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$1849 Macbook Pro M1pro or $1759 M2 Macbook Air. Please uncloud my thinking.

Unless you absolutely can't live with the bulk/size of the MacBook Pro 14", the value lies in the Pro. For the price, the Air really should have a Pro Motion display.

The 14" Pro is quite a balanced computer - the display, speakers, and performance really justify the weight, size, and price. The fans are also justified - they enable significant performance, and you don't hear them unless you're thrashing the machine with something like gaming, and even then, it's far quieter than you'd think. I had a bit of an aversion to actively cooled MacBooks after suffering through the 13" Intel MBP, but having spent time with the new 14" it's fine.

The MBA on the other hand seems a little pricy for what it is, and lacks pro motion and mini LED. It can still be worth it at the base model, but as soon as you start speccing it up, it gets way too close to the 14" Pro without having any of the niceties of it.
 
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teh_hunterer said:
The MBA on the other hand seems a little pricy for what it is, and lacks pro motion and mini LED. It can still be worth it at the base model, but as soon as you start speccing it up, it gets way too close to the 14" Pro without having any of the niceties of it.
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good points.. there have definitely been advice heroes on both sides of this decision. 😄
 
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Kazgarth said:
If you need that much RAM and storage for the MBA then your usage will probably thermally throttle it without fans.

Get the 14"
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There is nothing particularly heat generating about having the RAM and larger SSD. There is a small power penalty to keep the RAM refreshed but is more of a trickle. Any SSD can produce heat if you write to it a lot but the capacity is not a variable.
 
4743913 said:
Thats not what I said. Apple marketed the M1 as being able to run iOS apps and it did run every app I wanted until Apple started disabling the apps one by one and then totally killing the ability to load them outside of the app store. It was nothing more than a gimmicky bonus but it was a nice one. But its on Apple for reneging on the feature.



Thats now. It was not the case when the M1 came out. Stop with the revisionist history.
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It wasn’t Apple disabling those apps, it was the app publishers. They have to agree to making their apps available on Macs and unfortunately many have elected not to do so. I’m not sure. Some of them have existing Mac apps that they want to sell separately. Other may have plans for such. Others may just be short-sighted.

All Apple did was to honor those publisher’s wishes by not making those apps available and by blocking the back door that let you copy The app files and run them directly. That was against the demands of the app publishers.

I have installed an run several iOS apps, but none of them are particularly compelling and right now I couldn’t tell you which ones as it has been a few months since I ran one.
 
Thanks for all of the opinions, I went with the macbook air 10c/16/1

Portability outweighed most bang for the buck, and ultimately, I love my 2019 16" (Sea of Thieves, Planet Zoo) so it made less sense for me to get the macbook pro giving up maximum portability or the ability to play my favorite pc games as the new one would replace one of my machines.
 
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4743913 said:
Thanks for all of the opinions, I went with the macbook air 10c/16/1

Portability outweighed most bang for the buck, and ultimately, I love my 2019 16" (Sea of Thieves, Planet Zoo) so it made less sense for me to get the macbook pro giving up maximum portability or the ability to play my favorite pc games as the new one would replace one of my machines.
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So you got to tell us how you like the M2 air. How does it perform? How is the screen and speakers? What is the build quality like? I am very curious. What color did you get. The Midnight color looks pretty sweet.

I personally was thinking of one but they are expensive. If I got the configuration I wanted on the air it was only a few hundred short of the 16" MBP. I really wanted the 120hz promotion screen and more performance on the MBP or I would have got the air.

I still really like the Midnight color and I bet the performance is really great for what it is. I can understand why you made your choice
 
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Technerd108 said:
So you got to tell us how you like the M2 air.
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I guess you are not enjoying my other thread. :D

Order at 8am. given an aug 1 - 8 delivery window for my config. made me salty.
Saw that I could have waited and just ordered/picked up at the AS two hours away on release day. made me extrasalty.

so I wait but I am sure it will be worth it. I ordered a bag to cheer myself up
 
4743913 said:
Thanks for all of the opinions, I went with the macbook air 10c/16/1

Portability outweighed most bang for the buck, and ultimately, I love my 2019 16" (Sea of Thieves, Planet Zoo) so it made less sense for me to get the macbook pro giving up maximum portability or the ability to play my favorite pc games as the new one would replace one of my machines.
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That is understandable if you already have a 16" MBP. That said, for those that want portability and value for money, the base M1 MBA is probably still the best choice.

Like you I did not prioritize value for money when buying my portable Apple device. I went for the 12.9" iPad Pro with the magic keyboard.
 
4743913 said:
I have a 2019 Macbook Pro 16" that I am happy with but I sometimes use an M1 Air (that I got for free by trading in my 2017 Macbook Pro abomination) for quick work, editing, coffee shop, etc. I am gifting my M1 Air and want to replace it with the M2. But when I spec it out, it comes dangerously close to Macbook Pro cost. I really want the 1 TB drive in the Air as the 256 in my current Air has chaffed me forever. Am I being dumb for wanting the smaller machine more than the Macbook Pro?


