New MacBook Air with M5 starts at 512GB storage, MacBook Pro starts at 1TB
© Apple Apple has announced refreshed MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lineups, both scheduled to open for pre-order on March 4, with availability beginning March 11. The company is pairing the laptop updates with macOS Tahoe and Apple Intelligence features, while also rolling out Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 via its Apple-designed N1 wireless chip.
MacBook Air starts at $1099
The new MacBook Air keeps the 13-inch and 15-inch sizes, and moves to the M5 chip. Apple lists a 10-core CPU and up to a 10-core GPU, with a “Neural Accelerator” in each GPU core, plus unified memory bandwidth of 153GB/s. Connectivity includes two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and Apple says the system supports up to two external displays.
© Apple 
© Apple Storage is also changing on MacBook Air, with 512GB now the standard starting capacity, and configurations up to 4TB. Apple also claims the updated SSD delivers up to 2x faster read and write performance than the prior generation. In the US, the 13-inch model starts at $1,099, while the 15-inch model starts at $1,299.
MacBook Pro update
On the MacBook Pro side, Apple is updating the 14-inch and 16-inch models with the M5 Pro and M5 Max. Apple says M5 Pro and M5 Max scale up to an 18-core CPU, and adds that the GPU uses a Neural Accelerator in each core, alongside higher unified memory bandwidth. Apple lists up to 64GB unified memory and up to 307GB/s bandwidth for M5 Pro, and up to 128GB unified memory and up to 614GB/s bandwidth for M5 Max.
© Apple Apple is also increasing base storage on MacBook Pro, and it is claiming higher SSD throughput. The company says MacBook Pro with M5 Pro starts at 1TB, M5 Max starts at 2TB, and SSD performance can reach up to 14.5GB/s, with up to 2x faster read and write performance versus the previous generation. Apple also highlights Thunderbolt 5 in the lineup, plus HDMI, SDXC, and up to 24 hours of battery life.
US pricing starts at $2,199 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and $2,699 for the 16-inch M5 Pro model. For M5 Max, Apple lists $3,599 for the 14-inch model and $3,899 for the 16-inch model. Apple also notes the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 now comes standard with 1TB storage, starting at $1,699, with space black and silver color options for the lineup.
Source: Apple
