So How's That M5 Macbook Air, Anyway?
Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2026 5:07 pm
I’ve had a MacBook Air with the M5 and 32 gigs of unified memory since the beginning of the year, and while I've been dealing with seventh months of feeling pissed off at Pop!_OS COSMIC I've also been trying to figure out if I prefer the Macbook over it, or not. It's real for what it is: My whole life is in the Apple ecosystem at this point, and I've so all sorts of work saved in the cloud, and also my laptop. But is it worth using over an otherwise extremely powerful desktop that could be so much better if System76 just hunkers down and fixes the bugs?
But, back to the Macbook, and firstly, the power.
This machine is fast. Not desktop-fast. Not “my 64GB 11-core PC still eats it for lunch on heavy multi-core work” fast. But for a fanless ultraportable that weighs nothing and barely gets warm, it’s ridiculous. Everyday tasks feel instant. Battery life is still borderline criminal. You close the lid, come back hours later, and it’s just… ready. That part doesn't really ever get old.
But let’s not pretend.
It is still not as powerful as my PC (like I said).
And yet the good parts are really good.
iPhone Mirroring still feels like witchcraft.
Being able to look at my phone, interact with it, answer messages, dig through apps — all without ever picking the damn thing up... still hits me as one of those “this shouldn’t be possible” things. Every single time. That feature alone makes the whole Apple ecosystem feel intentional in a way nothing else does (I would love to be able to do this on Linux, somehow??).
There are also a surprising number of actually decent games in the Mac App Store now. Not just the usual casual snooze-fest. Combined with how tightly notifications, streaming services, and productivity apps all talk to each other, the day-to-day experience is smooth in a way that still feels a little unfair, especially considering how much more stable MacOS is in-comparison to Pop!_OS COSMIC.
Then you hit the wall.
Windows gaming on macOS is still mostly a joke and is losing to Linux.
Every free Wine-based solution for macOS is either abandoned or barely maintained. The ones that are still actively worked on — CrossOver and Parallels — are paid. And not cheap (70 dollars to buy CrossOver outright and 100 dollars a year for Parellels). You're looking at paying real money to be able to play games you probably already own using compatibility layers on MacOS, while you can do this for fuckin' free on Linux.
There’s no real free, living compatibility layer for normal people. Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit exists, but it’s clearly built for developers, not for someone who just wants to double-click a game and play. So you’re left choosing between paying for the privilege or simply not gaming on the machine you paid a lot of money for (unless you want to rent a computer in Nvidia's cloud to play 40 games over a damn stream).
That’s the one failure that keeps the MacBook from feeling complete.
Everything else is excellent. The power is real for the form factor. The battery is ridiculous. The continuity features are borderline magic. But the moment you want to play something that isn’t natively on the App Store or already ported, the platform just shrugs and holds out its hand (they ain't even got Diablo 4 on MacOS yet, but I blame Blizzard for their sudden departure from supporting the OS).
I’m still using it every day, of course. Seven months in and the day-to-day experience is too good to give up. But every time a Windows game refuses to run without a subscription, I feel that same kind of disappointment I’ve been feeling with COSMIC lately.
Almost perfect is still not perfect.
But maybe that's just how life is.
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Originally published at NovaLandia: https://mkultra.monster/tech/2026/07/26/m5-macbook-ups-and-downs/
But, back to the Macbook, and firstly, the power.
This machine is fast. Not desktop-fast. Not “my 64GB 11-core PC still eats it for lunch on heavy multi-core work” fast. But for a fanless ultraportable that weighs nothing and barely gets warm, it’s ridiculous. Everyday tasks feel instant. Battery life is still borderline criminal. You close the lid, come back hours later, and it’s just… ready. That part doesn't really ever get old.
But let’s not pretend.
It is still not as powerful as my PC (like I said).
And yet the good parts are really good.
iPhone Mirroring still feels like witchcraft.
Being able to look at my phone, interact with it, answer messages, dig through apps — all without ever picking the damn thing up... still hits me as one of those “this shouldn’t be possible” things. Every single time. That feature alone makes the whole Apple ecosystem feel intentional in a way nothing else does (I would love to be able to do this on Linux, somehow??).
There are also a surprising number of actually decent games in the Mac App Store now. Not just the usual casual snooze-fest. Combined with how tightly notifications, streaming services, and productivity apps all talk to each other, the day-to-day experience is smooth in a way that still feels a little unfair, especially considering how much more stable MacOS is in-comparison to Pop!_OS COSMIC.
Then you hit the wall.
Windows gaming on macOS is still mostly a joke and is losing to Linux.
Every free Wine-based solution for macOS is either abandoned or barely maintained. The ones that are still actively worked on — CrossOver and Parallels — are paid. And not cheap (70 dollars to buy CrossOver outright and 100 dollars a year for Parellels). You're looking at paying real money to be able to play games you probably already own using compatibility layers on MacOS, while you can do this for fuckin' free on Linux.
There’s no real free, living compatibility layer for normal people. Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit exists, but it’s clearly built for developers, not for someone who just wants to double-click a game and play. So you’re left choosing between paying for the privilege or simply not gaming on the machine you paid a lot of money for (unless you want to rent a computer in Nvidia's cloud to play 40 games over a damn stream).
That’s the one failure that keeps the MacBook from feeling complete.
Everything else is excellent. The power is real for the form factor. The battery is ridiculous. The continuity features are borderline magic. But the moment you want to play something that isn’t natively on the App Store or already ported, the platform just shrugs and holds out its hand (they ain't even got Diablo 4 on MacOS yet, but I blame Blizzard for their sudden departure from supporting the OS).
I’m still using it every day, of course. Seven months in and the day-to-day experience is too good to give up. But every time a Windows game refuses to run without a subscription, I feel that same kind of disappointment I’ve been feeling with COSMIC lately.
Almost perfect is still not perfect.
But maybe that's just how life is.
-----
Originally published at NovaLandia: https://mkultra.monster/tech/2026/07/26/m5-macbook-ups-and-downs/