Apple’s shiny new MacBook Air M5 is a fine machine in its own right, but should I replace my existing MacBook Air M2 with it – or are there better options?
Ethical Disclaimer: The MacBook Air M5 used in this article has been loaned to me by Apple; it’ll be going back in due course. The MacBook Air M2 used in this article is my own working laptop, paid for with my own money. Apple has had no financial influence on this article – I’ve got a long history of annoying Apple by asking awkward questions or not toeing the party line, frankly, because that’s what good journalism should be — and all statements are my own.
Sure, you didn’t come here to be slapped in the face with an ethical disclaimer, but this kind of thing is important, I feel. For more on ART’s ethical stance, see here. Now, on with the show.
The MacBook Air M5 is one of Apple’s newest crop of MacBooks.
I’ve got a long history with the MacBook Air; I’m one of only a handful of journalists who can say that they were present when Steve Jobs unveiled the very first MacBook Air back in 2008 in the Moscone Center in San Francisco, manilla envelope and all.
I’m about 12 rows back in this exact room at this time. No, I’m not whooping and hollering, I always found that part of Apple journalism/fandom totally cringeworthy. I still do.
At that time it was a neat bit of engineering, super thin but quite expensive for the power on offer, not an entirely sensible buy unless you really needed a truly mobile laptop of the day.
Over the years Apple’s shifted the mission statement for the MacBook Air quite a bit, and for the longest time it was the “affordable” MacBook, at least until the MacBook Neo came along. More on that one shortly.
Apple sent me the MacBook Air M5 to review, but quite a while after it launched. Let’s be honest here, there’s a LOT of reviews already out there; some quite fine, many quite pandering and more than a few mediocre or worse.
There’s not much point in me restating the obvious, so I wanted to think differently about how to approach this particular review instead.
Hey… “Think different”. Now there’s a tag line. Somebody should use that at some point. Maybe somebody will.
Then it struck me. My everyday personal work machine is this one. Behold, the GodzillaBook.
There are many MacBook Air M2 laptops out there. But there is only one GodzillaBook M2.
The GodzillaBook is a MacBook Air M2 with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD that I bought as a work machine back in 2022.
That means that it’s approaching four years old, and that’s a timeframe in which a lot of people do start thinking about replacement strategies.
Not everyone for sure – I’m a big advocate for using tech as long as you can, which is why I still have a working Atari 2600 – but there can also be some tax implications for business machines with the ATO typically viewing the lifespan of a working laptop at around 3 years, for example.
Just to cover my backside, the preceding sentence is NOT financial advice. Talk to your accountant about that kind of thing, I’m just some tech journo guy on the Internet, you know?
So this got me thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of upgrading.
Is it worth it?
MacBook Air M5 vs MacBook Air M2: Specifications
Let’s put the two models head to head.
MacBook Air M5 vs MacBook Air M2: Design
Here’s a spoiler that’s not much of a spoiler: Apple hasn’t particularly “innovated” in the design space for the MacBook Air for a very long time indeed.
Sure, the model that Apple’s sent my way was a 15.3 inch variant that simply wasn’t an option back when I was buying the MacBook Air M2 in 2022 (it came in in 2023, though) but that’s of little interest to me.
I genuinely prefer the smaller form factor laptop style; if I want a big laptop I’d be buying a meatier – and much more expensive – MacBook Pro M5 anyway.
In some ways that lack of playing around with the style is a blessing; nobody’s really keen on Apple going back to that terrible butterfly style keyboard that always broke down or that godawful Touch Bar, are they? I’m certainly not.
Still, the “upgrade” here, while familiar in layout, wouldn’t really be an upgrade at all beyond the ability to run multiple monitors officially on the MacBook Air M5.
That display output limitation honestly always felt like a piece of bastardry on Apple’s part given that similarly configured MacBook Pros of the day on the same underlying hardware could manage it, but it’s also not (personally) a big factor to me; your tastes may of course vary.
