Apple MacBook Air M5 review: Perfect laptop for everyone
Apple has not changed much in the new MacBook Air M5, except the core hardware. But this is such a good laptop that it is nearly impossible to make it any better. At least that is what India Today Tech discovers while reviewing the MacBook Air M5.
Apple MacBook Air M5 review
Pros
- Design
- Performance
- Display, trackpad, keyboard
- Speakers
- Battery life
- macOS
Cons
- Number of ports
- May seem pricey
Everyone needs a laptop. The list is long. Office workers, students, people working from home, people working on the go, people who like to browse social media and watch videos on YouTube, people who write stuff, people who edit photos, people who create movies from footage shot at birthday celebrations, people who play games, and so and so forth. For most of these people — but not all — the new Apple MacBook Air powered by M5 chipset is a phenomenal and near perfect laptop. It is not cheap with a starting price of 1,19,000 (minus Rs 10,000 for students), but it is phenomenal and miles ahead of any Windows laptops in most workloads.
Everyone who needs a laptop will be well served by the Air M5. It is near perfect. Though exceptions apply, and I will talk about that in a bit. Before that, about the MacBook Air.
For the price, and for most practical purposes, I believe the MacBook Air M5 to be the best you can get. There are two variants of the machine — one with the 13.6-inch display, and the other one with the 15.3-inch screen. It is the 15-inch variant that I am reviewing today. Both have seen their prices go up by Rs 20,000 compared to the previous generation. But at the same time, the storage has also been doubled — for example, in the base model to 512GB from 256GB earlier. And compared to an instant discount of Rs 10,000 for Education — students and teachers are eligible — this time the discount is Rs 11,000.
Irrespective, the Air M5 is not an inexpensive laptop. It costs a fair bit, even with decent bank discounts and offers that are almost always available. Yet, the laptop offers the kind of experience that makes it more than worth it.
Timeless design and perfectly crafted
If you have seen a MacBook Air released in the last few years, you will find the Air M5 a familiar sight. That is because the design has not changed at all. And it is PERFECTLY alright because the Air, made entirely of high-quality aluminium alloy, is one of the best-designed laptops of all time. It may have lost its iconic wedge a few years ago, but it gained symmetry. That symmetry makes the machine not just look premium but balance brilliantly in hands when you carry it.
The Air M5 is a thin laptop. And light. The 13-inch variant weighs just 1.23kgs. The Air 15 weighs just 1.5 kgs. You can carry it in your backpack, or even in a decently-sized purse in the case of 13-inch Air, hours after hours and you won’t even feel it is there. I did not.
Like all modern Airs, the new one too has a fan-less design. So there is no noise at all when you are using it. This is another advantage it has over Windows laptops. Though compared to the MacBook Pro that has a fan for better cooling, the Air can throttle slightly more when used in outdoor Delhi summer, or while running a video editing program like Premiere Pro.
As noted, I have used the Air 15-inch variant for this review. It offers a few extras compared to the smaller laptop. The trackpad is larger, which always means a better experience. While the key size is the same, the bigger machine means roomier typing experience because of the way you can position your hands. At least that is how I feel it. Then there is the matter of speakers. Because of its bigger size, the Air 15 has a better speaker system consisting of six units. This means a slightly fuller sound when you are playing something on the machine.
The screen is another area where Apple is consistently getting it right year after year. And it is another part where I feel the bigger size of the Air 15 makes for the better experience. There is just so much more display area compared to smaller laptops. While Apple reserves its best screens for the Pro models, the MacBook Air 15 has one of the finest screens I have seen in a laptop. It might not have the contrast of the OLED panel that some Windows laptops are nowadays using, but it is punchy and shows brilliant and life-like colours. It is also adequately bright, though not as much as the Pro MacBook screens.
I do not think that anyone will find the MacBook Air M5 screen lacking in any way. Only those who are putting the laptop through a niche use case — say for example extremely fine-tuned colour graded graphics work will benefit from something better. But then in these niche instances, only the specialised hardware would do. The MacBook Air, meanwhile, is a general purpose laptop.
In terms of design, the only aspect that I feel could have been better with the Air 15 is its port situation. There are four ports — MagSafe Charging, 2 USB-C Thunderbolt ports, and the 3.5mm headphone jack. Two USB ports I believe are too few, and would almost certainly need a user to have a dongle. For example, if you connect the laptop to an external display, you are left with just one port then. You can make do with only two, but it also means you will occasionally run into situations where you feel there were an extra one or two ports available.
