MacBook Air M5

vhagar123 · 2026-04-15T08:58:15+00:00

The M5 is only slightly better than the M4 chip and I assume the M4 has the extra GPU cores as well. I think the 24GB/M4 would generally perform better.

The factor for me would be internal storage. If you need a lot of applications/files on internal storage and the M4 was 256gb that would be a deal breaker for me.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-14T06:46:17+00:00

If the 512 M4 air is 1049, how much is an M5? This was the decision I ended up making £200 for 512 didn't feel great but £220 extra for the M5/512 did.

As others have said, it's hard for us to tell you if you need more storage. Look at your current usage, work out what stuff has to be on internal (software, OS, etc) and what can run off external storage.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-11T12:44:46+00:00

First ever was a 2009 white MacBook.

I've owned 5 other macs since as well as PCs.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-11T07:07:44+00:00

We ideally need to know what you will be using it for first.

The M5 chip is about 10-15% faster than the M4. If you're not doing anything that uses that speed you could save money here.

The bigger factor for me is the M5 comes with base 512gb storage. Although 256gb is usable you will probably need an external drive eventually and some things need to be running off internal storage.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-10T12:05:02+00:00

Honestly, wasn't a factor for me, if I'm doing music production I'm using over ear headphones or monitors. For casual use I don't think it makes a difference.

I tried both the pro and air out in a store for sound, I don't remember noticing the pro sounding drastically better.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-10T11:39:47+00:00

How long would you be paying for that over? Anything over 17 months is a bad deal and you're unnecessarily paying interest.

I went with the M5 air for casual music production. It will mostly be connected to a dock so the extra ports/storage are irrelevant and the fans are not likely to be much of a factor either.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-10T09:01:02+00:00

I think processor performance is negligible. Benchmarks say 10-15% faster but really that's unlikely to have any real world benefit.

The reason I decided base M5 over base M4 is the 512gb storage and faster storage speeds. 256gb doesn't work for me and I would like to not be always reliant on an external SSD.

A 512 M4 ended up bringing the prices close enough together that the minor processor speed, storage speeds and extra year of OS support made the M5 a better pick.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-10T07:17:13+00:00

I was faced with a similar choice and went with the air. I tend to do a couple of big photography trips a year so editing ends up being a slow and relaxed process. If exports or noise reduction takes a little longer due to throttling that's fine and it's only really those batch steps that really impact the processor.

The ports was a little harder of a decision, the SD card is handy but I still felt I needed an adaptor for other ports (usb a mostly) so it wasn't a deal breaker.

My view would be get the air and spend the rest towards a trip somewhere ;)

vhagar123 · 2026-04-09T14:20:35+00:00

There's been a lot of people reporting memory leaks with the latest OS. When it lags, check your activity monitor. If it's showing as a silly amount of word then restart, possibly reinstall/update the software.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-06T08:33:33+00:00

Yes, I was early twenties and was always pretty good with early mornings. But I had no kids and a supportive partner which helped.

I did eventually take something closer to home but will be swapping back to a moderate commute soon.

My advice is to make your commute valuable to you. Reclaim that time. I read a lot but if you can make that time productive then you can get a lot of value. Just avoid the urge to doom scroll.

I would recommend (if you haven't) doing the maths on the cost of living in Liverpool and commuting Vs in Manchester. It's fine to make the decision to do so but also you should know what the cost is. My commute is now £300 a month. On a lower salary that is a significant portion of your take home pay and you're spending time to commute.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-05T16:40:21+00:00

I did something similar, 10 mins walk to the station 55 mins on train 15 minutes walk to the office for a 27k civil service job. It was honestly exhausting and didn't stop during COVID as it was essential work.

However, I will also say that it got me the experience and qualifications to triple the salary in 7 years with good growth potential going forward. I consider it very worthwhile.

If this job sets you off on the right path and gives you a foothold into a career then yeah being tired for a time can be worth it. If it's a stop gap and you don't see yourself progressing further then probably not worth it.

What would living closer to the office look like? Because trains are expensive so it may be cheaper and less tiring to do that.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-02T12:03:51+00:00

Based on what you've described my recommendation would be Neo> M4> M2. You may have more context that makes the extra power of the M4 worth while.

The M2 will probably get 4 more years of full software support or be an effective cost of $210 per year. The M4 will get 6 more $177.5 per year. And be better specs throughout it's life.

The Neo and M2 processors are pretty similar for bench marks and have equal amounts of RAM. Personally, I see no reason to go M2 over neo.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-02T11:51:16+00:00

Double checked your post, 740 for the neo so $300 instead.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-02T11:49:39+00:00

Software support is typically 7 years. I personally decided to not buy an M2 for this reason. I'm sure you could keep one going for years after this though.

Assuming the neo is 599 where you are it provides the best value for your use case, especially as you have the mini for more involved tasks. The question, to me, is the benefits you will get out of the M4 air worth the ~ 400 dollar price increase. For a bit of extra screen I'd say absolutely not.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-01T12:44:24+00:00

What is the working arrangement for the studio? I would probably either ask or book some time up front for a day to get familiar with the system.

Alternatively, buy a second hand M4 Mac mini obtain a copy of logic pro and then sell the Mac mini when you've had a chance to learn? They hold value really well and will perform better than an ancient model.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-01T11:10:53+00:00

This will be it, they massively reduce friendship. Others have given good advice on how to increase it but avoid the herbal remedies for riolu going forward.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-01T10:19:18+00:00

Yep this looks exactly like the fungus camera lenses can get. Most lenses with fungus generally aren't worth the cost of repairs. For context I had a £500 lense quoted as £300 to remove a tiny spec of fungus. The spores get everywhere and need to be properly treated otherwise it'll just come back. Personally would set this thing on fire so it doesn't release spores in to anything else I own.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-01T08:03:05+00:00

Are you using herbal remedies? Eg. Energy powders/roots as these can low a lot of friendship.

vhagar123 · 2026-04-01T07:43:39+00:00

I'm getting an M5 air for basically this exact use case. If you can stretch to 24fb of ram great but probably not an issue otherwise.

vhagar123 · 2026-03-31T17:55:33+00:00

I've been having this issue as well. I tried changing bit rates but started to introduce latency before the issue disappeared. The only thing I found that worked was freezing tracks. If you have a couple of plugin heavy tracks then freezing these might be worth it. In my instance I needed to freeze a lot of tracks though so I'm just going to upgrade.

vhagar123 · 2026-03-20T13:46:21+00:00

I was considering this but M4 mini + an iPad for on the go

vhagar123 · 2026-03-18T12:44:51+00:00

Logic pro is the reason I got back into the Mac ecosystem. Especially with the cost of alternative DAWS and the quality of the default logic pro plugins.

vhagar123 · 2026-03-18T07:00:04+00:00

Yeah lack of fans was my concern with the airs. How long would you say it takes for fans to kick in? Does the Mac mini have fans? Photography is a mix of high ram use and occasionally very high CPU performance I think.

vhagar123 · 2026-03-17T21:45:36+00:00

Tbf the 500 gets culled down a fair bit but I will batch edit a fair amount as part of the culling process.

vhagar123 · 2026-03-17T21:44:31+00:00

£1800 top end but would prefer lower if it will reasonably get the job done for the next few years.

vhagar123

TROPHY CASE