I bought every single Apple silicon

MacBook Air so that you don't have to.

And in this video, myself and my chief

Apple technician, or CAT for short, will

show you every single difference. In

terms of physical differences, nothing

has changed since the M1 version got

overhauled in 2022. Now, that included a

brighter screen, a better webcam,

speakers, keys, trackpad, and port

selection. So, the M2, M3, M4, and now

obviously M5 Air are almost identical.

Uh there are some minor webcam

differences. The M4 and onwards gets

center stage and slightly better image

quality, but that's about it. Now, if

you use an external monitor, the M4 and

the M5 come with Thunderbolt 4 ports,

which are faster and provide more

bandwidth than Thunderbolt 3. So, the M4

and M5 can support two external screens

in addition to their own built-in

display. But on the M3 generation, you

could use two external screens, but only

if you closed the MacBook screen. The M2

and M 1, somewhat controversially, could

only be used with a single monitor,

regardless of if you close the laptop

screen or not. So, before I get into

performance, the biggest change for the

new M5 Air compared to the previous

generation, is that the base model now

starts with a 512 GB SSD versus 256.

If you pair that with the base model RAM

increase from 8 GB to 16 GB that Apple

introduced a few years ago, that is a

big overall upgrade. Now, the M5 Air at

$1,099 is technically more expensive

than the M4, which was $999.

However, the M5 is technically

significantly discounted if you think

about it. Not only are we getting double

the SSD capacity, which was a $200

upgrade on the M4, but with the recent

skyrocketing costs of computer

components, specifically RAM, I am

personally amazed at the price. And I'm

not sure how long it will stay like

this, to be honest, which makes

comparing it against older and used and

more importantly cheaper air versions

very interesting. Now, here's an idea of

what you're getting with each base model

of the Apple silicon generations. The

number in brackets is the maximum

possible upgrade option. Just pause the

video real quick if you want to read all

of it. Now, there is a $100 option to

get two additional GPU cores on the air.

I recommend not doing this and instead

upgrade either the SSD or the RAM

because then the GPU upgrade is included

for free. The media engines and

miscellaneous GPU technology, the M1 and

the M2 are missing quite a few features

versus everything from the M3 onwards,

including ray tracing, which is great

for gaming and 3D workflows. I will show

you that later though. Oh, and the

memory bandwidth, aka how fast the Apple

silicon chip can access the unified

memory, otherwise known as RAM, is

significantly faster on the M5 versus

even the M4. Okay, so now that all of

the technical stuff is out of the way,

let's get into some real-world everyday

use on the MacBook Air. Stuff like, you

know, multitasking, launching apps, web

browsing, and emails, etc. There are

kind of two categories for this. The

first one is what I would consider

relatively basic, like when I've just

got a couple of apps open, you know,

switching between them and writing

emails, notes, web browsing with, you

know, maybe 10 to 20 tabs open at the

same time. Essentially, what I typically

do on my MacBook Air most of the time.

And I could not find any major

differences between all of them. Like,

even the M1 versus the M5 side by side,

like they're all snappy and quick. I

didn't get any spinning beach balls of

death. Apps and websites load quickly. I

had them all side by side, and it was

very hard to find any real-world

differences in speed and performance.

Just a quick FYI here, I reformat the

SSD and reinstall Mac OS roughly every 1

to 2 years on my MacBooks. If you are

experiencing any kind of slowdowns or

you notice performance isn't quite as

good as what it used to be, do the same

thing. It'll be like getting a brand new

MacBook. Now, if I had to mention one

thing in this comparison here,

because of the faster single-core speeds

on the M4 and the M5, websites seem to

load a little bit faster versus the

older M1 and M2 versions. I say faster,

I mean like fractions of a second later.

