I got my hands on the new MacBook Air – here are my first impressions

I've got my hands on the latest MacBook Air (M5), which was announced this week. This new iteration of the MacBook Air has the same design as the last one. I even got it in the same colour as my previous MacBook Air (the M4, 2025). On the outside at least, these two models are absolutely identical.

They both look slightly different to my M1 MacBook Air (2020), in that they're thinner and lighter, without the 'wedge' design and with a slightly different charging point.

But this release isn't about how the MacBook Air looks. Oh no, it's all about that all-important M5 chip, as well as improved storage. The new MacBook Air now comes with starting storage at 512GB and is configurable with up to 4TB, making it even more of a viable option for busy creatives who have heavy files. And a contender for our best laptops for graphic design list.

The MacBook Air features a 10 core CPU with the world's fastest CPU core, delivering up to four times faster performance for AI tasks than MacBook Air with M4 and up to 9.5 times faster performance than MacBook Air with M1.

I ran Geekbench AI on both the M4 and M5 MacBook Airs and this is what I found. On the M5, I got back 5,260 as a single precision score, 8,587 as a half precision score and 6,789 as a quantized score, while on the M4 I got 4,971, 8,058 and 6,462, respectively. Higher scores mean faster processing so the M5 is not exactly four times as fast compared to the M4, but it was faster.

The MacBook Air (M5) is apparently also speedier than ever for gaming and 3D rendering with its faster unified memory with 153GBs of bandwidth. This is 28 per cent better than the M4 model.

I'm not a 3D artist but Apple's statistics here are impressive. There's up to 6.5x faster 3D rendering in Blender compared to the M1, and 1.5x faster compared to the M4. In terms of gaming, I tried inZOI on the new MacBook Air and have to say I was impressed with the stunning visuals, realistic lighting and shadows.

I also tried image processing in Affinity, which Apple claims is 2.7x faster when compared to the M1 and 1.5x faster than the M4. I couldn't tell any discernible difference between the M4 and the M5 when importing a heavy batch of photos, they both managed it in under two seconds. I guess the thing is that the previous MacBook Air was already so fast, improving on it will be unnoticeable for most tasks, for most people.

The new SSD delivers 2x faster read/write performance compared to the previous model, which Apple claims will speed up workflows for users, in particular those with large photo libraries and those running AI. The differences, are however, quite small, or so it seems to me. Downloading some heavy photos from my wedding took 7 seconds on the M5, and roughly 4 seconds to upload in Affinity. On the M4 it took nearly 8 seconds to download and roughly 5 to upload in Affinity. So I saved myself a couple of seconds with the new model. I guess those seconds do add up over time.

Elsewhere, the MacBook Air offers a 13-inch or 15-inch Liquid Retina display with 500 nits of brightness and support for one billion colours. I found my photos looked crystal clear on the new MacBook Air, as they did on the previous generation. The difference is noticeable when comparing with the M1, where they don't look quite so beautiful (and there are only 400 nits).

It also features WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 6. Now, I don't think I have WiFi 7 or Bluetooth 6 unfortunately, so I'll have to take Apple's word for it.

I haven't had the MacBook Air long enough to really test its battery life but from what I've seen so far, I can believe Apple's stated up to 18 hours.

There's also a 12MP Centre Stage camera (which I still find creepy. I don't like the camera following me around!), a decent sound system and two Thunderbolt 4 ports.

Overall the MacBook Air is one very capable machine, with improvements over the previous model. These improvements are marginal, however, and it won't make sense for anyone who has the previous model to upgrade. If you have an older MacBook though or have never had a MacBook before, I don't think you'll be disappointed with the M5 MacBook Air. Note that the starting price of this machine has increased compared to the previous model. It now starts from $1,099 rather than $999.

Look out for our full review of this machine, coming soon to Creative Bloq.

The MacBook Air is available to pre-order now.