The moment you think of buying a new laptop, the MacBook is often one of the first options that come to mind. But there is often one hurdle – the price. The latest MacBook Air, launched in April this year, comes powered by Apple’s M5 chip. And if you have also been thinking of getting your hands on the MacBook Air M5, here is some good news. You may be able to get the laptop at a Rs 20,000 discount. But there is a catch. Read on to know more.
Also read: Laptop slowing down? Here are 3 ways to boost performance
The MacBook Air M5 is currently listed for Rs 1,66,990 on Amazon. This is already Rs 12,910 lower than the laptop’s listed MRP of Rs 1,79,900.
Now, if you want to reduce the final price even more, you can do so by using eligible SBI, ICICI Bank or Axis Bank credit cards to get another Rs 10,000 off. Hence, after applying this discount, the effective price comes down to Rs 1,56,990.
That means that those eligible can save a total of Rs 22,910 against the listed MRP. Also, do remember that this deal is for the 15-inch MacBook Air M5 with 16GB unified memory and 512GB SSD storage.
In terms of design, the MacBook Air M5 is similar to its predecessor. You have the familiar compact, thin and light aluminium body, a 15 inch display, and the same focus on portability. But when you take a look at the specs sheet, the upgrades are rather obvious.
The biggest upgrade is, of course, the M5 chip. The MacBook Air M5 features a 10 core CPU and up to a 10 core GPU. Apple says it delivers up to four times faster AI performance compared to the M4 MacBook Air, and up to 9.5 times faster than the M1 model. For users working with AI tools, on device LLMs or Apple Intelligence features in macOS Tahoe, this is worth paying attention to.
Now, graphics have always been a strong point of all MacBooks. And the MacBook Air M5 comes with enhanced shader cores and a third-generation ray tracing engine. Apple also claims up to 1.5 times faster 3D rendering compared to the M4 MacBook Air. This could lead to tasks like Blender renders and image processing in apps feeling quicker and smoother.
Coming to the memory bandwidth, it has increased to 153GB per second, which is about 28% higher than M4.
Apple also bid adieu to the 256GB storage variant with the M5 MacBook Air. The base model here comes with 512 GB storage. Further, this storage can be configured up to a whopping 4TB. Apple also says the SSD is twice as fast as before, leading to faster file transfers and lesser project loading times.
Finally, talking about connectivity, the laptop comes with Apple’s N1 wireless chip with Wi Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, replacing the older wireless standard on the M4 model. You still get two Thunderbolt 4 ports, MagSafe charging, support for up to two external displays, and up to 18 hours of battery life.
Also read: Play PC games on Apple Vision Pro soon thanks to native Steam Link app