Should creatives upgrade to the new M5 MacBooks?

Apple has just dropped the new MacBook Air M5 along with the MacBook Pro M5 Pro and M5 Max, and on paper the numbers are impressive. For creative professionals needing a high performing workstation – video editors, motion designers, 3D artists, photographers, sound producers and the like – the performance gains are real and meaningful (we expect the Pro to go straight to the top of the best laptop for 3D modelling).

But there's a nagging question knawing at my brain. Is this the thing to buy right now, or is it a bridge to something even better just around the corner?

To answer that question, let's look at what's actually changed, who should genuinely upgrade, and who might be better off sitting tight (if you are in the upgrade crew, see how to preorder the MacBook M5 here).

What's new in the MacBook Air?

• The M5 chip in the new MacBook Air has Neural Accelerators tucked into its graphics engine. In plain English, that means it'll handle AI-heavy tasks, such as automatically enhancing photos or removing background noise from audio, up to four times faster than the previous MacBook Air M4 (see our review).

• 3D rendering in Blender is up to 1.5 times faster than on the M4, and AI-powered video enhancement in Topaz Video is nearly twice as quick.
• Base storage doubles to 512GB as standard. Plus Apple has also added Wi-Fi 7 via its new N1 wireless chip.

Bear in mind, though, that all this will cost you: the starting price rises to $1,099/£1,099, up from $999/£999. Given, though, that you're now getting double the storage from the off, this is arguably better value than before.

What's new in MacBook Pro M5 Pro and M5 Max?

• The MacBook Pro M5 Pro and M5 Max offer a more dramatic story. Apple is trying something clever called Fusion Architecture. Think of it like merging two powerful engines into one super-engine. This design is what allows the Pro and Max chips to handle massive workloads without breaking a sweat.

• These two new MacBooks use new super cores, which are basically the heavy lifters of the processor. This means that whether you’re clicking through a single complex task or running five huge apps at once, everything should feel snappier. In fact, it’s about 30% faster at multitasking than the M4 Pro (and our MacBook Pro M4 Pro review showed how powerful that was already).
• The GPU, meanwhile, offers up to 50 per cent better graphics performance than the previous generation, with ray-tracing speeds up by 35 per cent on the M5 Max. For video editors working in DaVinci Resolve or 3D artists using Redshift, those are gains you'll feel.
• The Pro now also comes with 1TB of storage as standard (2TB on the Max). Thunderbolt 5, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 round out the connectivity improvements.

Base prices start at $2,199/£2,199 for the 14-inch M5 Pro.

Who should upgrade?

For video editors and motion designers working in 4K and 8K, the MacBook Pro M5 Pro and M5 Max represent a substantial leap forward. Apple claims the latter is up to 3.5 times faster than the M4 Max for AI video enhancement in Topaz Video, and three times faster in DaVinci Resolve for video effects rendering.

That's the kind of difference that changes how you work: fewer render previews, faster exports, more time creating.

Similarly, if you’re a 3D artist, you’ll love the 35% boost in ray-tracing (the tech that makes light and shadows look realistic). Between that and the AI boosts, those long waits for a scene to 'render' or preview are finally starting to shrink.

Photographers and graphic designers, though, won't need all that power. In fact, even the M4 version of MacBook Air was already powerful enough for most creative workflows. The M5 Air bumps that capability up further, but unless you're doing heavy batch processing or AI-powered editing at volume, you probably won't tell the difference. That said, the storage upgrade at least will be of obvious benefit.

Should you wait?

If you're coming from an M1 or M2 MacBook, I'd say that upgrading to M5 is an easy decision, especially if you use a lot of resource-intensive software.

Four generations of cumulative improvement means you're looking at vastly faster CPU performance, a far more capable GPU, dramatically improved AI processing, better battery life, and storage speeds that have effectively doubled. If you work as a freelancer, that increased productivity means the upgrade will effectively pay for itself over time.

However, if you're currently on an M3 or M4 machine, the upgrade case is harder to make. Not because the M5 isn't faster (it clearly is), but because of what's likely coming next. Rumours around the M6 generation (from trusted sources like Bloomberg's Mark Gurman) point to a significant redesign of the MacBook Pro, potentially including an OLED touchscreen display.

Apple's existing Liquid Retina XDR panels are excellent. But the absence of OLED has been a longstanding omission, particularly for colour-critical creative work. If the rumours are true and a totally redesigned M6 arrives next year with a stunning new screen, today’s M5 might start to feel like 'yesterday's tech' a little sooner than you’d like.

As for the MacBook Air, it's been wearing the same design since 2022. With the M5, we're now four generations deep in that chassis. An Air redesign feels overdue, and buying what may be the final iteration of a four-year-old form factor is a reasonable thing to be cautious about.

The verdict: stick or twist?

Here's what, I think, it all boils down to. If you're using an M1 or M2 MacBook and finding it a little slow or limited, my advice is to upgrade to the M5 MacBook Air, and do so with confidence.

If you're currently using an M3 or M4 MacBook, the performance gains of moving to M5 are real… but if your current machine is holding up, patience could pay off. (To be clear: an OLED display and a new design aren't guaranteed for the M6 by any means – nothing official has been announced – but the signs are pointing in that direction.)

Ultimately, the M5 MacBooks are serious machines, and a good investment. But whether they're a smart investment right now depends largely on what you're upgrading from, how resource-intensive your creative software is, and how much you care about what Apple might build next.