[music]

>> The MacBook Air lineup is getting

ridiculous. Like, it doesn't even make

any sense anymore. After the

introductory of Apple silicon chips,

it's [music] gotten to the point where

you can comfortably do pro-level tasks

on the Air model. At least, that's the

consensus online, but is it truly as

good as the YouTubers make it out to

seem? And that's what I'll be answering

in this video after using the M5 MacBook

Air for the past 3 months myself. So,

the machine I got is the 15-in M5

MacBook Air, of course, [music] in the

sky blue color, the best color by far,

by the way. And it has 16 gigs of RAM,

as well as 512 gigs of storage. This is

actually the new base spec memory and

storage-wise after they bumped the base

model to have 512 gigs of storage this

year. With the M5 upgrade, the MacBook

Air also gets Apple's new N1 networking

chip, which brings support for Wi-Fi 7

and Bluetooth 6. I don't think this

alone is enough of a reason for an

upgrade, but it's kind of like a cherry

on top, if that makes any sense. But,

yeah, that's the spec I've gone with.

You can bump the memory up to 32 gigs

and the storage up to 4 terabytes

nowadays, which is kind of wild. But, at

that point I would personally look at

the Pro model instead. Now, the next

thing I want to touch upon is what's

going to be on most people's mind when

they read about the MacBook Air lineup,

which is does it overheat? As you know,

the Air model doesn't have fans by

design to cool off the chip because it's

not intended to be used under heavy

loads. But, now the issue is that since

the M5 chip is so powerful, you kind of

want to use it for different stuff, and

that's where the throttling conversation

really even stems from. Now, wanted to

quickly show you a comparison between

the M5 MacBook Air, as well as the base

M5 MacBook Pro, to really demonstrate

how the heating affects the performance.

The absolute heaviest workload on my

personal workflow is, of course, going

to be rendering these videos, so I'll

use that to show you this quickly. But,

don't worry, later we'll also go over

the programming performance, and this

just to give you an idea how it works.

I'm exporting the video right now, and

overall, it's going well, but this is

kind of what you can expect if you're

running some compute-heavy tasks on the

Air model. So, as you can see, the GPU

usage has dropped a lot because the

laptop simply just got too hot, and it

needs to cool off the chip. And in order

to do that, it needs to drop the chip

usage. Usually, these are pretty short

drops because after the chip is cooled

enough, then it goes back up to almost

100% usage. [music] Anyways, the M5 Air

finished the export in 13 minutes and 19

seconds, and the base M5 Pro in 11

minutes and 33 seconds. So, yes, the

cooling does make a big difference, but

also, there's a big difference in price.

So, I'd say the Air is still doing

really well here. And even while

sometimes operating at half capacity,

the M5 chip is just insanely powerful.

Then, the absolute best thing about the

Air model is, of course, the design and

how thin [music] and light it is. I

mean, this thing only weighs 3.3 lb, so

1.5 kg for the 15-in model, and 2.7 lb,

so 1.24 kg for the 13-in version. And if

you're like me who likes working in

different locations or even just

watching the World Cup or Netflix in my

bed, then you'll for sure like the form

factor of the Air model. But really,

it's the design combined with the

pricing what makes me gravitate [music]

towards the Air in the first place.

Thing that I really like about the Air

is that it fits well into any one of my

backpacks, and even when you carry it

for the whole day, you don't feel like

you have a brick in your backpack, which

is something that the 16-in Pro kind of

feels like after a long time of carrying

it. People will say that it's only a 1.5

lb difference between the Air and the

Pro, but uh when you have other stuff in

the backpack as well, and especially if

you're traveling, you need to hit those

weight limits, so yeah, it it adds up.

The interesting thing here is that 15-in

Air and the 14-in Pro weigh pretty much

the same. So, if you're thinking about

the 15-in Air, I'd also heavily consider

the 14-in Pro [music] if your budget has

any bend. Then, let's talk about one of

my biggest complaints when it comes to

the Air model, which is going to be the

port support. I mean, this combined with

the display are, in my opinion, the

biggest downfalls of the Air lineup.

Like, yeah, I get it, there are

different lineups for a reason, and

there are different pricing points.

