The MacBook Pro Gets an M5 Chip. But I'm Staying With My MacBook Air M4

Today, Apple unveiled its M5 chip and updated a trio of Pro devices with the new silicon: the MacBook Pro, iPad Pro and Vision Pro headset. Other than a new strap for the Vision Pro, the announcements amount to internal upgrades only, swapping out last year's M4 chip for this year's M5. 

Given the lack of added features or changes in design, I'm in no hurry to pick up a new MacBook Pro, despite Apple's claims of the M5's improved performance. 

The 15-inch MacBook Air with the M4 chip will remain my go-to, everyday laptop. I still think it's the best MacBook for most people, offering an ideal mix of screen size and portability with more than enough performance for a great price.

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15-inch Air vs. 14-inch Pro

The 15-inch MacBook Air and 14-inch MacBook Pro are in the middle of Apple's MacBook lineup, bookended by the 13-inch Air on one end and the 16-inch Pro on the other. Students and budget shoppers will find lots to like about the smaller, cheaper 13-inch MacBook Air. Power users who demand the best performance and biggest display will pay a princely sum for the 16-inch MacBook Pro.

If you aren't shopping at either end of the MacBook line, then which is the better pick: the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the newest M5 or the 15-inch MacBook Air with the M4 chip? 

Unless you have a need for the extra performance punch, I recommend you go with the 15-inch Air. Here's why:

Lower price

The 14-inch MacBook Pro M5 starts at $1,599, the same starting price as last year. The 15-inch MacBook Air M4 starts at $1,199, $100 less than the previous version. If you double the 15-inch Air's storage to a 512GB SSD to match that of the baseline MacBook Pro, it's still $200 cheaper.

Bigger screen and lighter weight

The 15.3-inch display on the MacBook Air gives me more room to juggle my many open windows and Chrome tabs during the workday, and I like watching YouTube TV and Netflix on the bigger screen in the evening. 

Working on a 14.2-inch MacBook Pro can begin to feel cramped, to the point where I wish I had an external monitor or two. That feeling is less when I'm using the 15-inch Air, so you're getting added screen real estate without paying a price in portability. 

The 15-inch Air isn't just thinner than the 14.2-inch Pro; it's also lighter. The 15.3-inch Air weighs just 3.3 pounds. Despite giving up more than an inch in display size, the 14.2-inch MacBook Pro weighs slightly more at 3.4 pounds.

The one Pro feature I wish the Air had

My biggest gripe about the otherwise near-perfect 15-inch MacBook Air is its lack of a ProMotion display. The 15-inch Air's Liquid Retina display is crisp and bright but features a basic 60Hz refresh rate. The 14-inch Pro's Liquid Retina XDR display, even brighter with a higher resolution, has an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz (called ProMotion). 

Though I don't notice the difference between displays when watching videos, I see it clearly when scrolling through web pages. Text stays more legible on the Pro as I scroll down a page. On the Air, letters and words blur, making it more difficult to keep reading while I scroll. 

The next MacBook Air update could deliver a ProMotion display. With Apple's iPhones, the ProMotion feature was exclusive to the pricier iPhone Pro models until the latest update last month, where Apple added a ProMotion display to the baseline iPhone 17.

All in all, unless you're sensitive to video stutter on a 60Hz display or absolutely need the M5's generation-over-generation performance bump, the better pick is the thinner, lighter, larger and cheaper 15-inch MacBook Air.