Upgrade Alert: Apple's New M5 Chip Brings Slight but Noteworthy Performance Boost

Apple’s latest lineup of MacBooks, featuring the new M5 chip, may be enough to tempt those with older laptops into upgrading, albeit a slightly hesitant one. While the design remains identical to last year’s models, the changes under the hood are notable. Apple claims that its 2026 models can deliver “up to 2x” the sustained read and write speeds compared to their M4 counterparts. This may not be a groundbreaking leap, but it’s still an improvement over previous generations. The increase in performance is largely thanks to the faster SSDs included in these new MacBooks. For those who bought laptops just three years ago, this might be enough reason to consider upgrading. However, those who purchased their laptops earlier may find that the upgrade isn’t as compelling a proposition. We’ll have full reviews of both the M5 MacBook Air and the 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 Max chip in the coming days. In the meantime, it’s worth noting that while Apple’s new chips do offer some performance upgrades, they don’t represent a major departure from previous models.