[music] Still, I can't help but think to

myself that the Air is so close, yet so

far at the same time, from being

perfect. Now, the Air only has two

Thunderbolt 4 slots, a charging slot,

and a headphone jack. And this may seem

enough, but you got to keep in mind that

if you want to use the Air on your home

setup, then you're kind of limited with

the other peripherals you can add to

your laptop, unless [music] you get a

separate dock. For example, if you have

a wired keyboard and a mouse, then

you're already fully out of ports, but

you also probably would want to add your

monitor to the setup. And if you do

anything related to videos or photos,

then you also got to keep in mind that

there's no SD card slot. So, yeah, you

can always get an external dock, but at

that point, you're kind of starting to

approach the MacBook Pro pricing, and uh

I don't know if the Air is the best

[music] deal out there anymore at that

point. So, this is something I can't

answer. You need to think about this

from your own perspective, and ask

yourself if you plan on use the laptop

connected to a monitor. Do you have a

wired keyboard and a mouse? Are you

planning on having external storage

connected to the laptop, etc.? So, yeah,

the port support is a big miss for me

when it comes to the Air lineup, which

is a bit of a double-edged sword for me,

because on one hand, I love the Air for

the portability, then on the other hand,

it can kind of limit my ability to work

on stuff due to the many limits on the

types of accessories and microphones I

can use with the Air, which is why

recently, as I've been on the Air, I've

also been using the PD200W from Maono as

my microphone. You know, the cool thing

about it is that it's a hybrid

microphone, meaning that you can use it

completely wireless up to 60 m, and even

whenever I'm traveling, I can just bring

with me without having to worry about

audio interfaces, cables, etc. It even

has a built-in noise reduction feature

with multiple levels of noise reduction.

So, if you're shooting content or taking

meetings in crowded places, then you

don't have to worry about people next to

you talking loudly and stuff. All right,

so here's what it like with the noise

reduction turned off. As you can see,

there's cars going nearby me. There's

even a subway coming and it's pretty

loud. And this is what it sounds like

with the noise reduction turned on. And

mind you, this is all happening while

I'm recording, so I'm not editing the

audio in any way in post-production. But

by far the best part for new creators is

that it works with your phone by

attaching the receiver to the charging

port of your phone. Now, it does also

support wireless connection straight to

the camera with their optional camera

receiver accessory, which also syncs the

audio to your video. And when it comes

to the sound quality, I mean, I'll let

you be the judge as the entire voiceover

for this video has been recorded on it.

And lastly, on the wireless mode, you

get up to 60 hours of battery life and

you can control the gain and noise

reduction through their app or by using

this knob on the top of the microphone.

But yeah, for under 100 bucks, I

genuinely don't know a better value for

money option out there. And I mean, even

the build quality, like like the stand

is really solid. So, if you're looking

for a microphone that you can use

literally anywhere, then definitely

check out the Mono PD 200W with the

first link in the description. And a big

thank you to Mono for supporting the

channel and sponsoring the video. Then

when it comes to the display size, I'll

be honest, I found myself enjoying the

15-in model. I find that it gives me

enough screen real estate for

programming or editing, but of course,

switching between tabs and stuff can be

annoying on a single display. But if you

truly wanted you could technically

squeeze two windows [music] open at the

same time on the 15-in screen. I don't

think that's going to be the greatest

experience ever, but it works fine when

you're programming or maybe you're doing

some studying [music] and taking notes

at the same time. So, this is kind of

how much screen real estate you can

expect if you have two windows open at a

time. You know, you can see the changes

on the right in real time and the code

editor on the left, so you can still

quite easily modify things. Of course,

this way you don't see the full desktop

view for apps, but most [music] people

use websites on phones anyways nowadays.

So, I like to call this mobile-first

development. And of course, this doesn't

even matter if you're developing mobile

apps. Anyways, the main thing here is of

course the fact that the Air still has

the 60 Hz display. This seems to be the

biggest criticism over the Air model and

you know, I get it if it's a deal

breaker for you, but for me personally,

I mean, my main monitor is 60 Hz as

well. So, I don't really care too much

for it. Maybe I'm just used to the 60 Hz

display, but really the only time I

notice a difference between the Air and

Pro displays is when I'm scrolling large

code files or articles and stuff. Also,

the Air display only goes up to 500

nits, whereas the Pro display gets up to

1,600 nits of peak brightness with 1,000

nits sustained. So, if your back is

facing a window or you're working under

bright lights, then the Air display

probably is not ideal for you. Okay,

next let's get to the real business,

which everybody is wondering about, the

performance, the performance, the

performance. So, let's talk about the

performance and like I've already hinted

in this video, the MacBook Air has

become a really powerful machine with

the Apple silicon chips. So, when it

comes to the actual performance, yes,

even with the heating flaws, this thing

is no joke. Okay, starting off with the

programming performance, here I'm going

to show you some real-life coding

related tasks on both the M5 Air as well

as the base M5 MacBook Pro. So, you can

really see how some everyday things

might differ between the two. First

things first, when it comes to the

single core performance, the Apple

silicon chips are really great and you

shouldn't see too much of a difference

whether you're on a MacBook Air or a

MacBook Pro. And even if you have the M5

Pro or the M5 Max chips, then the single

core performance will be very similar.

