There is a reliable rhythm to Apple product launches: the numbers go up, the prices follow, and the faithful line up anyway. This week's MacBook refresh is no exception, though the engineering substance behind the marketing spectacle is more interesting than the headline figures suggest.
Apple has announced the MacBook Air with M5 and new MacBook Pro models powered by M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, with pre-orders opening 4 March and availability in stores from 11 March across 33 countries and regions. Both machines run macOS Tahoe and support Apple Intelligence features, which remain in beta.
The Air Gets Pricier and More Capable
As Engadget reported, Apple is reversing a price cut from last year. The M4 MacBook Air launched at US$999; the M5 version now starts at US$1,099 for the 13-inch, with the 15-inch beginning at US$1,299. The company at least softened the blow by doubling base storage from 256GB to 512GB and promising SSD read/write speeds twice as fast as the outgoing model, according to Apple's own newsroom. The Air is also configurable up to 4TB of internal storage.
On paper, the performance story is compelling. Apple claims the M5 MacBook Air delivers four times faster AI task performance than the M4 model and up to 9.5 times faster performance compared to the M1 generation, as reported by Engadget. RAM starts at 16GB with 153GB/s of bandwidth — a 28 percent improvement over the M4 Air, according to XDA Developers — and can be configured up to 32GB. Apple's N1 wireless chip brings Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, mirroring the connectivity upgrade already seen in the latest iPad Air. Battery life is rated at up to 18 hours.
The design itself is unchanged: the same slim aluminium chassis, the same Liquid Retina display, the same four-colour lineup of sky blue, midnight, starlight, and silver. As Macworld noted, OLED displays remain firmly off the table for the Air until at least 2027 or 2028, with Apple reserving that transition for the MacBook Pro line first.
MacBook Pro: A Genuine Architectural Leap
The higher-end story is more architecturally significant. The new MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max is built on what Apple calls Fusion Architecture: two third-generation 3nm dies bonded into a single system on a chip. As MacRumors reported, this is a first for Apple Silicon, with previous chips using a single-die design. The result is an 18-core CPU on both Pro and Max variants, up from 14 cores on the M4 Pro, including six new "super cores" — Apple's rebrand of its highest-performance cores.
Apple claims up to 30 percent faster multithreaded CPU performance over the M4 generation, and up to 50 percent faster graphics, according to MacRumors. For AI workloads specifically, TechRadar reports that the M5 Pro and M5 Max deliver four times faster large language model prompt processing than the previous generation, and eight times faster AI image generation compared to M1 Pro and M1 Max. Storage speeds have also doubled, with the M5 Pro models starting at 1TB and M5 Max starting at 2TB.
Memory bandwidth has stepped up too. M5 Pro supports up to 64GB of unified memory at 307GB/s, while M5 Max retains a 128GB ceiling but raises bandwidth to 614GB/s, per MacRumors. Connectivity includes three Thunderbolt 5 ports, each with its own dedicated controller so all three can run at full bandwidth simultaneously — a meaningful improvement for professional users juggling multiple high-speed peripherals and external displays.
Pricing, though, is where the story gets uncomfortable. As XDA Developers reported, the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro now starts at US$2,199 — up US$200 from the M4 Pro equivalent. The 16-inch M5 Pro begins at US$2,699. Step up to M5 Max and you are looking at US$3,599 for the 14-inch and US$3,899 for the 16-inch, according to MacRumors. The entire MacBook Pro lineup has seen price increases of between US$100 and US$200 across the board.
Here's Why It Matters
For the professional creative or developer who runs large local AI models, edits 8K video, or works with complex 3D scenes, the performance gains in M5 Pro and M5 Max are genuinely substantial. The Fusion Architecture is not marketing language: bonding two dies delivers memory bandwidth and compute density that a single-die design simply cannot match at this thermal envelope. That matters in a world where on-device AI processing is rapidly becoming a workflow expectation rather than a curiosity.
For everyone else, the calculus is thornier. The M5 MacBook Air's price rise coincides with growing competition in the premium laptop segment, and the broader question of whether Apple's on-device AI features — still largely in beta — justify the premium over last year's already-excellent M4 models is one consumers will answer with their wallets, not Apple's performance benchmarks.
There is also the question of timing. As Tom's Hardware and others have noted, a separate low-cost MacBook, reportedly powered by an A-series iPhone chip, is expected to debut at Apple's "Experience" event in New York on 4 March. An entry-level MacBook priced below the Air could reshape the accessible end of the Mac market in ways this week's Pro-focused refresh does not.
Somewhere between the hype and the price complaints lies the interesting truth: these are genuinely fast machines built on legitimately new architecture. The premium for that is real, and so is the question of whether most buyers need it. For Australian consumers who watched the M4 Air launch at a $999 starting point and are now confronted with a $100 increase, that question is worth sitting with before clicking pre-order.