New M5 MacBook models come with more storage, higher price tags

Surprising basically nobody at this point – it is, after all, a week of officially pre-announced new products – Apple unveiled their new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models for 2026, all based on variants of its latest M5 processor. What we were curious to see was how much more capable these would appear to be on paper and whether Apple would be able to offer them at early 2025, not early 2026, prices.

As it turns out, we’ll be getting better laptops for not that much more after all… but there are a few other things worth mentioning in the same context that consumers should keep in mind before making a purchase decision. Let’s break everything down.

M5 Pro and M5 Max: Apple’s fastest processors yet go… super?

While the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro released back in October featured the base version of the Apple M5, the new 14-inch and 16-inch higher-level models are built around more powerful variants of that chip… but also feature some notable changes compared to their predecessors. Both the M5 Pro and the M5 Max chips, for instance, can be offered to consumers sporting the same number of CPU cores – up to eighteen – which was not the case in the past. Even if the extra cost for the M5 Pro is hardly justified, it’s an option now.

Then it’s Apple’s way of referring to these cores that’s interesting: the company’s new “Fusion Architecture” apparently sports six “high-performance” CPU cores and twelve “regular” CPU cores… only now they are called super cores and performance cores respectively, instead of the “performance” and “efficiency” cores of old. While it’s rather odd to avoid using the term “efficiency” on laptop chips, what may be implied here is that even efficiency cores are seriously performant on the M5 processors – which may actually be true, to an extent, but one just can’t not laugh at Apple’s occasionally cheesy marketing antics. Super cores.

In any case, Apple does claim that is new M5 Pro and M5 Mac “super cores” are the fastest of their kind in the world – which, again, may actually be true, but we’ll have to wait for the first published benchmarks and real-world tests to confirm. On the GPU side of things the M5 Pro can offer up to 20 cores while the M5 Max can go all the way up to 40 – as many as the M4 Max, yes, but considerably more capable in AI processing than those, according to Apple, because of the neural accelerator each and every new GPU core comes with.

New MacBook Pro 14 and Pro 16 models are great, but there’s a problem

Based on either M5 variant, the two new MacBook Pro models are expected to be around 25%-35% faster in professional workloads than their predecessors – depending on the applications and use cases in question – which is rather impressive, considering how capable the M4 Pro/M4 Max already were. The M5 Pro- and M5 Max-based MacBook Pros also sport unified system memory of higher bandwidth and their SSD storage is twice as fast as before, both of which will help when working with large files in photo, video or music editing software.

As is usually the case, these new MacBook Pro models also offer multiple system memory options: the M5 Pro-based ones can be had with up to 64GB this time around and the M5 Max-based ones with up to 128GB. In an unexpected turn of events – or maybe as a way to justify the increased prices, more on that in a bit – Apple has doubled the base amount of SSD storage for both MacBook Pro models to 1TB (M5 Pro) and 2TB (M5 Max). The maximum amount of storage for these models is now either 4TB (M5 Pro) or 8TB (M5 Max). Last but not least: both now sport Apple’s latest wireless connectivity chip, the N1, offering great speeds over Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.

Everything else regarding these new MacBook Pro models is carried over from the M4 Pro/M4 Max ones: dimensions, weight, design, screen, keyboard, camera, speakers, battery life and most ports – apart from the Thunderbolt5 ones, which are more capable now – are the same. That’s not a bad thing per se, as Apple’s best laptops are widely regarded to be among the most beautiful, well-built and reliable out there… but it does make these new ones seem like minimal-effort, evolutionary products at best. Even just the rumored inclusion of Apple’s C1X chip for 5G connectivity in these models would have made their unveiling more interesting, but this did not come to pass.

Still, these are seriously capable laptops that any professional working within the Apple ecosystem would be tempted to buy, except… there’s a problem with these particular ones: persistent rumors, from credible sources, have been making the rounds over the last few months about two MacBook Pro models coming this year that are even more tempting for several reasons. They are expected to be the first MacBooks with an all-new design, an OLED screen, a touchscreen, the M6 processor and a 5G modem built-in.

Those models will most probably not be cheap, but they will look and feel like true next-generation products compared to the MacBook Pro models of the last four years… so there’s a decision to be made here, no?

New MacBook Air still the most balanced choice, but what’s up with these prices?

Along with its most powerful, pro-grade laptops Apple updated its mainstream, Air line of MacBooks with the M5 processor too: both the 13- and 15-inch models can be fitted with the full, 10-core GPU variant of the M5 for a price (they come with the 8-core one by default), with up to 32GB of system memory and up to 4TB of SSD storage. The new Airs feature faster SSD storage, like the Pros, as well as Apple’s N1 chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 wireless connectivity. Everything else – from design and screen to camera, speakers and ports – is carried over from the equivalent M4-based MacBook Air models.

The most affordable MacBook Air M5 models still sport 16GB of RAM, but they now come with 512GB of SSD storage as standard instead of 256GB, which would be a great upgrade… if it did not come with a $100 increase in price too, now starting at $1099 instead of $999. In the context of what’s happening in the PC market in terms of RAM and storage right now, a hundred-dollar increase for a laptop sporting a more powerful processor, double the storage, faster storage and better wireless connectivity might not sound like all that much, but it’s just enough to make any M4-based MacBook Air – which will now cost quite a bit less while stocks last – seem more appealing. Apple wins either way, of course, but still.

Apple has increased its prices across the board in the MacBook Pro M5 line too – even the one that launched back in October is now more expensive by a $100, but it does come with 1TB of storage. That is basically the case with every other price increase in the new MacBook Pro line-up: the M5 Pro-based models start at $2199 instead of $1999 (but come with 1TB of storage) and the M5 Max-based ones start at $2699 instead of $2499 (but come with 2TB of storage). Contrary to the new MacBook Air models, though, in this particular case it may be less of an issue because people using these laptops for actual work are much more likely to fill up those non-upgradeable SSDs. All the new, M5-based MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models will be available for preorder on March 4 and available to purchase on March 11.

All in all, one can’t help but feel mildly interested and, at the same time, somewhat underwhelmed by these new M5-based MacBook Air and MacBook Pro upgrades. Yes, some of us are curious to see how they actually perform – in terms of thermals and battery life, in everyday use cases and all kinds of apps – compared to their predecessors, but it’s also clear that this was another low-effort, predictable round of product updates from Apple. The company does deliver steady progress and (now) good value with every such round, but it will have to prove that it’s actually capable of exceeding expectations and surprising consumers at some point. Those OLED-rocking, 5G-equipped, M6-based MacBook Pros do sound like just the thing, no?