Apple Mac Book Air (M5) Review: The Goldilocks Mac Book | WIRED

Overview

Apple often touts the Mac Book Air as the world's most popular laptop, and it earned that crown. For years, it's been the best laptop you could buy for around $1,000 and was the cheapest Mac Book in Apple's lineup.

But with the introduction of the entry-level Mac Book Neo, that calculus has changed. The Mac Book Air is now the middle option, which means it needs to justify its $500 price difference over the Neo. To make things worse, the latest M5 refresh is one of the least exciting updates to the device in years, offering almost no significant changes other than the chip inside. It would have been easy for the Mac Book Air to become lost in the mix. And yet, when considering which Mac Book I recommend most people buy, the Mac Book Air still has the do-it-all, Goldilocks quality that sets it apart.

Details

The Mac Book Air is steadfast. The newer Mac Book Neo might be flashier thanks to its bolder approach to color, but the Mac Book Air has the all-around better design. It's the most portable Mac Book in the lineup, and remains one of the thinnest laptops you can buy. Like the Neo, it's a fanless laptop, meaning it is completely silent, even under the heaviest workflows. That gives the experience of using the Mac Book Air a light, weightless feel.

The battery life also contributes to that feeling of freedom—being able to move from place to place and take your work with you, without worrying too much about being chained to an outlet. It's not just about how long the battery lasts, either. Regardless of what you're doing, the Mac Book Air performs comparably on battery to how it does plugged in.

I tested the 15-inch model, which doesn't feel as portable simply due to its footprint. It doesn't matter how thin a laptop is if it takes up this much space on your desk or lap. Its strengths are still in its expansive screen real estate and the robust-sounding speakers. I appreciate being able to use Split View in apps more easily and anyone using highly detailed applications with lots of menus and overlays will benefit from a larger workspace.

But for the most part, all of that has been true of the Mac Book Air since 2020. Improvements since then have included upgrading the webcam from 720p up to 1080p in 2021, and enlarging the sensor up to 12 megapixels in last year's model. The ports remain limited, but they can now support two 5K external monitors. That means two Studio Displays if you really want. And the upward march of Apple Silicon has been relentless. This year's only addition outside the M5 is the introduction of Apple's new N1 wireless chip, which brings the latest Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 connectivity to the Mac Book Air.

Apple was making room in its lineup for the Mac Book Neo to make its grand appearance, but the result is that the 2026 Mac Book Air is stacked. It's probably overkill for a lot of people in terms of performance, especially with the improvements that the M5 brings over the M4. As I saw when I reviewed the M5 Mac Book Pro 14-inch last year, it's a pretty dramatic boost across the board, whether that's CPU, GPU, or for on-device AI.

As tested in Cinebench 2026, I'm seeing an average of 10 percent difference in CPU performance over the M4 Mac Book Air. The big leap is GPU performance, where the M5 has a 30 percent advantage over the M4. That's impressive and meaningful, to the point where it's on par with what Apple was calling a Pro level chip just a couple of generations ago. A more powerful GPU means not just better performance in games but also faster video render times, improved on-device AI processing, and much more.

The question remains, though: Do people who buy the Mac Book Air actually use this laptop for those tasks? Maybe occasionally? Its ability to perform well enough in those tasks contribute to making it feel like anything is possible. You can dip your toe as a hobby and not be limited by the computer. Professionals know those limits are real, which is what the Mac Book Pro is for.

As I mentioned up top, the Mac Book Air has a problem this year. It's no longer the default Mac Book people should buy—it needs to justify why it costs so much more than the Neo. Here are some obvious reasons you should get a Mac Book Air:

16 GB means not worrying about ever overloading your laptop

The combination of the M5 and the 16 GB of RAM make the Mac Book Air feels like a true do-it-all laptop. You'll find it difficult to slow down the computer with basic apps, regardless of how many tabs, windows, office applications, You Tube videos, and downloads are going simultaneously. You can leave all your work things open without ever worrying about tipping the system into a freeze. It can even handle heavier applications for graphic design, photo editing, music production, and video production—perhaps not with the speed of a Mac Book Pro, but with a surprising amount of oomph.

The ability to connect to multiple high-resolution displays even means it can comfortably run a full workstation, so long as you get a USB hub or Thunderbolt dock for more ports. That's the power of those two Thunderbolt 4 ports onboard that you'll find on the left side of the Mac Book Air. My only complaint is that they're all on the left, meaning you can't charge the device from the right side. Meanwhile, storage speed is on par with the M5 Mac Book Pro (and around six times faster than the Mac Book Neo), with an average read/write speed of 6,740 megabytes per second. That is an exponential jump in speed over all the previous Mac Book Airs, and that accelerates everything from opening applications to transferring large files. It's one of the reasons (along with the limitation of 16 GB of RAM) that people who spend eight hours or more working on a laptop every day will want the Mac Book Air over the Mac Book Neo.

The Windows side is also offering some serious competition. I still love the Surface Laptop as an alternative, though we're waiting for the next-generation model to come. The Dell XPS 13, currently only $850, is a closer size to the 13-inch Mac Book Air and uses the same Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus chips as the Surface Laptop. Unfortunately, it doesn't have as high-resolution and bright a screen. The extremely lightweight Asus Zenbook A14 can't match the Mac Book Air's screen either, but is often on sale for hundreds of dollars less.

Lastly, there's the 2025 M4 Mac Book Air to consider. If you never use heavier applications, you won't benefit much from the difference in the M5's performance. The storage options are also slightly different from last year's—Apple removed the 256-GB model from the lineup, and the M5 starts at 512 GB. You might look at the prices on Amazon and be tempted to pocket some cash by getting the M4. But, barring a sale of some kind, the 512-GB M5 Mac Book Air will only cost $50 more than the 512-GB M4.

Despite the compelling options presented by both the Mac Book Neo and an assortment of different Windows laptops, the M5 Mac Book Air is still the laptop most people should buy. It's well rounded, surprisingly powerful, high-end, and will last you many, many years to come.

Key Takeaways

Apple often touts the Mac Book Air as the world's most popular laptop, and it earned that crown
But with the introduction of the entry-level Mac Book Neo, that calculus has changed
The Mac Book Air is steadfast
The battery life also contributes to that feeling of freedom—being able to move from place to place and take your work with you, without worrying too much about being chained to an outlet
I tested the 15-inch model, which doesn't feel as portable simply due to its footprint