Apple MacBook Air 13" Review

The M5 MacBook Air with 32GB RAM and a 4TB SSD is a portable powerhouse for productivity, not play. Its CPU lands in the 78th percentile, but the integrated GPU is in the 18th, making it a terrible choice for gamers. At $2,699, you're buying top-tier portability and reliability with a massive storage upgrade.

The new 13-inch MacBook Air with the M5 chip is a fascinating machine. It's packing a 4TB SSD, which puts it in the 98th percentile for storage, and it's still that impossibly thin and light chassis we all know. But the real story is the M5's 10-core CPU, which lands in the 78th percentile for performance. That's a solid jump for an Air, and it's paired with a generous 32GB of unified RAM.

You're paying a premium for this configuration at $2,699, and that price gets you a very specific experience. It's built for portability and reliability (93rd percentile), not raw power or gaming. The 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display is bright and sharp, sitting comfortably in the 80th percentile, and the whole package weighs just 1.24kg. This is a laptop designed to disappear into your bag and just work, for a very long time.

Let's talk about what the M5 can and can't do. The 10-core CPU performance in the 78th percentile means this Air will handle daily tasks, heavy multi-tab browsing, and even some light video editing without breaking a sweat. It's significantly faster than the M3 Air and holds its own against many Intel and AMD ultrabooks in CPU-bound workloads. The 32GB of RAM is a sweet spot for future-proofing and keeps everything smooth.

Now, the GPU is the trade-off. It scores in the 18th percentile, which is the reality of an integrated Apple GPU in a fanless design. It's fine for driving that high-resolution display and handling the UI, but it's not for gaming or serious 3D work. The 4TB SSD, however, is an absolute monster and will feel blazingly fast for everything from app launches to file transfers.

At $2,699, this is a premium configuration of a premium ultraportable. You're paying for three things: the massive 4TB of storage, the 32GB of RAM, and the Apple ecosystem tax. The price-per-performance ratio isn't great if you just need a fast computer, but if your top priorities are extreme portability, best-in-class build quality, and not thinking about storage for the next five years, then the value proposition makes sense. Just know that a similarly priced Windows laptop or a MacBook Pro would give you vastly more graphical and sustained performance.

Compared to the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Max, the Air gives up a huge amount of GPU power and sustained CPU performance for a thinner, lighter, and fanless design. The Pro's screen is also better. Against the ASUS Zenbook Duo, you lose the innovative dual-screen functionality but gain macOS, better build quality, and that legendary Apple battery life. The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i is in a different universe for gaming and raw power but is also much heavier and has worse battery life. The most direct competitor might be a high-end Microsoft Surface Laptop, where the Air's M5 chip and macOS integration are the key differentiators.

Gamers and creative pros who rely on GPU power should look elsewhere. The GPU performance is in the 18th percentile, which is abysmal for gaming or GPU-accelerated tasks like 3D rendering, simulation, or training large AI models. If your workflow needs sustained, heavy performance, the fanless design of the Air will also throttle sooner than a MacBook Pro or a gaming laptop. This isn't your machine.

This is an easy recommendation for a specific user: someone who needs a supremely portable, reliable, and well-built macOS machine with an obscene amount of fast storage. The M5 CPU and 32GB of RAM provide plenty of headroom for professional work that isn't graphically intense. However, we can't recommend it if you have any interest in gaming (its weakest area at 19.1/100) or need serious GPU power for rendering or ML workloads. For those people, the MacBook Pro or a Windows workstation is a better fit.