30 Days as a Daily Driver
We replaced our M3 MacBook Pro with the M5 MacBook Air (15-inch, 24GB RAM, 512GB SSD) for a full month of real work: software development, 4K video editing, 50+ Chrome tabs, Docker containers, and daily video calls.
What Changed From M4
The M5 chip's 18-core Neural Engine is 40% faster for ML tasks. Code compilation in Xcode improved about 15% (47 seconds to 40 seconds). Display brightness increased to 600 nits.
Development Workflows
VS Code with 12 extensions and 3 terminals handled daily work without stutter. Docker ran three containers consuming 4.2GB RAM. The fan never spun up.
Video Editing
4K timeline scrubbing in DaVinci Resolve was smooth. Exporting a 10-minute 4K video took 4 minutes 12 seconds — about 20% faster than M4.
Battery Life
Average screen-on time over 30 days: 11 hours 40 minutes. We charged once every 1.5 days. The M4 Air averaged 10 hours 50 minutes.
What's Missing
- Only 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports (both on the left)
- No HDMI or SD card slot
- 512GB base storage fills quickly
- External display support limited to 2 displays
Should You Upgrade?
From M4 Air: Probably not unless you need AI features or brighter display. From M2 or older: Yes, the jump is substantial. From Intel Mac: Absolutely.
