u/intel_Core_

So after a lot of back and forth and sending a MacBook Air M1 back twice because I got a better deal every time and ended up with an M1 16/256 in excellent condition and a new battery. But since the RAMpocalypse is full on hitting I thought to myself why not get another brand new M5 Air 13" 16/512. I got an open box deal from amazon for 975€ in sky blue. My hope is that this machine will comfortably carry me through the better part of the next decade.

Performance:

The M5 is an absolute beast in performance. Opening websites and apps is as fast as ever and feels really snappy. I usually just browse the web, check my mails, watch Youtube, and occasionally play some Minecraft. It handles all of this with little to no effort.

I play Minecraft with the Sildurs Enhanced Default Fast shaders and it gets a constant 60 FPS with some dips to around 50 but while doing so it usually also does not get any hotter than 60°C on both the CPU and GPU. Of course if you add heavier shaders it can get very hot. If you play vanilla Minecraft you can get a constant 120 FPS but since the screen is only 60 Hz there's really no point in doing so.

Battery life:

The battery life of the M5 is absolutely top notch. When you just browse the web and watch videos you can easily get 12-15 hrs of screen time. I never use the full 500 nits the M5s screen is capable of doing because I usually just use it indoors where it's more than enough to have it on a third to half brightness so that might help a lot with battery life.

When playing Minecraft with shaders I can usually get around 5 hrs if battery life on a single charge. Not that I ever need that much which is why I limit the charging percentage to 80% in system settings since that is a thing with macOS Tahoe.

The design:

The design is really where this thing shines. The reason why I got the M1 first a couple months back was mainly because I thought the notch and the boxy design would really turn me off. Turns out I actually really love it.

The body or chassis is really build like a tank just like the M1 was already. But with this thing being so thin throughout the entire body and it being aluminium throughout it just feels really premium.

I also love the sky blue color. It has just a touch of blue in it while looking mostly silverish. Since I slapped a dbrand skin on it immediately I barely see the color from the outside but I do see it all the time when it's opened up in front of me since I don't have a skin on the inside. I do enjoy the design a lot more than I would've thought!

The trackpad and speakers are just like we're used to from MacBooks absolutely mind-blowing and so is the keyboard. For such a thin and light device it is really everything you could ask for.

Of course with the Air being fanless it's always completely silent and it also won't get any problems with overheating due to dust. This thing heats up, and it cools down on its own and also usually really quick due to the full aluminium build.

Display:

The display is really the biggest difference for me between the M1 and the M5 from a visual perspective. The smaller bezels and the .3 inches of extra screen real estate really make the screen look a lot bigger than it is. With the menu bar being where the notch lives it gives you just so much more screen space that it actually feels a lot bigger. With the right wallpaper you also really barely ever notice the notch.

I do have a desktop for gaming which has 3 screens connected to it. The main screen being a QD OLED 240 Hz screen and to me I really have no issued with the 60 Hz from the M5s screen. One would assume that being used to such a high refresh rate it would really bother me but for some reason it really does not.

Brightness is more than plenty. I never use the MacBook outdoors so I have no complaints on that front. Indoors you will be just fine. I also don't have any problems with reflections even though the screen is shiny. But since it also gets bright enough you can really just turn that up if you have issues with reflections.

Sharpness and colors are top notch. You can really not make out any individual pixels and colors look vibrant and just as they should. The blacks are not gonna be as black as on an OLED screen but this is really nothing that would be a dealbreaker at least for me. I know that in this price range some Windows laptops do offer OLED 120 Hz screens but that is literally the only thing that they've got going for them in this price range.

Software:

Unlike a lot of people on here I do enjoy macOS 26.5 a lot. I run the latest version and have never seen anything else than Tahoe on macOS so I have nothing to compare it to. But I found this to be the perfect entry point for me. With macOS Tahoe being so customizable (and that's what used to be my biggest gripe with macOS) you can basically adjust all the colors and the whole design of the OS. With dark mode and the icons in Liquid Glass design it really lets you dial in your personal preference. I really like Liquid Glass and to me the different corner radii really do not matter because I don't usually look at the corners of a window but rather right in the middle of it. With 26.5 really most flaws are ironed out but since we already got macOS 27 coming in fall most likely I think this will fix actually all the things that some might still be bothered by.

