The $1,099 base model of the new Apple MacBook Air 13 is an easy recommendation thanks to the new 512 GB SSD

The compact MacBook Air 13 has been a great everyday laptop for years with an excellent price-performance ratio and there are often offers for less than $1,000. The problem of the base model was the limited storage capacity. While the M4 model was shipped with 16 GB RAM by default, the base SSD capacity was just 256 GB.

Apple now solved this problem with the new MacBook Air 13 M5 because the base model is now shipped with a 512 GB SSD. The base price is higher at $1099 (previously $999), but when you consider that Apple used to charge $200 for the upgrade to 512 GB, the price-performance ratio of the new Air 13 M5 is even better than before.

This means the new base model is now the perfect everyday laptop for most users and in most cases, you really don't need any expensive RAM or storage upgrades. We ae already seeing discounts for the new model as well ($1,049 on Amazon) and it will probably not take long before the price drop below $1,000. In return, you get one of the best everyday laptops, which is completely silent all the time and offers long battery runtimes. If you also consider all the apps macOS offers by default (full office suite, iMovie, for example).

There is unfortunately nothing comparable in the Windows world and we have not yet seen a passively cooled ARM processor from Qualcomm, either. Whether this changes with the upcoming second generation remains to be seen, but we doubt it. This means the MacBook Air will probably be the only passively cooled laptop with this kind of performance for the foreseeable future. Please see our in-depth review for more information on the new M5 model.