The MacBook Air M5 is sold in four colours — Silver, Starlight, Sky Blue and Midnight. The one here in this review is in Starlight. It has golden hues but is not gold coloured. Instead, it is very subtle. To pick a simile, I would say it has the colour of evening sunlight. Not the colour of evening sun but evening sunlight. Or the colour of ripe wheat simmering in a field.
Using the MacBook Air M5
One reason why the MacBook Air is so incredibly good is because of its usability. For general computing, and day-to-day stuff that one would be doing on a laptop, the Air is unbeatable.
Compared to the previous Air, the only big change in the new Air is the M5 chipset. The M4 previously was no slouch, so with the new one you are unlikely to feel any major difference in the speed. Chrome will feel similarly fast. The Pages and Keynote work similarly and smoothly. Photoshop works in the same speedy manner. While manipulating photos through Preview, you experience the same niftiness.
Instead, the major difference between the M5 and the M4 is in the way the chip handles graphics-heavy or AI heavy workloads. The M5, compared to the previous-gen chip, is around one and half times faster in programs like Affinity and Blender. At the same time in AI workloads, due to new Neural Accelerators, the M5 is around 4X faster.
Having said that, if you are moving from M4 to M5, you would barely notice any difference in your day-to-day experience. The new Air M5 is not for you. Instead, it is for the Windows users. Or those who are using a MacBook that is on the M1 chipset or older. Those users will immediately notice a huge bump in speed and their overall experience as they go about their work on the Air M5.
Inside the laptop, as noted, there is 512GB storage by default. Though you can go up to 2TB. Compared to the previous default of 256GB this is much better. Also by default you get 16GB RAM, though on the 15-inch variant you can go up to 32GB.
In use, the 512GB and 16GB RAM should be more than enough for day-to-day use. Though if you are going to edit a lot of videos, or do local AI inference, more RAM would help. Similarly, if you are a photographer or in the graphics industry, you may want slightly more storage.
One big reason why I find the MacBook Air M5 better than any comparable laptop, even the laptops that might have more powerful and more buffed hardware, is the macOS. For the last decade or so Microsoft seems to have dropped the ball on Windows. It is an OS that is no longer that coherent and all the experiments with UI and AI have turned it into something that seems to be always a work in progress.
The macOS is, meanwhile, not only more user-friendly but also better to look at. It feels more cohesive, works more cohesively. It has all the elements a user needs by default, including default applications like Pages and Numbers, which are — apart from the niche and legacy use cases — as good as the Windows counterparts.
Significantly, because both software and hardware are made by the same company, the MacBook Air M5 feels more cohesive than any Windows laptop out there. It is this cohesiveness that is behind its smooth and superior experience compared to a Windows laptop, in almost everything from performance to touchpad, and from 1080p webcam to its battery life.
Talking of battery life, like the previous Air this one too is in a class of its own. Almost all users will be able to get a full-day of battery life from the Air M5, although I suspect that in most cases it would manage two full-days of work before they need to recharge the laptop. At least that has been my experience. Exceptions apply though. For example, if you are doing a lot of video editing or running local AI inference, your battery life will be lower.
Perfect laptop for everyone except
If you are keeping the score, you would by now understand that I am firmly team Mac when it comes to laptops. The recent machines from Apple are just too good as far as general day-to-day computing needs of users are concerned. And the MacBook Air M5 sits at a sweet spot. It is premium, and it is not exactly cheap. But it is a laptop that is 110 per cent paisa-wasool. It is a laptop that won't fight you when you are trying to meet deadlines. It is a near perfect machine for almost everyone.
Except. Yes, except a handful of niche use cases. It is not a gaming laptop. If playing the latest Call of Duty on a laptop is your priority, you should get a gaming laptop. It is also not a laptop on which you can run esoteric Linux applications that your defence industry company uses for the last 15 years. I mean you get the idea. If you are going to run some very specific and specialised application, you are better off with a laptop that can be stripped of its software and then can be customised. Like a Windows laptop. Similarly, if you are going to work on Blender because you are a creative director for the next blockbuster, you should not get the MacBook Air. You should get the MacBook Pro, powered by the M5 Max chipset.
