‘The bleeding edge of computing power for everyday creatives’ — this is why I’m upgrading to the MacBook Air M5 after years of making do with my elderly Pro

Another Apple launch event has come and dropped a heap of exciting new gadgets into our laps. But while a lot of people have been discussing the surprise announcement of the more affordable MacBook Neo and the powerful new MacBook Pro, I’ve only got eyes for the new MacBook Air M5. In fact, I’m so enamored, I’ve decided it’s finally time to ditch my trusty but dusty MacBook Pro 2017 and belatedly join the 2020s.

For a laptop that’s an absurd nine years old, my MacBook Pro has been aging pretty gracefully — that is until the last few months, when its fraying LCD display flex cable has finally begun to give up the ghost. The colors are so broken that my Retina display looks more like the psychedelic horror show that was mid-1980s EGA computer graphics. Worse, the screen is criss-crossed with lines that makes most apps and images look like they’re upholstered in tweed.

This is a pretty shameful look for a tech journalist — its certainly no longer a candidate for best laptop. But I could cope with the expressionistic graphics for a little longer if it wasn’t for the groaning machinery under the hood.

My MacBook Pro’s wheezing Intel architecture is increasingly showing its age. I predominantly use my laptop for music-making and digital artwork and many of my workflows have started to push my CPU usage to 140% — the kind of math that would cause my high-school teacher to silently weep about my exam prospects. Frankly, a pre-Apple-Silicon chipset can no longer keep up with creative workflows and redlining my laptop is only further shortening the mayfly-esque lifespan it has left.

So upgrading has become an inevitability at this point. But why has the MacBook Air M5 tempted me so much more than its predecessors?

Why I’m buying the MacBook Air M5

OK, it should be abundantly clear already: the MacBook Air M5 is a major step up from what I’m using right now. As I’ve already touched on, its Apple Silicon is far more suited to demanding workflows than the Intel chipset MacBooks used to rely on.

Yes, the M5 chip is only a modest advance compared to the previous generation. But it is important to consider how far we’ve come. The original M1 was a quantum leap compared to the CPUs it was competing with and each iteration since has advanced on that lead. While it can’t match the power of the M3 Ultra or the kind of creative powerhouse employed by 3D animators, the M5 chip is at the bleeding edge of computing power for everyday creatives and I can’t wait to see how much smoother that makes my creative process.

There’s another thing attracting me to the latest MacBook Air though. For any of you that rolled your eyes at the announced $100 / £100 / AU$100 price rise during last week’s launch, I’ll admit my pupils were freewheeling too. But, for me, the increased price is actually a bit of a bargain, given it also gives you access to a more expansive 512GB SSD as standard.

Frankly, after years of struggling to stretch a 256GB SSD to its absolute limits, it’s absolutely time this decrepit spec was put out to pasture. Even offloading all of my older productions to the cloud, creating enough space for sample libraries and software is becoming nigh-on impossible with drives this size, so I had always budgeted for a larger SSD in my next purchase. Given speccing up the MacBook Air M4 to a 512GB drive would have cost $1,199 / £1,199, getting the exact same amount of storage for just $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,799 is a bit of a steal in my book.

But why content myself with the MacBook Air? If I want professional results, wouldn’t the MacBook Pro be a better shout?

Honestly, no. As a result of the exponential growth in power of Apple Silicon, the MacBook lines have experienced serious power creep. While the Pro range was the only option for creatives a decade ago, the level of performance it’s designed for is above and beyond what most digital artists or bedroom producers need — unless you’re rendering 3D artwork or compiling enormous code databases, it’s likely going to be overkill.

And in line with this, the price of each range has increased, with the MacBook Pro ballooning from the relatively modest $1,299 / £1,249 / AU$1,899 I spent last time to a whopping $1,699 / £1,699 / AU$2,699 for the M5 — meaning the increased list price for the new MacBook Air is now far more in line with my budget than the exceedingly spendy Pro.

Ultimately, when you’ve got a laptop as elderly as mine, pretty much any alternative is going to be an upgrade. But given the professional power, storage and portability I need, the MacBook Air M5 sits right at the center of my dream laptop Venn diagram. Our initial benchmarking shows it's seriously fast, it’s impressively capacious and, most importantly, can display more than 16 colors — so I honestly cannot wait to get my hands on mine.

The best MacBooks and Macs for all budgets

➡️ Read our full guide to the best MacBooks and Macs
1. Best MacBook overall:
MacBook Air 13-inch M4
2. Best budget MacBook:
MacBook Air 13-inch M3
3. Best Mac:
Mac mini (M4)
4. Best MacBook Pro
MacBook Pro 14-inch M4
5. Best Mac for professionals
Mac Studio M4 Max

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