MacBook Air M5 review: Apple’s best consumer laptop speeds up

Chip upgrade brings pro-level power, long battery life and plenty of storage, but the Air now faces real competition

Apple’s latest MacBook Air is its most powerful yet, comes with double the starting storage and is better than ever for getting work done and as the benchmark for a consumer laptop. But this year the new lower-cost MacBook Neo has muddied the waters.

The M5 MacBook Air starts at £1,099 (€1,199/$1,099/A$1,799) for the 13in version, which is £100 or equivalent more than last year’s excellent M4 version, but comes with at least 512GB of storage. It sits above the £599 MacBook Neo and below the £1,699 M5 MacBook Pro, making the Air Apple’s mid-range machine.

Screen: 13.6in LCD (2560x1600; 224 ppi) True Tone

Processor: Apple M5 with eight or 10-core GPU

RAM: 16, 24 or 32GB

Storage: 512GB, 1, 2 or 4TB SSD

Operating system: macOS 26 Tahoe

Camera: 12MP centre stage

Connectivity: wifi 7, Bluetooth 6, 2x Thunderbolt/USB 4, headphones

Dimensions: 215 x 304.1 x 11.3mm

Weight: 1.23kg