So, not something I noticed unless I had

both, you know, side by side. And that

brings me to the second category, which

is those more intensive general tasks,

like a, I don't know, a 9-to-5 job

involving several browsers with 30 to 40

browser tabs open and more professional

apps like Microsoft Teams and Slack,

etc. The biggest difference here was the

amount of RAM. The M1 and M2 and some M3

Air base models came with 8 GB of RAM

instead of 16, and that is just not

enough for these more intensive like

multitasking sessions. The M4 and the M5

started to pull ahead of the older

versions here

once the memory was loaded up. And I did

notice browser tabs would hibernate less

often, for example. But the main

difference is that anything a bit more

demanding, like editing, I don't know,

some basic client work in Photoshop,

there was just more bandwidth available,

and so it seemed a little faster and

snappier on the M4 and the M5. But

again,

not really a major difference. It's not

like the M2 or the M3, for example,

sucked. It was just, you know, little

minor differences here and there, as

long as they had the same amount of RAM,

of course. Also, if you're enjoying the

information in this video, it took me a

really long time to put everything

together. So, I'd really appreciate it

if you hit that subscribe button. Now,

moving on to the SSD read and write

speed on the 512 GB M5 was significantly

faster than all previous generations

with the smaller 256 GB SSD. Now, this

is going to speed up, obviously, small

file transfers and leading on to my

previous point on everyday performance,

uh provide a very small boost to

multitasking performance when macOS has

to temporarily move data from the RAM to

the SSD. When you've got a ton of apps

open all at once. This is called swap

memory, by the way. Uh you can actually

see how much swap memory your system

uses if you bring up the Activity

Monitor application. Now, each of these

MacBooks come with a charger in the box,

but honestly, they're not very good. You

know, even the upgraded dual port ones,

uh they don't output much power at all,

only 30 to 35 W or 40 to 60 W on the

upgraded M5 Air dynamic power adapter.

Why is this an issue? Well, from the M2

Air and onwards, all MacBook Airs have

fast charging capability, but only when

using a charger that can output a

minimum of 70 W. Also, the standard

charger only has one port, so you can

only charge one device at a time. So, I

would recommend, doesn't have to be

right now, but eventually, uh upgrading

to a better one. Like this one, the

Anker Prime 160 W charger. And big

thanks to Anker for supporting my

channel and sponsoring this section of

the video. Now, Anker is calling this

the world's most compact 160 W multi

port charger. And it really is tiny at

just 220 g. Just a little bit bigger

than my AirPods Pro case, and it folds

up to fit in pretty much any bag. But,

the tech inside is where it gets

interesting. And honestly, it is a

no-brainer for anyone charging multiple

Apple devices at once. It's got GaN

Prime 2.0. That's the architecture that

lets it pack 160 W into something this

small without the heat problems you'd

normally expect from a charger this

powerful. And then, PowerIQ 5.0 is what

handles the smart side. It automatically

identifies each device and gives it

exactly the power it needs. So, my

MacBook Air, my iPad, and iPhone are all

charging at their own maximum speed

simultaneously. There's also Active

Shield 4.0, which runs over 10 million

temperature checks a day to stop the

charger from overheating and ensure a

stable current output. So, you can just

leave it plugged in overnight safely

with no concerns about your battery. So,

if you want to streamline your charging

or learn more about charging, Anker is

running a whole Ask Me Anker Thing

series. Link down below. Now, I will get

into some more complicated workflows.

So, starting with anything involving the

CPU, there are notable improvements from

generation to generation in both

single-core and multi-core performance.

Now, these improvements mostly translate

into real-life usage for any apps that

heavily use CPU. Coding and development,

for example, you know, that short bursty

stuff in Xcode, like under a couple of

minutes total, is faster. But anything

longer, like compiling a large codebase,

is not quite as pronounced. Taking a

look at anything AI-related, all of

these chips have an NPU or neural

processing unit, which Apple calls the

neural engine. It's the part of the chip

that runs things like artificial

intelligence and machine learning, and

is also utilized by Apple intelligence

running on your Mac. Now, the M1 and the

M2 are starting to lag behind here, but

surprisingly the difference is less

pronounced between the M4 and the M5.