Also, when it comes to single core

tasks, you won't really have to worry

about throttling either because single

core tasks generally don't generate

enough heat to cause meaningful

throttling. Anyways, I wanted to keep

this section as close to a real-life

scenario as possible. So, I wanted to

run some builds on the Kubernetes repo.

And as you can see, when using just a

single core, the Air and the Pro

finished the build pretty much at the

same time, around 6 minutes and 55

seconds for the Air and 6 minutes 32

seconds for the Pro. Then when we switch

to the multi-core build, you can see

that the Air is being slightly held back

by the thermals, finishing the building

1 minute and 27 seconds, whereas the Pro

can cool off the chip and finishes the

build a bit sooner in around 1 minute

and 16 seconds. [music] So, around 15%

faster than the air. Something else to

note here is that if it would be a

longer-lasting task, then this gap would

be higher due to the air simply

overheating while the Pro can utilize

the fans more. So, a real-life example

of that would be you running tests in

parallel in a big repo with a lot of

tests, for example. Next, I wanted to

see how quickly the air can spin up a

100 Docker containers to get a feel of

the disk IO as well as other things. And

here, the air finished the task in 13

seconds and the Pro in 9 seconds. So

again, of course, the Pro is a bit

faster than the air here, but the air is

really hanging in the race there against

the Pro. And I mean, if you're eyeing

the air, then things are looking pretty

good from a performance perspective.

Again, like you got to keep in mind the

price difference at the end of the day.

One thing that's going to be affecting

the pricing of your machine a lot is

going to be the amount of memory you'll

go for. Now, to keep things simple,

Apple uses something called unified

memory, which means the CPU, GPU, and

neural engine share the memory pool. And

in very simplified terms, because of

[music] this, Apple memory is often a

bit faster than your traditional Windows

laptop's memory because the Apple

hardware can access the memory directly

without having to copy data between the

[music] RAM and VRAM. Now, this is a

very broad explanation, and it will

depend on other things as well, like

your machine's memory bandwidth. And

also, keep in mind that MacBooks don't

have a dedicated graphics card. So,

that's kind of the trade-off here. But

yeah, when it comes to the RAM, my

general rule of thumb here is to go for

as much as your budget bends for. Like,

I know it's an expensive upgrade, but

it's one of those ones that I think it's

worth it for the long run. And when

you're buying a laptop, I hope you're

looking at it as a long-term investment.

But even if you're going for the base 16

gigs, then for most tasks, you'll be all

right. Just keep in mind that if you're

going to have many containers running

locally and things of this nature, then

yeah, it will slow down your machine,

but I don't think that's going to be a

huge issue for most people. And

something that kind of goes hand in hand

with the amount of memory you go for is

going to be the storage. Here Apple

actually bumped the minimum amount to

512 gigs of storage, which I think is

fine for most people. But when it comes

to the storage, don't just blindly buy a

spec because you think it's going to be

enough. You also have to keep in mind

the virtual memory or swap memory. The

simplest way I can explain this is that

when your laptop starts running low on

RAM, then it can use some of the

available storage as memory. So when it

comes to the storage, check how much

you've used on your current machine to

give you an estimate of how much storage

you need for your apps, etc., and then

make sure there's some wiggle room for

the virtual memory. Because trust me, if

you're doing some task and you run out

of memory and you don't have any

available storage, it's going to slow

down your laptop. The last, let's talk

about the battery life. Of course,

MacBooks are famous for having great

battery lives, and I mean, this one is

no exception. The same goes with pretty

much all MacBooks, but there really is

no competition here when it comes to the

battery life, at least from the Windows

laptops that I've tested out. So if you

know a Windows laptop with a better

battery life with similar performance at

the same price range, then please let

[music] me know, and I could be

interested in reviewing that. Now, I

don't really like giving out specific

numbers anymore when it comes to the

battery life because it's so subjective

to the work you're actually doing on

your laptop. But I can quite confidently

say that if [music] you're a student

going to classes, doing programming, or

even editing work, then unless you truly

work non-stop, then you should be able

to get through the day without running

out of battery. Again, this depends on

how you're actually using the machine,

but from my point of view, the battery

life [music] is excellent. But yeah,

these have been my thoughts on the M5

MacBook Air after 3 months of usage. I

think if you're looking for a laptop in

this price range, then you can't really

go wrong with the Air. Just keep in mind

some of the tradeoffs Apple has made in

order to get the pricing down, and if

you're fine with those, then just go for

it. I think [music] you're going to love

the MacBook Air. But yeah, thank you so

much for watching all the way to the

end. I'm going to be moving real soon so

the moving vlog is coming ASAP. And I'll

see [music] you

in the moving vlog.

Peace.