It's a niche machine, not the kind of machine that receives annual upgrades like others.
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M5 MacBook Air Coming Spring 2026 With M5 Mac Studio and Mac Mini in Development
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If you bought what you needed, when you needed it, then be happy with your purchase. Something newer, better, faster, sexier is always around the corner.
Thing is - you might have skimped a little on the RAM. I'm not sure 128MB even boots MacOS.
Doh! I've been spending too much time with my Apple //c, dammit.
i am afraid anyone who wanted to buy one got chased away by the unimpressive M2 Ultra MP.
Hopefully those two external display won't be delayed till the release of the MBP M6. Hurry up, Timmy.
I hope they offer a nano texture option on the Air and bring back Space Gray. USB-C port on the right side would be great too but knowing Apple they will probably save it for the redesign.
If the GPU gains on the regular M5 can be pushed out all the way to the M5 Ultra, I'd be very interested in picking up a Mac Studio asap!
No doubt this is to do with the stock market and pleasing investors. I believe it is more optimal to spread your revenues across the year rather than 1-2 quarters. Similarly, investors want to see stable/growing revenues/profits which has lead to the yearly release cadance of high selling products.
I just got a 16” MBP knowing some sort of M5 was coming soon. Turns out it was the 14” which wasn’t an option for me this time around. I upgraded for several reasons. First, it was an admitted sort of impulse buy. I just wanted to treat myself in some way. I had worked a lot of OT and had the money.
Second was I wanted to be able to pass my 14” M1 to my wife while it was still a decent machine for her to use. The late Intel MBP will get passed further down the line and the really old intel MBP in use there will probably become a video player for the grandson.
Third was I wanted a bigger screen. The 16” fits the bill nicely, the M4 Pro is a beast that is “future proof” for how I use this machine. It’s totally overkill for me and I’ll have this laptop for an easy 5 years before I have to even consider upgrading and by then the whole laptop landscape will have changed. Whatever re design Apple comes out with will either have all the quirks shaken out of it, or it will be a flop like the infamous butterfly keyboard and the next thing will be on the way. I got a couple $100 off the 16”. When I realized I would rather save the couple $100 than be on the bleeding edge i decided to make the purchase.
My laptop rarely leaves the house. Maybe a trip to the office or the beach if I’m in a situation where I may have to remote in over the weekend. That being said I can’t see lugging and 18” laptop anywhere. I don’t think they would sell in big enough numbers to make it a viable product. The 16” is a pretty big piece of equipment.
Look, you can always try and have the newest thing whether it’s a laptop or a phone. Eventually you don’t have the newest thing anymore and you’re either going to be content with that or chase the latest/greatest in perpetuity. I WANTED an iPhone 17PM but I have a 16PM. After I looked at the order I decided to spend my money elsewhere. Which was the laptop. Maybe I’ll upgrade the phone mid cycle when I have the 16PM more paid off and I won’t have to shuffle out $160 to get out of the contract early and upgrade. Maybe not. I really like the Cosmic Orange color. Can’t explain it, I was never a big orange guy but it’s a cool color.
Anyway, I don’t regret my 16” MBP purchase even knowing the 14” M5 was on the way and the 16” M5 will be out next year. I wanted a new laptop now and the 16” will serve me well for many years.
Obsolete hardware? What won’t you be able to do on your computer and say 12 to 24 months time?
R.I.P. Mac Pro.
Apple plans to launch MacBook Air models equipped with the new M5 chip in spring 2026, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is also working on M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models that will come early in the year.
Neither the MacBook Pro models nor the MacBook Air models are expected to get design changes, with Apple focusing on simple chip upgrades. In the case of the MacBook Pro, a much bigger refresh is planned for either late 2026 or early 2027.
Apple is developing thinner, lighter OLED MacBook Pro models with touch screen capabilities. The late 2026/early 2027 refresh will mark the first design update to the MacBook Pro since 2021.
As for the MacBook Air, it received a design update in 2022, though Apple did introduce a larger-screened 15-inch model in 2023. Rumors suggest the MacBook Air will get an updated LCD display in 2027, so design tweaks could come at that point.
