$1529 for the MacBook Air or $1699 for a 2018 13" MBP?

[djdeepv]

I am having a real tough time deciding between these two machines. I am neutral on things like battery life and portability between these models.

The new MBA specced to have 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD is $1529 on student discount. The 2018 13" TB MBP specced the same with a quad-core CPU is $1699 for me.

I'm a web developer who doesn't do anything terribly intensive, but am worried about the MBA's CPU being weak. Is $220 ($170 + $50 for AppleCare difference) a reason to move from the MBA to the MBP? Thanks for any help, really looking to order my first computer in 5 years.

 

[sakabaro]

It will be a choice between portability or performance.

Personally, I am more happy with a portable laptop than a performant one, so I just ordered an Air. I also do dev, RoR dev.

 

[cannono]

It will be a choice between portability or performance.

Personally, I am more happy with a portable laptop than a performant one, so I just ordered an Air. I also do dev, RoR dev.

Weirdly, the MBA is actually .2 mm thicker and only .07lbs lighter. Hardly more portable.

 

[frou]

If you're paying big coin for puny dual core CPU in 2018 then you're being taken advantage of

 

[sum yung guy]

Weirdly, the MBA is actually .2 mm thicker and only .07lbs lighter. Hardly more portable.

Weirdly, you are not able to do simple math. The new 2.75lb MBA is 0.27lbs lighter than the 3.02lb Macbook Pro 13". About the weight of an iPhone 6, or a small zuccini.

 

[n-evo]

Personally, I am more happy with a portable laptop than a performant one, so I just ordered an Air. I also do dev, RoR dev.

So the 13-inch MacBook Pro isn't portable because at 1,37 kg it's 120 grams heavier than the new MacBook Air? Lol okay.

 

[Howard2k]

With those price points, quad core. 100%.

 

[IngerMan]

I think the only plus the MBA has is battery life. Every thing else would point to the tb pro.

Ports, Cores, Screen.

 

[ilikewhey]

at the price apple is charging, the mba doesn't make any sense, ppl arguing for portability is nit picking at its finest, the mbp honestly is so light and thin alrdy that i double anyone would notice,

you literally can put a pencil in the bag and the bag will be as heavy with a mbp in it.

i would get mbp simply for the quad core reason,

 

[Ma2k5]

I’d go the for the MBP TB. You may not need as much power as that offers, but you may come to a point the 5W is slowing you down (and I can see that happening with a little bit of crazy Javascript ).

Also, you’ll have a 500 nit P3 TrueTone display, not a 300 nit SRGB one.

You do end up having to accept the TouchBar as a compromise however.

 

[Howard2k]

at the price apple is charging, the mba doesn't make any sense, ppl arguing for portability is nit picking at its finest, the mbp honestly is so light and thin alrdy that i double anyone would notice,

you literally can put a pencil in the bag and the bag will be as heavy with a mbp in it.

i would get mbp simply for the quad core reason,

I agree, I would go for the quad core. But I have a 13" dual core. So replacing it with another 13" dual core is going to be a pretty poor ROI, I have no choice to go for a quad core.

But for someone who has no existing footprint in the MacBook space, I don't think it's the same story. For 13" at the bottom end there is the MBA and nTB MBPro. For 8/256, they're priced at $1,399 and $1,499 respectively. Both are 13", both have two TB3, one is going to sustain higher performance for longer, most likely, and one is going to be a touch lighter. For $100 difference, I'm not sure that it's really that confusing. For the 8/256 TB with Quad Core it's $1,799, so $300 more but arguably twice the processing power. Sure, it's only $300, but for someone buying their first MacBook maybe that's too much of a differential.

Until we see benchmarks it's tough to call of course. But I don't think it's that difficult to differentiate between the models.

And I'm not trying to suggest that my 2015 13" is the same performance as the current dual core generation (MBPro and MBA).