The new M5 MacBook Pro is here, and it’s a beast
Apple’s new 14” M5 MacBook Pro, released on Wednesday, offers a significant performance boost with up to 45% faster graphics and 15% faster multithreading than the M4, enhanced AI capabilities, and up to 24 hours of video streaming battery life. Picture: Apple
Image: Apple
As I predicted before it was released, Apple released the new 14” M5 MacBook Pro on Wednesday, and it’s a beast of a machine.
While the update is a hardware update only, as there are no design changes to the chassis, it’s a significant performance boost, as it’s up to 45% faster than the M4 equivalent in some areas, like graphics performance.
Its multithreading performance is also 15% faster, and the memory speed has been increased.
It’s also worth noting that this chip is up to six times faster than the M1 chip, the first Apple silicon CPU, which was introduced in 2020 and ushered in a new era of industry-leading power and battery-efficient devices for the company.
Enhanced AI Capabilities and Extended Battery Life of the New MacBook Pro M5
As for its AI capabilities, Apple says: “A powerful Neural Accelerator is built into each GPU core of the M5 chip, which dramatically speeds up AI tasks like image generation from diffusion models and large language model (LLM) prompt processing. The 16-core Neural Engine drives Apple Intelligence features, making on-device AI powerful and energy-efficient.
As for the battery life, the new MacBook Pro M5 will boast 24 hours of battery life when video streaming and 16 hours of wireless web browsing. While this is the same as the M4, it’s with a significantly more powerful laptop, which is still significant. Real-world use will differ, but it could quite easily last two full work days depending on the use case scenarios.
Pricing and Availability: New MacBook Pro and Other Apple Products in South Africa
As for the price, it will start retailing at $1599 in the US, which works out to around R27,694. However, with import costs and taxes, that price will be significantly higher in SA. I predict it could go for around R35,999, which is the price of the current M4 MacBook Pro 14”.
Normally, when new products are introduced, the previous generation’s prices feature a price cut, so it’s best to keep a lookout on the iStore for exact figures. They should be available for order in South Africa over the next week or two.
Also announced by Apple on Wednesday was the new Vision Pro and iPad Pros with the same M5 chips. While the Vision Pro is not available in South Africa from the iStore, it can be purchased through third-party sellers who offer parallel imports.