MacBook Air M5 vs MacBook Air M2: Processing power
Now we get down to it, because of course the MacBook Air M5 is more powerful than the MacBook Air M2. There would be something deeply wrong if that wasn’t the case.
While the slightly stagnant design means it’s only got two USB-C ports, they’re both Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 40Gbps ports where my older MacBook Air M2 has dual ports with one being full fat 40Gbps and the other a more sedate 10Gbps variant. Relevant for those of us (like me) who still do a quantity of old-school sneakernet file transfers via external SSD drives, but maybe not a huge uptick for others.
I strongly suspect that if having lots of very fast ports is important to you, you’re probably a MacBook Pro buyer.
It’s in the processor that we should see some differences. That means that it’s benchmark time; how do the two systems compare?
I should point out at this juncture that the Godzilla Book is specifically an Apple M2 8-core (4 performance/4 efficiency) variant with 16GB of unified RAM and a 512GB SSD, all in one glorious blob of silicon, Apple style.
The Apple MacBook Air M5 has an Apple M5 10-core (4 Super/6 Efficiency) CPU with 16GB of unified RAM and a 512GB SSD.
You can configure MacBook Air laptops with different internals, but nothing is upgradeable; that’s the nature of a fully integrated silicon system like this.
So how do the two units stack up in CPU terms? It’s… not close.
It’s just as stark if we look at GPU performance too:
We will now pause for a brief moment’s applause, because that’s a very nice performance progression there, Apple.
Well done.
Benchmarks are handy for comparison, but then there’s the on-the-road real world use.
For some of the tasks I use the MacBook Air M2 for (such as video editing), there’s no doubt that the MacBook Air M5 is faster.
Indeed, until Apple asks for it back, there’s good odds I’ll be using the MacBook Air M5 for that exact task, because it’s quite a bit faster.
However, you do need those higher-end tasks to be part of your daily workflow for there to be a big difference.
Unless I’m being incredibly slack with my browser tab management – something I do try to avoid – the MacBook Air M2 still does a fine job of web research for example.
Neither is “faster” when I’m writing, where the only upgrades I can really apply are to my own biological hardware via cups of coffee. Speaking of which… mmm… coffee.
This is my kind of overclocking
If you’ve got the needs for that kind of expanded power, then sure, the MacBook Air M5 might make sense as an investment. But of course, in proper Star Wars style… there is another.
What about the MacBook Neo?
Apple’s new big star laptop is its first “affordable” laptop in a very long while.
Yes, Apple doesn’t play “cheap”, but in terms of Apple pricing, there’s no doubting that the Apple MacBook Neo is its play for the general purpose and education markets, running off a chip that basically makes it a big ol’ iPhone or iPad much more than it is a MacBook.
Here’s the problem: I don’t have a MacBook Neo to review, though I did ask Apple for one.
At this stage, I suspect (especially after this article) that my odds of getting one in for review are rather slim, and I can’t quite afford to buy one outright just for review purposes.
The reality however is that the MacBook Neo has been in the hands of other reviewers for some time now, so I’m going to do something I wouldn’t usually do, and use an average of other people’s benchmark scores for the purposes of comparison.
No, I don’t like doing this per se, I’d very much prefer to run off my own benchmark scores, but I’ll go with a rough range average for the purposes of comparison for this article only.
The MacBook Neo is a far more affordable unit than a new MacBook Air M5 – would it be a good replacement for my MacBook Air M2?
The Neo’s scores are interesting at that price, but they’re not really an upgrade to speak of from the MacBook Air M2 that I’ve already got. If I was coming from a much older MacBook, and especially if it was an Intel-based MacBook it’s a very different story of course.
My now-Linuxed MacBook Pro 2015 would be outpaced by the MacBook Neo by an astonishing degree, for example, but then that’s exactly why it’s now a Linux machine.
Like I said earlier, I’m a big fan of making the most of the tech you already own for as long as I can.
