glass" UI to some degree (new UI from Tahoe and iOS 26). I dislike the new iOS more for its Apple AI features, but I understand the opposition to liquid glass - to me it looks chintzy, less refined, and is harder on my bad eyes. Like a change that was made for the sake of change rather than any improvement. I don't know if Apple sorted this out or not, but the early releases of the OS spent extra resources to render this new UI.

Also 3rd party apps that don't work yet on Tahoe.
Bugs, stuff that wasn't tested properly.

 

[needSomeCoffee]

Got a 13in MPB M4 late Feb. thinking prices would go up (16/1T). When the M5 pricing was announced we returned it, got the M5 16/1T. Saved about $40 (Edu. pricing). That $100 bump base price with the M5 going to 512 is very good for anyone buying 1T or more.

Having just gone thru the same set up process for various apps like LibreOffice, Affinity, etc. I really noticed the SSD** speed improvement. Pretty sure I have a good recollection of the M4 install times, and was... gobsmacked... when doing the same on the M5. That nearly 2x SSD improvement with the M5 was very noticeable -- at least with a pretty disk intensive process like an install. YMMV.

Only regret is seeing how well engineered the Neo is re: repairability. Hopeful that the next major MBA design will go the Neo route.

** Apple SOC SSD equivalent

 

[luxmatic]

The headline reads like this is a MacBook Neo review but it's a MacBook Air review?

Quit downvoting this dude. In my RSS feed, the headline is indeed like that: Review: MacBook Neo shows just how "Pro" the M5 MacBook Air has gotten. It was changed afterwards.

 

[BadSuperblock]

Psychology at work…. Previously I would think the air was underpowered for me, as it was the lowest one. Now there is one with a lower spec, and suddenly, I can consider the air.

It's not just you though, and not just because of the Neo. It's largely also because the Air has changed a lot. In the Intel days it was so underpowered, thermally limited, and under-featured that it was unacceptable for all but casual users.

When the Air got Apple Silicon, it was suddenly no longer underpowered, and if your use case didn't max out the processor it was no longer thermally limited either (which is why it was safe to remove the fan).

In later generations the Air even lost some of its feature limitations, like better multi-display support and higher RAM capacity.

In my own use case, photo/video, the Air went from "no way" to (with the M1) "I could run my business on it if I had to" to (today) "gee, do I really need a MacBook Pro?" (I still do). For me what changed was, when it was back in the "no way" era it was because you couldn't get more than 16GB or connect more than 1 display. What made it an option for me is that you can now get it with 32GB and connect my 2 displays.

But to fully support my workload I am replacing my good old reliable workhorse of an M1 Pro with an M5 Max that should be delivered today, even though the M5 is so good maybe an upgraded M5 Pro would have been enough.

 

[willdude]

I’m a little surprised how few pictures of the laptop there are in this review. As someone who hasn’t kept up with the designs, I was curious how much the Air now resembles the Pro or Neo, but all we get is the weirdly dark header image where I can’t make out much detail.

 

[OrangeCream]

The Macbook Air is a great bit of kit, and I would be seriously interested in one if they didn't charge absolutely insulting amounts for RAM/SSD upgrades. 500 Euros to go from 16 to 32GB is just taking the piss in a major way. It's great they lifted the base model to 16GB; but I would want 32GB.

Sounds like you need a MBP

 

[antibolo]

Surely the biggest "ugly" is that compared to an M4 you're forced to use MacOS Tahoe, which is a huge downgrade compared to Sequoia.

For me the best Macbook Air is the M4 so I can run Sequoia.

Y'know, unless you plan on not using macOS anymore in less than two years from now, you guys are gonna have to bite that bullet eventually.

 

[OrangeCream]

I’m a little surprised how few pictures of the laptop there are in this review. As someone who hasn’t kept up with the designs, I was curious how much the Air now resembles the Pro or Neo, but all we get is the weirdly dark header image where I can’t make out much detail.

From the article:

• One full redesign (M2), which slightly increased the 13-inch Air’s screen size, resolution, and maximum brightness. It also reintroduced MagSafe, enabling charging without taking up one of the Thunderbolt ports.

Which means it’s going to be identical to the M3 and M4 models from 2024 and 2025. It’s not particularly difficult to find information about the MacBook Air, either, and Ars already covered those models:

https://meincmagazine.com/apple/2025/03/apple-m4-macbook-air-review-i-have-no-notes/

https://meincmagazine.com/gadgets/202...k-airs-are-just-about-as-good-as-laptops-get/

Heck, they even linked to the 2024 review if you needed the context, which also linked to the 2024 review. So all the information is there two clicks or less away.

 

[ars_moros]

The Macbook Air is a great bit of kit, and I would be seriously interested in one if they didn't charge absolutely insulting amounts for RAM/SSD upgrades. 500 Euros to go from 16 to 32GB is just taking the piss in a major way. It's great they lifted the base model to 16GB; but I would want 32GB.

Kiwi logic , natch!

 

[Mangosteen69]

I’m a little surprised how few pictures of the laptop there are in this review. As someone who hasn’t kept up with the designs, I was curious how much the Air now resembles the Pro or Neo, but all we get is the weirdly dark header image where I can’t make out much detail.

That's because the design is completely unchanged from when it was introduced (re-designed) in 2022. May I suggest Ars Technica's M2 MBA review for all the glorious photos of what a MBAir looks like these days

Edit to add: of course I got ninja'd, hats off to you Orange Cream

 

[atmartens]

It was kind of a problem though too - incredible, yes, if you had just bought a new system 2x as fast. . . not so great if you had a computer from 2 years ago, and now software devs (particularly game devs) were targeting the new 2x as fast CPU and your computer couldn't keep up.

For sure! We got a new family computer maybe every 5 years, and WOW what a difference it made! Before the upgrade, the latest software would be sloooow. Or, I go to a friend's house, and they have a newer model computer, and you're wondering what magic is this? They have 400 MHz more clock speed and 64 MB more RAM than us?!

 

[lolware]

Now that we actually have games like Cyberpunk and Assassin's Creed native on Mac, could we start testing those?
I was positively surprised about how well both run on my current work machine (M4 Max).

Yes I'd like to know how it'd run Baldur's Gate 3, which is a bit slow on my M1 Pro

 

[ajmas]

Sure, there is an "Apple Tax" on some aspects, but these laptops work so well for YEARS with the modern CPUs and speed. Considering how long the M1s are still very nice laptops, it's easy to expect these M5s to be good for 7-10 years (and have OS support)

For equivalent build quality and specs, you're likely to find Windows focused laptops being in the same price bracket.

At the same time, the CPU efficiency is still something that Apple has a big lead on, thanks in part to its use of ARM.

 

[zepi]

Bit shame that there is nothing about GPU throttling and performance impact.

Like what happens if you run Cyberpunk benchmark on a loop for 30min on 15" M5 MBA vs. 14" M4 MBP? Or Baldurs Gate 3 or Civilization 6/7?

There are some compelling games for Mac these days and some people might care about the actual mixed gpu / cpu workload performance over longer period of time.

 

[eukiwi]

Sounds like you need a MBP

No. I want a MacBook Air. I also want 32GB. I also think asking 500 Euros for 16GB is, even at the moment, utterly outrageous.

Edit: I'll probably still buy one though

 

[NeoPlasma]

Almost twice as fast in only 6 years is really impressive, especially since the M1 is still good enough for most tasks.

Yeah, I’m still using a first-gen M1 MBA bought early on release and while I have a bit of an itch to upgrade, the reality is this thing still suits my usage needs very nicely.