But for everyone else looking to get a general-purpose laptop, for their day-to-day use, there is nothing better than the 15-inch MacBook Air powered by the M5 chipset.
Everyone needs a laptop. The list is long. Office workers, students, people working from home, people working on the go, people who like to browse social media and watch videos on YouTube, people who write stuff, people who edit photos, people who create movies from footage shot at birthday celebrations, people who play games, and so and so forth. For most of these people — but not all — the new Apple MacBook Air powered by M5 chipset is a phenomenal and near perfect laptop. It is not cheap with a starting price of 1,19,000 (minus Rs 10,000 for students), but it is phenomenal and miles ahead of any Windows laptops in most workloads.
Everyone who needs a laptop will be well served by the Air M5. It is near perfect. Though exceptions apply, and I will talk about that in a bit. Before that, about the MacBook Air.
For the price, and for most practical purposes, I believe the MacBook Air M5 to be the best you can get. There are two variants of the machine — one with the 13.6-inch display, and the other one with the 15.3-inch screen. It is the 15-inch variant that I am reviewing today. Both have seen their prices go up by Rs 20,000 compared to the previous generation. But at the same time, the storage has also been doubled — for example, in the base model to 512GB from 256GB earlier. And compared to an instant discount of Rs 10,000 for Education — students and teachers are eligible — this time the discount is Rs 11,000.
Irrespective, the Air M5 is not an inexpensive laptop. It costs a fair bit, even with decent bank discounts and offers that are almost always available. Yet, the laptop offers the kind of experience that makes it more than worth it.
Timeless design and perfectly crafted
If you have seen a MacBook Air released in the last few years, you will find the Air M5 a familiar sight. That is because the design has not changed at all. And it is PERFECTLY alright because the Air, made entirely of high-quality aluminium alloy, is one of the best-designed laptops of all time. It may have lost its iconic wedge a few years ago, but it gained symmetry. That symmetry makes the machine not just look premium but balance brilliantly in hands when you carry it.
The Air M5 is a thin laptop. And light. The 13-inch variant weighs just 1.23kgs. The Air 15 weighs just 1.5 kgs. You can carry it in your backpack, or even in a decently-sized purse in the case of 13-inch Air, hours after hours and you won’t even feel it is there. I did not.
Like all modern Airs, the new one too has a fan-less design. So there is no noise at all when you are using it. This is another advantage it has over Windows laptops. Though compared to the MacBook Pro that has a fan for better cooling, the Air can throttle slightly more when used in outdoor Delhi summer, or while running a video editing program like Premiere Pro.
As noted, I have used the Air 15-inch variant for this review. It offers a few extras compared to the smaller laptop. The trackpad is larger, which always means a better experience. While the key size is the same, the bigger machine means roomier typing experience because of the way you can position your hands. At least that is how I feel it. Then there is the matter of speakers. Because of its bigger size, the Air 15 has a better speaker system consisting of six units. This means a slightly fuller sound when you are playing something on the machine.
The screen is another area where Apple is consistently getting it right year after year. And it is another part where I feel the bigger size of the Air 15 makes for the better experience. There is just so much more display area compared to smaller laptops. While Apple reserves its best screens for the Pro models, the MacBook Air 15 has one of the finest screens I have seen in a laptop. It might not have the contrast of the OLED panel that some Windows laptops are nowadays using, but it is punchy and shows brilliant and life-like colours. It is also adequately bright, though not as much as the Pro MacBook screens.
I do not think that anyone will find the MacBook Air M5 screen lacking in any way. Only those who are putting the laptop through a niche use case — say for example extremely fine-tuned colour graded graphics work will benefit from something better. But then in these niche instances, only the specialised hardware would do. The MacBook Air, meanwhile, is a general purpose laptop.
In terms of design, the only aspect that I feel could have been better with the Air 15 is its port situation. There are four ports — MagSafe Charging, 2 USB-C Thunderbolt ports, and the 3.5mm headphone jack. Two USB ports I believe are too few, and would almost certainly need a user to have a dongle. For example, if you connect the laptop to an external display, you are left with just one port then. You can make do with only two, but it also means you will occasionally run into situations where you feel there were an extra one or two ports available.