$1849 Macbook Pro
  • Apple M1 Pro with 8-core CPU, 14-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
  • 16GB unified memory
  • 512GB SSD storage
  • 67W USB-C Power Adapter
  • 14-inch Liquid Retina XDR display
  • Three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI port, SDXC card slot, MagSafe 3 port
$1759 Macbook Air
  • Apple M2 chip with 8‑core CPU, 10‑core GPU, 16‑core Neural Engine
  • 16GB unified memory
  • 1TB SSD storage
  • 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display with True Tone
  • 1080p FaceTime HD camera
  • MagSafe 3 charging port
  • Two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports
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What is your usage model for the new system? I think these systems are so comparing besides the weight difference that I would just go with the macbook pro by default. (just offers more flexibility including the ability to connect two monitors in the future).

but this depends on what you think you will use it today and what you think you will it for in the future and if you think might use all of the capabilities. But for the price difference, i think i would go with the 14 inch.
 
drecc said:
I've seen a few youtubers complain about crashes on the M1, especially when resuming from sleep when docked with an external monitor. I was wondering if you'd had any instability/crashes, and also if you noticed that switching between spaces on the M1 was smoother than on Intel?
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Hey, sorry I took longer to update you on this than I initially expected. We ordered two MacBook Pros and they wound up arriving weeks apart; we agreed that a colleague needed the earlier-arriving laptop before me, and he hasn’t mentioned any issues with his. Mine got here a week before last Thursday and I’ve used it daily since with an external display both at home and in the office — not a single problem so far.
 
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The MBA isn't worth it at these type of prices. The MBA is supposed to be a cheap laptop, so I don't see the point of people buying all those expensive upgrades, that you might as well buy the 14" MBP.
 
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Zest28 said:
The MBA isn't worth it at these type of prices. The MBA is supposed to be a cheap laptop, so I don't see the point of people buying all those expensive upgrades, that you might as well buy the 14" MBP.
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The MacBook Air was never "supposed" to be a cheap laptop. It was always meant to be an ultra portable notebook. For a brief amount of time you could get a low end 11" model for under $1000 and now for $1000 for the M1 MacBook Air. With inflation, that is not likely to happen again soon. When it was introduced in 2008, the low end model went for $1800. If you wanted the 64 GB SSD, it was $3098. With inflation, those prices are $2477 and $4263 in today's dollar.

It wasn't until 2014 that the 13" MacBook Air was priced at $1000. Before that only the 11" model was lower than $1000.
 
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Zest28 said:
The MBA isn't worth it at these type of prices. The MBA is supposed to be a cheap laptop, so I don't see the point of people buying all those expensive upgrades, that you might as well buy the 14" MBP.
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This isn't necessarily true. I bought an M1 Max 16 to compare and my program actually runs faster on the MacBook Air by about 18-25% because it pegs one core at 100% and 1-2 others at less than 50%. But the increased single core performance is very noticeable for me in particular. So the $1700 m2 air model I got is better than the 3800 m1max. Now as for screen the 16 or even 14 is better. I may look into a 14 m2 max whenever that drops but for now its this model for me.
 
Zest28 said:
The MBA isn't worth it at these type of prices. The MBA is supposed to be a cheap laptop, so I don't see the point of people buying all those expensive upgrades, that you might as well buy the 14" MBP.
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I disagree. MacBook Air was never a cheap computer nor was any of Apples entry level laptops. The 12“ back in the day wasn’t cheap but just more affordable than their other offerings and a starting point into the Mac ecosystem if you wanted a laptop.

The air still is the same. Actually historically the price hasn’t gone up all that much considering massive inflation and supply chain problems.

Also if you are comparing the decent MBP you are looking at a $2300 starting price now which is $1100 more than the base model air. Or $1799 for a low spec 14” which is $700 more. That is a lot of money with tax.

Speccing an air all the way up is for people with money to burn or those who have a special use case where they need the extra portability but want as much power as possible.

The sweet spot is the $1599 air only $1479 or $1499 depending on the charger with edu discount. At this price you get the faster ssd and 16gb ram which is best for most people. At that price a Dell XPS is closest competition with an Intel 10 core i7. The Dell is a decent computer but battery life alone on the air when pushed is way better not to mention better perfo in almost every category. Also the Dell is more expensive.

At the end of the day for a premium ultra book the air is perfectly placed and I suspect Apple wants most people to buy the middle spec like I suggested. I don’t know too many people who would buy a $1200 computer with only 8gb ram and a 256gb ssd. Most people looking for a cheap computer will get a windows laptop where for around $900 you can get a decent laptop on sale at best buy.

The reason I don’t think Apple is wrong in their pricing although everyone would like it to be cheaper is that they try to deliver a quality product you can use for many years. They know that Mac owners keep their Macs longer than PC owners and in order to recoup their cost in R&D they don’t sell cheap. Mac mini is as cheap as it gets and for the cost they are very competitive.

I have a cheap Lenovo Laptop I got at Bestbuy for $550 and it is a Lenovo 7i 14” latest model. In my opinion it will run circles around a base model air at less than half the price with double the ram and double the ssd. It was a real good sale price and I got lucky but my point if cost is your priority Apple has never been the place to go.
 
Technerd108 said:
I disagree. MacBook Air was never a cheap computer nor was any of Apples entry level laptops. The 12“ back in the day wasn’t cheap but just more affordable than their other offerings and a starting point into the Mac ecosystem if you wanted a laptop.
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Not to nitpick but i think the 12” was actually more expensive then the air. I think I remember paying $1299.99 for it vs the air at $999.99. Other than that yea I agree.
 
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Mcdevidr said:
Not to nitpick but i think the 12” was actually more expensive then the air. I think I remember paying $1299.99 for it vs the air at $999.99. Other than that yea I agree.
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Not a nitpick. I think you are right. I just wasn't sure.

Apple has never had a cheap device because it goes against their design philosophy and market strategy.
 
I'd always opt for the 14" Pro not just because of the screen, but also the SSD, more CPU performance and GPU performance, more ports and etc.

The tradeoff it's just the increased size/weight.
 
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