Now, did I actually notice any

differences in real life? Honestly,

Apple intelligence is still barely

functioning at this point, so I almost

never use it. Uh so, this category just

wasn't really relevant to me. If you use

creative apps like Photoshop, After

Effects, or video editing programs like

Final Cut, Resolve, or Premiere, uh

apart from Photoshop, they're all mostly

comparable. Like, yeah, there are minor

improvements from generation to

generation, but if you're just editing

basic videos in Final Cut, for example,

uh there's just not going to be much

real-life difference, to be honest with

you. All of them have video media

engines that support the most commonly

used video codecs, like H.264 and HEVC,

uh which is what pretty much every

camera or phone records it, or at least

most of them these days. It's only once

you start getting into more demanding

things like, you know, 3D effects or

noise removal, that the differences

start to show. Not sure how many people

are doing that on a fanless MacBook Air,

though. Note that the M1 really

struggles when it comes to ProRes

footage, cuz it doesn't have the

additional ProRes hardware encoders and

decoders. This is, of course, only

applicable to those who shoot ProRes

footage on their iPhone or camera. If

you don't, it doesn't matter. For 3D

applications like Cinema 4D or Blender,

anything with that new

hardware-accelerated ray tracing

technology is the clear winner. So,

specifically, the M3, M4, and M5. Uh

even then, the M5 is significantly more

powerful than even the M4. All of this

is as long as whatever program you're

using has been updated to take advantage

of ray tracing. Most apps these days,

including Blender, have been. Now,

taking a look at gaming, I did find some

marginal improvements from generation to

generation. It is noticeable when

playing a game. Like, the M4 and the

M5's GPUs are just more capable than the

older versions. Uh but, I actually found

the M5 performed surprisingly well. I

played Cyberpunk for about an hour, and

performance didn't really dip too much

from any thermal throttling, which leads

me into thermals. Now, during everyday

use, a lot of the time, I couldn't even

tell if they were turned on or not.

Like, they were just that cool to the

touch. Now, they did get a little warmer

when I was doing a lot of multitasking,

but, you know, nowhere near the point

where having it on my lap or typing and

resting my hands on the keyboard was

uncomfortable. Like the only time I

noticed any uh heat coming from the

metal chassis was when I was really

pushing the system, like rendering a

video or 3D scene or gaming or something

like that. Cuz let's be honest, like at

the end of the day, this is the Air

lineup of MacBooks, right? And they do

not have an internal fan. They only rely

on passive cooling via a really small

metal heat sink attached to the chip.

So, if you start to push it hard, it's

going to get hot. And during these

situations where I was really pushing

the Air, uh the back chassis can reach

around 44 to 45° C,

which is uncomfortable on bare skin.

Like if I had the back of my laptop

against my bare thighs and I was trying

to type on it, uh it would just wasn't

very comfortable at all. I also didn't

notice any major differences across all

five MacBooks. Like they all seemed to

get about as hot as each other and

spread the heat out about the same when

being pushed. Now, for battery life,

Apple's comparison feature claims all

five versions are about the same. So, I

charged all five to 100% battery, did

the exact same real-life tasks on each

MacBook, including some more intensive

stuff involving the CPU, but mostly

streaming YouTube videos, and then I

stopped when the M1 [music] reached 5%

battery life. In comparison, the M2 was

at 12%, the M3 and the M4 surprisingly

identical at 18%, and the M5 was at 27%

left. So, it works out to be roughly an

extra 1 to 1.5 hours of additional

battery life on the M5 versus like the

M1, M2, M3.

Uh but again, you know, highly dependent

on what exactly you're doing on the Mac.

However, remember that unless the older

MacBooks like the M1 or the M2 are also

brand new and you know, their battery is

in perfect health, just like the brand

new M5, their battery is going to be

degraded and, you know, consumed

somewhat. Uh if you look at my M1

MacBook Air as an example, it's now

almost 6 years old and is now under 90%

maximum capacity with a few hundred

charge cycles, which honestly isn't

really that much. So, taking all this

into consideration, which one should you

get? Well, if you already own a MacBook

Air, I don't really see much point in

upgrading if it's currently meeting your

needs. You know, they're all very

similar, especially if you're using it

for everyday things like web browsing

and emails, etc. Uh you're not going to

see a big upgrade by going to the M5

from the M2, for example. Now, if you're

an OG M1 MacBook Air owner, particularly

the base model with 8 gigs of RAM and

256 GB SSD, uh you may have actually

owned it for 6 years at this point,

which in my opinion is a pretty decent

amount of time, right? Like some people

say that you should use your laptop for

10 years before considering upgrading,

but 6 years of daily use, I think that's

a pretty good bang for buck. So, if you

are considering upgrading to the M5,

I think it's totally justifiable, right?

Like if you want to and if you can

afford it, cuz the M5 comes with a lot

of nice new features that you will

really appreciate. Now, if you're

looking for a new MacBook Air, uh

consider a new inbox or very lightly

used M4, but only if you can get it for

a really nice discount compared to the

M5. If you can't, just get the M5, you

know, especially if it's on sale, which

it regularly is on resellers like Amazon

or Best Buy. Uh I will have a link in

the description that will take you to

the best price currently available. You

know, with the M5, you're getting 16 GB

of RAM, that new super fast 512 GB SSD,

a full warranty, guaranteed software

support for at least 7 years, noticeably

better performance in anything more

demanding than basic productivity tasks,

the best battery life, etc. And for me,

this is well worth the extra couple of

hundred bucks or so over buying a used

M4 or M3 Air if your budget allows for

it, of course. Now, if you want to see

me compare all the current MacBook

generations against each other like the

Neo versus the Air or the Pro, I

actually made this video which I will

link down below or you can just click it

here.