Don't Wait To Upgrade Your MacBook In 2026 - Here's Why

In March 2026, Apple revealed its budget-friendly MacBook Neo laptop alongside new M5-powered MacBook Air and M5 Pro/Max MacBook Pro models. The Neo is the cheapest MacBook ever sold by the company, while the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models are simply refreshes of Apple's existing lineup, promising performance upgrades over the previous generation models. Apple touts a 4x performance boost in AI tasks on both the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro over the previous generation. Thanks to these releases, if you have a MacBook and have been planning to upgrade to a newer and better model in 2026, you have plenty of options to pick from. 

However, if you were planning to upgrade your MacBook later in the year, you should definitely reconsider that idea. In case you didn't know, the current AI-driven memory shortage is having negative effects on the consumer technology sector, with prices of different everyday items that use memory, such as laptops, consoles, and smartphones, expected to surge as a result. While certain companies have jacked up the price of their existing products, such as Sony with its PS5 price bump, Apple has only raised the barrier to entry across its MacBook Air and Pro lineups. 

If you want the new M5 MacBook Air, for instance, and have set aside a budget of $999 (the same price as the base M4 Air at launch), then you'll have to increase your budget by $100 since it now starts at $1,099. Whether the company follows in the footsteps of other manufacturers (like Sony, Samsung, and Nintendo) to increase the price of existing products is anyone's guess, but to be on the safe side, don't wait to upgrade your MacBook.

Apple upped the entry price for the 13-inch MacBook Air by $100 more to $1,099 and the 15-inch variant by the same amount to $1,299. Although the company did a commendable job of doubling the base storage to 512 GB, it's in contrast to what it did for the M4 generation released in early 2025. For the M4 MacBook Air, Apple upgraded the RAM to a minimum of 16 GB from 8 GB, while slashing the price of the base configurations for both the 13- and 15-inch variants by $100 to $999 and $1,199, respectively. 

That move not only made the M4 MacBook Air cheaper but also offered better value than its predecessors. The price and storage bump for the M5 MacBook Air signal a change in strategy, and it shows that the company is trying its best to navigate the ongoing memory shortage by increasing the bar for entry. And that same strategy can be seen on the new MacBook Pro models. 

The cheapest model powered by the M5 Pro starts at $2,199, which is $200 more than the $1,999 entry price for the M4 Pro model, although you do get 1 TB of storage instead of 512 GB. The 16-inch M5 Max model also starts at $3,899, $400 more than the previous generation, but with a storage bump to offset the cost. In a surprise move, the company no longer sells the base M5 MacBook Pro with 512 GB storage. As of the time of writing, you can only pick the 1 TB option, which starts at $1,699 – the 512 GB option was selling for $1,499. These moves signal that if you have the money, you should upgrade your MacBook now, since the future is uncertain.