What’s New And How Much They Cost

Apple has just announced a bunch of new products as part of its early 2026 launch cycle. The updated products include the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro — which incorporate the newer M5 series Apple Silicon, offering big performance upgrades from the M4 series, and add several other major upgrades to boot. These updates don’t come cheap, but if you need that kind of power, read on.

While the MacBook Pro models claim better performance with the newer chips, they also offer 2x read/write speeds thanks to an upgraded SSD. The MacBook Pro models also start with 1TB of base storage now, which is great for folks seeking colossal storage space without the need for external drives. As for the new MacBook Air, Apple’s bread-and-butter notebook lineup also gets a storage upgrade enabling much faster speeds and now starts with twice the storage capacity on the base models (512GB) compared to the previous generation. That’s not all Apple is offering with this generation, though.

As outlined earlier, the biggest change to the 2026 edition of the MacBook Air over the 2024 MacBook Air is the replacement of the older M4 chips with the faster M5 chips. These machines also feature 512GB of base storage, up from 256GB offered on the outgoing models. The SSDs used on the 2026 MacBook Air are rated for faster read/write speeds as well. The unified memory offered on the machine is now faster and rated for 153GB/s.

In addition to these, also new for 2026 is the addition of Apple’s N1 wireless chips that support Wi-Fi 7 as well as Bluetooth 6. The M5 architecture claims better performance with AI-focused work. Thanks to the upgraded processor, the MacBook Air now better handles AI tasks locally, such as running large language models (LLMs) on-device. Also guaranteed for 2026 is faster graphics performance, translating to better ray-tracing and GPU throughput.

Pricing for the 13-inch MacBook Air starts at $1,099, while the 15-inch model will set you back by $1,299. Both models cost $100 less for purchases made through the education channel. Color options on offer include sky blue, midnight, starlight, and silver.

As for Apple’s professional-grade MacBook Pro models, the biggest addition again centers around the new chips: the M5 Pro and the M5 Max. Both these chips use the same 18-core CPU configuration, which is also claimed to be the world’s fastest CPU core. The GPU on the M5 Pro gets 20 cores, while the same for the M5 Max is 40 cores, a not insignificant upgrade even compared to the M4 Max.

In addition to notable gains in CPU and GPU performance, the new 2026 MacBook Pro models also boast of a 2x increase in SSD read and write speeds, while also offering higher baseline storage space. While the base MacBook Pro models with the M5 Pro chip get 1TB storage, models with the M5 Max chip ship with a 2TB SSD. The new chips also boast of notable performance gains in AI-focused tasks. Like with the MacBook Air models, the Pro models also feature Apple’s N1 wireless chip, which enables Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 support. Even with the additional performance, the 2026 MacBook Pro models offer 24 hours of battery life as well.

Pricing for the 14‑inch MacBook Pro powered by the M5 Pro chip starts at $2,199 while the 16‑inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro chip is priced at $2,699. As for the M5 Max models, the 14-inch iteration of this model starts at $3,599 while the 16‑inch MacBook Pro with M5 Max will set you back by $3,899. Color options on offer include space black and silver.