Of course, you could look at the MacBook Neo (or indeed the MacBook Air M5) and ponder on the question of battery life. So let’s get to that.
MacBook Air M5 vs MacBook Air M2: Battery power
At a claimed battery life level, the MacBook Air M5 and MacBook Air M2 make… the exact same claims, with up to 18 hours of video streaming or 15 hours of wireless web work for either variant.
In some ways that’s a technical “win” for the MacBook Air M5 because it’s capable of doing a whole lot more processing in that time (in theory), though if you do push it with a lot of video rendering work you won’t see that kind of battery life for sure.
The bigger question I had here was around battery chemistry, because the reality of any battery is that it will degrade over time. That’s entropy for you.
My GodzillaBook M2 has served me very well, but it’s also been a real workhorse over the recent past, churning out countless articles, rendering video and acting as an entertainment platform too. I can’t expect its battery to be up to the par of the MacBook Air M5… can I?
No. That would be ridiculous, but I was curious to see how much the battery in the MacBook Air M2 had degraded.
Here I had quite the nice surprise, because MacOS’ inbuilt battery meter reckons that my MacBook Air’s battery capacity is still at a very pleasing 90% of its original capacity.
I expected it to be worse than this. Quite a bit worse.
Over years of heavy duty use, it’s only dropped 10% of its capacity in that time. Over that span I have used it for longer stretches of work, and it’s still capable of going and going for a good long time. Obviously this is a sample size of exactly one, and experiences can vary, but I can’t say that I’m anything but quite pleased with this state of affairs.
While the battery on the MacBook Air M5 is of course reporting itself at 100% capacity – something would be badly wrong if it wasn’t – I don’t have too many concerns over the battery life of the GodzillaBook M2, at least for now.
MacBook Air M5 vs MacBook Air M2: Price
Money. Apple likes money. Mostly, it likes having your money. Should I give it more?
In one context, the MacBook Air M2 wins this outright. I’ve already paid for it, years ago, and it’s not costing me anything to keep it. But that’s kind of cheating, no?
Apple MacBook Air M5 pricing in Australia starts at $1,799, though the 15 inch variant Apple’s loaned me would run $2,199.
Apple hasn’t sold M2 MacBook Air models for some time now, and you’d have to be amazingly lucky to find a new-in-box model anywhere.
There is a second-hand market, and here pricing sits anywhere between (roughly) $600-$1100 depending on configuration and condition. That’s based on sold prices that I could find, by the way; there are some crazy resellers out there looking for new MacBook Air M5 prices for a MacBook Air M2, and I wouldn’t suggest you buy those.
Honestly, though, if the GodzillaBook M2 upped and died right now, I probably wouldn’t look at the second-hand market at all.
I know what I’ve done to the GodzillaBook M2, and while it’s been working hard, I’m also a mostly-careful owner – there are a few scratches, sure, but I’ve not abused it the way that some do – but there’s no guarantee that you’d be that lucky with someone else’s second-hand model. Being such a sealed unit too, it’s not something that’s easily serviceable either.
Nearly four years, one minor ding. I’m pretty happy with that.
MacBook Air M5 vs MacBook Air M2: Should you upgrade?
For me, right now, the upgrade doesn’t quite make financial sense.
The GodzillaBook M2 is showing its age, but it’s still puttering along nicely for most of the tasks I need it to do, and in my case I do have other systems I can shift some of the more strenuous work to.
For you… it depends. There’s a clear upgrade benefit here in terms of processing power, but if you don’t need that much extra power straight away, you could wait and work on your existing system.
I’m not going to advocate specifically for or against the shift to a MacBook Neo without being able to properly review one (Apple knows how to contact me, I’m again not holding my breath), but that could also be an option for you.
Have you upgraded from a MacBook Air M2 to an M5 or a Neo? Discuss it with me below!
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Great review, refereshing angle on it for sure. I’m so tired of reading the over refined generic mumbo jumbo from most review platforms. keep it up!