This is Technology Bytes, episode 160, for March 29th, 2026.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bites on interesting technology.
Enjoy, and here we go.
Today I am going to talk about another product of the new things that Apple has announced over the last couple weeks ago, I guess maybe, and it’s the M5 MacBook Air, and I talked a little more about it during the announcement podcast, and I’m going to do a little bit more here.
So why the M5 MacBook Air?
Well, that is my product line in the MacBook world.
I’m a MacBook Air person.
I have had a number of them.
I don’t know if I’m on my third or fourth one at this point, but the last time I upgraded from a 13-inch to a 15-inch when they came out with that version, and then when I went, yeah, I think this is my fourth.
Anyway, when I went to the current one that I have from the 15-inch that I had, I gave that one to my daughter, and so she’s been using it and loving it as much as I did.
The reason that I updated was because I wanted to get the 16 gigabytes of RAM, and I also updated my iMac to that same chip.
So I have the M4 MacBook Air and I have the M4 iMac with 16 gigabytes of RAM, and I did that, yeah, holding out for Apple intelligence, I guess.
And what they say, never buy hardware for the promise of software.
Well, that’s what I did, and since that’s the world that I live in, I was looking at the M5 MacBook Air as a possible upgrade to the M4 that I have.
And so I’m going to talk about that journey here for just a couple minutes.
First, let’s talk about the differences between the two computers, because I would get the same midnight color that I have.
I like that color.
I like that computer.
I’d still get the 15-inch, but going from the M4 to the M5, Apple says it’s not just a step.
It’s a major upgrade.
According to their website, it is four and a half times faster than the M4 MacBook Air.
That seems like a huge jump for just one number in the processor speed.
But the other thing they did is doubled the space for the base model up to 512 gigabytes.
Now, that still may not seem like a lot.
A lot of people seem to update that even to the one terabyte, but with iCloud that I talked about last week, 256 has been serving well, but 512 would be that much better.
It stays at the same 16 gigabytes of RAM, stays at the same great battery performance, the all-day type battery performance.
And it’s kind of neat from my perspective because the base model of these entry-level computers that Apple makes are often under-spec’d maybe.
And so having a 512 gigabyte now as the base memory, well, the base storage for their computers, and then having 16 gigabytes as the base memory, I think those are really good additions for Apple products.
Now they need to raise that five gigabyte free iCloud space minimum.
That’s just silly.
But that is the computer, the one that I have, the M4 MacBook Air, the one that I would think about getting, the M5 MacBook Air, and then I’ll talk for a couple minutes about the purchase process, thought process there, and still don’t know if I’m going to pull that trigger.
The other day I was using my computer and I did an information grab on the hard drive and I’m using a 256 gigabyte hard drive and I’ve been on that for some time.
My phone has been that for some time.
In fact, my latest phone is a 512 only because when I went to get it, the 256 was not available.
And at the time, I don’t know, it was the eight bucks a month and I’m like, yeah, I think I can swing that.
But the available free space on my M4 MacBook Air said 30 gigabytes and I’m like, okay, I may need to think about updating because it feels like my normal activities and then getting the creative suite, man, that’s not what it’s called.
Anyway, whatever that app is called, I feel like I could be creating files that could take more space on my drives and I’m thinking, yeah, maybe 512 is not a bad idea.
So I looked at trade-in, my M4 MacBook Air is going to be paid off here in about three days and trading it in and getting a new M5 MacBook Air, the base model, would cost me about 40 bucks a month and that’s interest-free using the Apple Card.
That’s how I do it.
Currently with my M4, I’m paying $91 a month, so it’s half of that price.
And so I was really looking at, do I want to do this or not?
A small anecdote, is that what it’s called?
I was talking to my wife and I said, I was, you know, Apple’s come out with a new computer like the one that I use.
I was thinking about updating because I was running out of space for my files and the operating system.
And so I looked at the pricing and it was, you know, a price that I thought I could swing.
And then the next day or a week later, whatever, I did another investigation on my computer, just like I told you a minute ago, and my free space went back to 110, so like half of the 256 that I have available.
And so I thought, oh, maybe I don’t need to spend any money on a new computer.
And so she put her hand on my forehead and said, I just want to make sure you’re feeling okay.
The big question then is, should I upgrade or not?
I don’t need it.
My computer is performing very well.
I’m not sure that I would notice the four and a half times faster.
That’s something that’s kind of weird to say because that’s a big difference, but I’m not sure what tasks they’re talking about.
I do a lot of work in the browser because all the software that my work uses that we develop in-house to do our production work is run out of the browser.
That’s where the software exists.
So I wonder if I would notice.
I’m not sure that I would, but that’s never kept me from upgrading before.
The additional space would be really nice because I do think about that quite a bit and I do pay attention to that quite a bit.
Do I need to keep these files on my computer?
What can I do?
I can always get an external drive and put bigger files off on that.
It makes it a little bit harder on the backup side, but there are things to do.
And then the $40 a month is, man, that’s just not a whole lot of money.
And so it really is tempting to do it.
And if I do, you will be the first to know.
But at the moment, I feel like I’m going to hold off for a little while.
That is all I have for today.
If you have comments, suggestions, or questions, you can send them to technologybytes at merrickfamily.com.
As always, I want to thank you for listening to the Technology Bytes microcast, and I look forward to the next time we are together, taking another bite of technology.
