Apple announces M5 MacBook Air and updated MacBook Pro

Apple is launching an upgraded MacBook Air featuring the M5 chip along with new MacBook Pro models featuring the M5 Pro and M5 Max. Announced on Tuesday, the new Macs will all be available for preorder starting March 4th with availability in stores starting March 11th.

In addition to the M5 chip, the new MacBook Air includes 512GB of base storage, double what the M4 MacBook Air included. It has double the max storage, as well, with up to 4TB rather than 2TB. Apple says the SSD in the M5 MacBook Air is also faster, offering “2x faster read/write performance compared to the previous generation.” The M5 MacBook Air supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, as well. Unfortunately, it’s $100 more expensive than the base M4 MacBook Air, now starting at $1,099 for the 13-inch model or $1,299 for the 15-inch.

The MacBook Pro is also getting new chip options with the M5 Pro and M5 Max. Both include an 18-core CPU, with up to a 20-core GPU in the M5 Pro and up to a 40-core GPU in the M5 Max. All of the M5 MacBook Pro models got a base storage increase, as well. They now start at 1TB of storage, rather than 512GB.

Like the MacBook Air, the new MacBook Pro models also got a price increase compared to the previous generation, including the base 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro, which now starts at $1,699, rather than $1,599. The M5 Pro MacBook Pro starts at $2,199, a $200 increase from the M4 Pro, and the M5 Max MacBook Pro starts at $3,599, up $400 from the M4 Max.