MacBook Air 13-inch (M5)

MacBook Air 13-inch M5 stays a top everyday ultraportable with faster silicon and storage, but the chassis is unchanged and AU pricing climbed.

Best For

Everyday thin-and-light Mac users

Value

Fair

Biggest Strength

Fast M5 everyday performance

Biggest Weakness

Higher starting price this year

Community Vote

N/A

would recommend

Key Takeaways

M5 speeds everyday work and creative apps, with larger GPU gains than the CPU jump versus M4 Air.

Base storage doubles to 512GB and SSDs test about twice as fast as M4 Air drives.

Chassis, 60Hz Liquid Retina panel, and port layout are unchanged from recent Air generations.

Battery still covers a full workday; hit 18 hours looped video and about 10 hours mixed

Brand

Apple

Release Date

Mar 11, 2026

Price Range

$2,099 to $2,549 AUD

Fast M5 everyday performance

Doubled faster base SSD storage

All-day battery for work travel

Thin light aluminium ultraportable

Excellent keyboard and trackpad

Silent fanless cooling design

Higher starting price this year

Unchanged chassis and ports

Still stuck at 60Hz panel

Modest gains versus M4 Air

Buyers upgrading from aging M1 Airs expect clearer speed and fresher battery life on M5

Owners discuss 16GB M5 as enough for CapCut-style edits, with 24GB preferred for heavier timelines

Some switchers praise pairing a larger M5 Air sibling with a Neo for desk versus travel use

Forum users warn long sustained renders may throttle on fanless Air versus cooled MacBook Pro

AU still sparse; one related listing early screen banding QC complaints on M5 Air units

Display size	13.6 inch
Resolution	2560 x 1664
Refresh rate	60 Hz
CPU	Apple M5 10-core
GPU	Apple M5 8-core or 10-core
RAM	16 GB
Storage	512GB to 4TB SSD
Battery capacity	53.8 Wh
Weight	1.23 kg
Wireless	Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 via Apple N1
Ports	MagSafe 3, 2x Thunderbolt 4, 3.5 mm headphone
OS	macOS
Apple AU list	From $2,099 AUD