Alongside its price-friendly iPhone 17e and M4 iPad Air from Monday, Apple just announced a few updates to the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and its rarely refreshed desktop display line. Apple seems to be holding its rumored new entry-level MacBook for Wednesday’s in-person event in New York City, but today’s announcements should make potential upgraders happy.

The MacBook Air has now been updated to the latest M5 chip. It’s a fairly modest upgrade, but it brings it up to speed with Apple’s latest processor that debuted in the MacBook Pro last fall. There are no other major hardware changes—it now comes with 512 GB of starting storage with “faster SSD technology”—but you can still get the Air in either a 13- or 15-inch screen size.

This laptop also features Apple’s N1 wireless chip, which includes Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 for the latest connectivity standards. It still comes with the standard 16 GB of RAM, and sadly, there’s a $100 price bump to account for the extra storage. It now starts at $1,099 for the 13-inch model and $1,299 for the 15-inch model. Apple says you can preorder it on Wednesday, with sales kicking off on March 11.

More interestingly, Apple is expanding the M5 chip series with the M5 Pro and M5 Max, now available in the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro. Like previous generations of Apple silicon, the “Pro” and “Max” configurations add significantly improved multicore CPU and graphics performance.

The M5 Pro and M5 Max can be configured with up to 18 CPU cores (12 performance cores and 6 “super” cores), up from 16 on the M4 Max. The M5 Pro can scale up to 20 GPU cores, while the M5 Max extends up to 40 GPU cores. Thanks to the four additional CPU cores, Apple says the M5 Pro gets 30 percent better multithreaded CPU performance over the M4 Pro. With four additional CPU cores compared to M4 Pro, the new CPU architecture in M5 Pro significantly boosts multithreaded performance by up to 30 percent for pro workloads. The M5 Max CPU upgrade is a bit more modest by comparison—just 15 percent over the M4 Max, according to Apple.

Thanks to higher memory bandwidth, more efficient Neural Engine, and improved GPU architecture, Apple says both the M5 Pro and M5 Max have “over 4X the peak CPU compute for AI” compared to the last generation and offer 20 percent better GPU performance.

The new MacBook Pros don’t include any other hardware changes; things have stayed largely the same since 2021—same port selection, Mini-LED display, speakers, and webcam. Even the claimed 24-hour battery life hasn’t changed from the M4 models, which came out in late 2024. Interestingly, as recently as last week Bloomberg reported that Apple plans to launch a more significant update to the MacBook Pro this year, which will reportedly debut the M6 chip, an OLED touchscreen, and a thinner chassis.

Like the MacBook Air, all versions of the M5 Pro or M5 Max MacBook Pros come with twice the storage and a slightly higher starting price. Coming with 1 TB, the 14-inch M5 Pro now starts at $2,199, and the 16-inch model at $2,699. That’s $200 more than last year’s machines. Meanwhile, M5 Max prices start at $3,599.

Apple began rolling out its M5 chip in October 2025, but it was limited to just the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro. Other Macs still awaiting an M5 update include the iMac, Mac Studio, and Mac Mini.

The Return of the Studio Display

Apple also introduced two new versions of the Studio Display computer monitor, both still coming in at 27 inches. It has been four years since Apple updated the original Studio Display. It’s still a 27-inch, 5K screen with standard LED backlighting. The main changes are the improved 12-megapixel camera (with support for Desk View) and bassier speakers. It’s still a six-speaker sound system, but Apple says it now delivers 30 percent deeper bass. That’s really impressive, as the original Studio Display already had the best speakers you could find on a monitor. The new Studio Display also gets two faster Thunderbolt 5 ports in the back, which Apple says allows you to daisy-chain four Studio Displays. Like the 2022 model, it maxes out at 600 nits of SDR brightness.

The higher-end Studio Display XDR replaces the 32-inch Pro Display XDR, despite being smaller and lower resolution. Like the standard Studio Display, the XDR model comes with a 5K resolution, but it now sports a 120-Hz refresh rate and improved mini-LED backlighting. The new Studio Display XDR now has 1,000 local dimming zones, which is how it gets to 2,000 nits of peak brightness in HDR and 1,000 nits of SDR brightness. The original Pro Display XDR had 576 dimming zones and a peak brightness of 1,600 nits. The Studio Display XDR also has the same improved cameras, speakers, and ports as the standard model.

The 27-inch Studio Display still costs $1,599, while the Studio Display XDR is $3,299. While that might sound insanely expensive, it’s actually a $1,700 price drop from the original Pro Display XDR. When the original Pro Display XDR came out in 2019, there were almost no other HDR-capable mini-LED or OLED displays on the market, outside of expensive professional reference monitors. These days, though, you’ll find tons of OLED monitors that go up to at least 1,000 nits of peak brightness selling for under $1,500. The Studio Display XDR comes with a tilt- and height-adjustable stand, though if you want a VESA adapter you’ll need to purchase it separately.

Like the laptops, the new monitors are up for preorder starting on March 4 and available in-person at Apple Stores starting on March 11.