The MacBook Air M5 is sold in four colours — Silver, Starlight, Sky Blue and Midnight. The one here in this review is in Starlight. It has golden hues but is not gold coloured. Instead, it is very subtle. To pick a simile, I would say it has the colour of evening sunlight. Not the colour of evening sun but evening sunlight. Or the colour of ripe wheat simmering in a field.
Using the MacBook Air M5
One reason why the MacBook Air is so incredibly good is because of its usability. For general computing, and day-to-day stuff that one would be doing on a laptop, the Air is unbeatable.
Compared to the previous Air, the only big change in the new Air is the M5 chipset. The M4 previously was no slouch, so with the new one you are unlikely to feel any major difference in the speed. Chrome will feel similarly fast. The Pages and Keynote work similarly and smoothly. Photoshop works in the same speedy manner. While manipulating photos through Preview, you experience the same niftiness.
Instead, the major difference between the M5 and the M4 is in the way the chip handles graphics-heavy or AI heavy workloads. The M5, compared to the previous-gen chip, is around one and half times faster in programs like Affinity and Blender. At the same time in AI workloads, due to new Neural Accelerators, the M5 is around 4X faster.
Having said that, if you are moving from M4 to M5, you would barely notice any difference in your day-to-day experience. The new Air M5 is not for you. Instead, it is for the Windows users. Or those who are using a MacBook that is on the M1 chipset or older. Those users will immediately notice a huge bump in speed and their overall experience as they go about their work on the Air M5.
Inside the laptop, as noted, there is 512GB storage by default. Though you can go up to 2TB. Compared to the previous default of 256GB this is much better. Also by default you get 16GB RAM, though on the 15-inch variant you can go up to 32GB.
In use, the 512GB and 16GB RAM should be more than enough for day-to-day use. Though if you are going to edit a lot of videos, or do local AI inference, more RAM would help. Similarly, if you are a photographer or in the graphics industry, you may want slightly more storage.
One big reason why I find the MacBook Air M5 better than any comparable laptop, even the laptops that might have more powerful and more buffed hardware, is the macOS. For the last decade or so Microsoft seems to have dropped the ball on Windows. It is an OS that is no longer that coherent and all the experiments with UI and AI have turned it into something that seems to be always a work in progress.
The macOS is, meanwhile, not only more user-friendly but also better to look at. It feels more cohesive, works more cohesively. It has all the elements a user needs by default, including default applications like Pages and Numbers, which are — apart from the niche and legacy use cases — as good as the Windows counterparts.
Significantly, because both software and hardware are made by the same company, the MacBook Air M5 feels more cohesive than any Windows laptop out there. It is this cohesiveness that is behind its smooth and superior experience compared to a Windows laptop, in almost everything from performance to touchpad, and from 1080p webcam to its battery life.
Talking of battery life, like the previous Air this one too is in a class of its own. Almost all users will be able to get a full-day of battery life from the Air M5, although I suspect that in most cases it would manage two full-days of work before they need to recharge the laptop. At least that has been my experience. Exceptions apply though. For example, if you are doing a lot of video editing or running local AI inference, your battery life will be lower.
Perfect laptop for everyone except
If you are keeping the score, you would by now understand that I am firmly team Mac when it comes to laptops. The recent machines from Apple are just too good as far as general day-to-day computing needs of users are concerned. And the MacBook Air M5 sits at a sweet spot. It is premium, and it is not exactly cheap. But it is a laptop that is 110 per cent paisa-wasool. It is a laptop that won't fight you when you are trying to meet deadlines. It is a near perfect machine for almost everyone.
Except. Yes, except a handful of niche use cases. It is not a gaming laptop. If playing the latest Call of Duty on a laptop is your priority, you should get a gaming laptop. It is also not a laptop on which you can run esoteric Linux applications that your defence industry company uses for the last 15 years. I mean you get the idea. If you are going to run some very specific and specialised application, you are better off with a laptop that can be stripped of its software and then can be customised. Like a Windows laptop. Similarly, if you are going to work on Blender because you are a creative director for the next blockbuster, you should not get the MacBook Air. You should get the MacBook Pro, powered by the M5 Max chipset.
But for everyone else looking to get a general-purpose laptop, for their day-to-day use, there is nothing better than the 15-inch MacBook Air powered by the M5 chipset.
