Of course, when you grab a laptop, the big thing you need is battery life. While your results will vary, the promised 18 hours of use on battery will get you through your day, every day. So will the display, which in this case is a 15.3-in. Liquid Retina P3 display with support for 1 billion colors, True Tone, and 500 nits of brightness.
When it comes to audio output and the built-in web conferencing cameras in these Macs, nothing much has changed fromlast year’s M4 models. The song remains the same when it comes to design: you get that beautiful aluminum chassis, new colors (Sky Blue, Midnight, Starlight, and Silver), with pretty much everything we already love about these Macs the same. Connectivity relies on an Apple N1 wireless chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. You also get two USB-C/Thunderbolt ports, MagSafe charging and the ability of driving up to two external displays in addition to that Liquid retina screen. That’s very useful for on-the-go pros who want to use a larger display most of the time but need the convenience of a portable now and then.
What about MacBook Neo?
Some feel the arrival of the MacBook Neo will cannibalize MacBook Air sales. There’s some truth in that. And while the Neo can and will handle almost anything a regular user might want to throw at it, the M5 Air is much more capable by design. While the Neo has a 6-core CPU, the Air has up to 10; the Neo gets 5 GPU cores, the Air gets 10; Neo has a maximum 8GB memory, while the Air ships with at least 16GB — and the memory interconnect is much faster too. It means these systems are great for anyone who wants to accomplish more demanding tasks, but can’t quite justify purchasing a MacBook Pro.