Safari is a great browser. I use it daily and it really just works for everything I need. I use AdBlock Pro with it from the AppStore and it also just works even on YouTube.

Mail app is just as good. Nothing to complain about on this front either.

Connectivity:

The 2 USB ports are somewhat of a weak spot for the Air lineup and have been ever since. It is no problem for me specifically since I have my gaming rig and don't plan on connecting any screens to the MacBook. I also charge through USB C exclusively so the MagSafe port is not anything I can take advantage of. I would've rather seen another USB C on the right side.

Verdict:

I'm still in the honeymoon phase so be aware that I look at this MacBook through rose-tinted glasses basically. For me all the things I just mentioned I am either totally satisfied with or I can live with them very well.

What could be better is of course the screen with a higher refresh rate and no notch and more ports like another USB C on the right. Also I think that you only get really good deals with the models that are sold outside of Apple directly. If you spec out a MacBook Air on Apples website the value preposition falls apart very quickly since the upgrades are very expensive. The 15" version alone is already close to 300€ more expensive (but it also gives you the 10 core GPU instead of the 8 with the base M5).

That really is nitpicking on a very high level in regards to the model that I have because this machine really is a solid all round laptop that really does all the basic things right. If you're in the market for a laptop of around 1000€ and you're not a gamer (or you're a light gamer and don't really need that many games to play like me) the M5 Air should really be far up there on your list!

Those are my MacBook Airs. The M1 is on the left with the obsidian skin with the MacBook itself being the space grey color and the latest and greatest M5 with the holo white skin in sky blue. I think they both look stunning next to each other like this. Dbrand really does an amazing job with their skins for MacBooks!

I already posted a review of the M1 Air with 8 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage 2 months ago so I want to get into the things that specifically separates the two models.

First things first I got this one because it was listed for 570€ with a discount code while the 8/512 version I bought was 650€ and with very noticeable cosmetic damage on one corner while the 16/256 is in pristine condition. And for it to stay that way I put a dbrand obsidian skin on it.

When I had the 8 GB variant I noticed that SWAP memory would be used fairly quickly. Just a couple of safari tabs, mail, Tidal, ChatGPT and it would already start swapping. If I started playing Minecraft to that it would SWAP pretty heavily already. I anticipated this and for this reason went with the 512 GB SSD instead of the 256 GB cause I thought with more storage the wear on the SSD would not be as much of a problem. But why risk wear on the SSD in the first place when it could be avoided for even cheaper than what I got?

And I was not disappointed. With the 16 GB RAM variant it would not SWAP at all. I can have all the apps open that I want and play Minecraft simultaneously and it does not SWAP.

Now I know for my use case it could be said that the 8 GB variant could have been sufficient but then again there was this cosmetic damage as well that really bothered me. But since Apple decided to launch the MacBook Neo now with 8 GB of RAM it goes to show that they must still be pretty confident that their implementation of 8 GB of RAM will be enough for years to come and it probably will be since everyone predicted in 2020 already that 8 GB of RAM would only last you "a couple more years until it feels sluggish" but let me tell you it does absolutely not. Not if you are a light user and don't do any gaming or video editing or heavy stuff like that. Heck Minecraft even ran fine on the 8 GB variant. Though with pretty significant swapping.

As for the experience with macOS coming from a lifetime of Windows I have to say I am beyond impressed. It feels smooth and snappy and I really love the Liquid Glass design of macOS Tahoe. I just updated to 26.5 and it feels like it's even snappier and less laggy than it was before. All the customizability of macOS now is something I really appreciate. I want my OS to look good when I use it. And it definitely does. I have rarely noticed any bugs or quirks. On the earlier versions of Tahoe I just got the tab bar in safari sometimes overlapping with the top of the website. That was a bit annoying but I hope they fixed that in 26.5.

Battery life is also still amazing with around 15 hrs of light usage and roughly 5 hrs of playing Minecraft on a single charge. Ever since they introduced charging limits with Tahoe I also use it with the limit set to 80% to preserve battery life as long as possible. But even with this thing only charging to 80% I still sit between 10%-30% at the end of the day depending on what I did with it.

That said I'm still happy I got such a great deal on this beautiful device. It will live with me for however long it decides to stay alive and Apple will give it security updates for which they should definitely be doing well into the 2030s because these machines can still run for a long time before they get obsolete.