Apple is developing new versions of the Mac Studio and Mac mini, with those machines likely to get M5 Pro and/or M5 Max chips as well. There are also two external displays that are in the works, at least one of which is a second-generation version of the Studio Display. It's possible that new displays could come out alongside upgraded desktop machines, but there is no word on when Apple plans to update the Mac mini and Mac Studio.
Article Link: M5 MacBook Air Coming Spring 2026 With M5 Mac Studio and Mac Mini in Development
agree on the cleanness - but there is no big drawback with the mini.
In some setups (e.g. you need some peripherals and can hide the mini in a drawer) it is even cleaner than an iMac
Waiting for this rumoured, smaller 12-13” model and would prefer if it’s 12”. Ideally as close in size as possible to the MBA 11” or the 12” MB I never owned.
The current incarnation of the mac pro makes no sense, you get more bang for the buck with the studio, there's absolutely no reason to over pay for the mac pro - even apple knows that
The new M5 MacBook Pro is Mac17,2.
Maybe Mac17,1 was the A18 Pro MacBook, but it was scrapped in favor of an A19 Pro MacBook. Or the whole idea was scrapped. Or it never existed in the first place?
1) I think that I speak for a lot of people here, saying that the MacBook Pro doesn't need to be thinner. It is already much thinner than the PC Workstations' counterparts. Leave the thinness for the AIR lineup.
2) I am not seduced by the touchscreen idea, but I am super open to seeing what they come up with next.
2) I am not seduced by the touchscreen idea, but I am super open to seeing what they come up with next.
I suspect we’ll see that next year, but I don’t need to replace my Studio yet. If they bring out one with 256GB RAM for under £3,000? Well, now, maybe … 😂
What would be tempting to me, is the M5's GPU performance, but you're right I have no need for the M5
Yeah, I’ve often contemplated a base Mac mini for a “everyday tasks” machine that doesn’t need the grunt of the Studio or my MacBook. Never really justified it, though.
An M5 Mac mini might interest me but, otherwise, I’m looking for minimum 3-years from my Studio before even considering anything else. That’s one reason I went for the 128GB RAM.
MacStudio M5 Max wont be here until Ultra is ready, so again, the MSMax will be out 24 months after the first M5 was released.
spring 2027 at best
spring 2027 at best
It sounds like the AI project the person is working on might be a one-off that's not going to justify something more powerful and perhaps has a different use in mind once that's done.
I have a 13" M2 MBA in the top config, minus the SSD where I went with 1TB. It's used as my personal machine for travel when carrying my work 16" M3 Max MBP so I don't have to haul around two chonky MBPs. It's an excellent little machine. I use it for gaming and for local AI generation when traveling. When at home, it primarily just sits on a desk and churns through AI tasks. I love that machine. It's great for travel and serves a use at home too.
Perhaps the M4 is different, but with the M2, yes it heats up a bit after awhile of doing intensive tasks. 10-15 minutes of AI generation, an hour of gaming. But the thermal throttling is quite minimal. Drops by 2-3 fps in games once it becomes heat soaked, hardly enough for me to care about. When at home I keep it on a chill pad and/or have a tiny desktop fan blowing across it to help dissipate the heat, but when traveling I carry neither of those and it still does nicely, just slows a tiny bit when under stress. It's a fine, capable machine for its use-case and still holds up more than 3 years down the line.
I have a 14" M4 Pro MacBook Pro (two fans) which got me started on the path of AI/LLM. Although it's a very capable machine (as I've no doubt the M5 is), I'd question it for "doing AI".
I find my MBP gets really hot incredibly quickly when doing LLM inference. Despite the two fans, it becomes uncomfortable to use on your lap after a relatively short amount of time, and the battery life tanks - about 2hrs at most (I got myself a couple of Anker power banks to keep the MBP topped up whilst away from mains power for these situations). When using it for LLM, I generally have a rechargeable desk fan blowing at it just to help keep it manageable.
It's incredible that these chips are capable of doing these amazing things, but I wouldn't actually recommend a laptop for anyone who's looking into AI/LLM for anything more than casual occasional use. Something with better cooling would be a wise consideration.
Some people here consider anything but the latest obsolete. Crazy.
Still rocking my 15” Intel MBP as daily work machine.
May I ask what you do that is making you RAM-constrained? I know 32gb isn't a huge amount, but it's still kind of a lot, and I don't see software changing that much in the past 3-5 years to require more.