Apple rounded out its latest product announcements with a focus on the Mac lineup, unveiling the new MacBook Air powered by the M5 chip, alongside MacBook Pro models featuring the all-new M5 Pro and M5 Max — with AI performance positioned as the headline upgrade across the board.
MacBook Air M5
The new MacBook Air comes in 13-inch and 15-inch sizes, available in four colours: Sky Blue, Midnight, Starlight, and Silver. The M5 chip brings a 10-core CPU paired with either an 8-core or 10-core GPU, while base storage doubles from the previous 256GB to 512GB. Memory starts at 16GB Unified Memory and can be configured up to 32GB, with storage options reaching up to 4TB — and SSD speeds are up to twice as fast as the previous generation.
Apple has also introduced its in-house N1 wireless chip to the MacBook Air, adding Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 support. Other features include up to 18 hours of battery life, a 12MP Center Stage camera, and a Spatial Audio speaker system. The display remains a 13.6-inch or 15.3-inch Liquid Retina panel at 500 nits brightness with one billion colour support. Connectivity is handled by two Thunderbolt 4 ports (supporting up to two external displays), MagSafe 3, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. As before, the MacBook Air has no active cooling fan — Apple recommends the MacBook Pro for users with sustained heavy workloads.
MacBook Pro M5 Pro / M5 Max
The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro step things up significantly with the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, which Apple says deliver up to 4x the AI performance of the previous generation and up to 8x compared to M1. Both chips are built on Apple’s new Fusion Architecture, combining two dies into a single SoC, with up to 18-core CPU and up to 40-core GPU configurations.
The displays are 14.2-inch or 16.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR panels with 1,000 nits sustained brightness, 1,600 nits HDR peak, ProMotion adaptive refresh rate, and an optional Nano-texture anti-reflective coating.
The M5 Pro starts with 24GB of Unified Memory, upgradeable to 64GB, while the M5 Max tops out at 128GB with a memory bandwidth of 614GB/s. Storage starts at 1TB for M5 Pro and 2TB for M5 Max, with SSD speeds up to twice that of the prior generation.
On the connectivity front, three Thunderbolt 5 ports (up to 120Gbps each, with independent controllers) join HDMI, an SDXC card slot, MagSafe 3, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
The M5 Pro supports up to three external displays; the M5 Max supports up to four. Both models share the same N1 chip with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.
Battery life on the 16-inch reaches up to 24 hours, with fast charging support that takes the battery to 50% in 30 minutes using a 96W or higher USB-C adapter.
Malaysia Pricing
While starting prices appear higher than the previous generation at first glance, Apple has effectively upgraded the base storage across all models — so the actual price per equivalent configuration remains unchanged.
The MacBook Air 13-inch starts at RM4,699, and the 15-inch at RM5,499. Education pricing brings those down to RM4,299 and RM5,099 respectively.
For the MacBook Pro, the 14-inch base M5 model starts at RM6,999, with the M5 Pro from RM8,999 and M5 Max from RM14,999. The 16-inch M5 Pro starts at RM10,999 and the M5 Max at RM15,999. Education pricing for the MacBook Pro is as follows: 14-inch M5 Pro at RM8,399, 16-inch M5 Pro at RM10,199, 14-inch M5 Max at RM13,669, and 16-inch M5 Max at RM14,799.
All new MacBook models are available for pre-order today (March 4), with the official launch set for March 11. With the M5 Pro and Max now out, the next Mac products in line for an update are expected to be the iMac, Mac mini, and Mac Studio.
More info: Apple Malaysia
