Apple has updated its most popular laptop with the new M5 MacBook Air, bringing double the starting storage and Wi-Fi 7 connectivity. The base model now starts at $1,099 for the 13-inch version, $100 more than before, but includes 512GB of storage instead of 256GB. The laptop comes in two sizes—13.6 inches and 15.3 inches—both featuring Liquid Retina displays with 500 nits brightness.

At the heart of the update is Apple's M5 chip, which delivers a 10-core CPU and up to 10-core GPU with a powerful Neural Accelerator. Apple claims the M5 MacBook Air offers up to 4x faster AI performance than the M4 model and 9.5x faster than the M1 version. The new SSD provides twice the read/write speed of the previous generation, while enhanced shader cores and a third-gen ray-tracing engine improve creative workloads.

The M5 MacBook Air maintains all-day battery life at up to 18 hours and includes the new N1 Apple-designed networking chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. It still features two Thunderbolt 4 ports rather than Thunderbolt 5, and lacks active cooling. Preorders begin March 3 with availability on March 11.