Air vs Pro for video calls

[Jacobi]

I'm planning to head to the Apple Store soon to pick up either a base MBA 2020 or a base MBP 2020 to replace my aging 2012 MBA.

I like the MBA's wedge shape, which I'm used to, and its lack of touch bar. But I'm worried about it being hot and/or noisy if I'm spending hours a day on Zoom calls, which is going to be the norm for a while for work. Anyone have experience with MBA vs MBP as far as video call performance?

 

[pshufd]

I'm planning to head to the Apple Store soon to pick up either a base MBA 2020 or a base MBP 2020 to replace my aging 2012 MBA.

I like the MBA's wedge shape, which I'm used to, and its lack of touch bar. But I'm worried about it being hot and/or noisy if I'm spending hours a day on Zoom calls, which is going to be the norm for a while for work. Anyone have experience with MBA vs MBP as far as video call performance?

I do Zoom calls daily on a 2015 MacBook Pro 2015. I'm also running Thunderbird, Firefox, VNC and it's driving 4K and QHD monitors. I have never used the Air but have used the 13 MBP and the MBP fans spin up on me with Zoom and a lot of other stuff running. I am also running an external fan when running Zoom to keep the system cool when ambient temperatures at home are high. I am buying a camera to do Zoom on a Windows desktop to offload the work from laptops as Desktops don't have the thermal issues.

 

[Jacobi]

I do Zoom calls daily on a 2015 MacBook Pro 2015. I'm also running Thunderbird, Firefox, VNC and it's driving 4K and QHD monitors. I have never used the Air but have used the 13 MBP and the MBP fans spin up on me with Zoom and a lot of other stuff running. I am also running an external fan when running Zoom to keep the system cool when ambient temperatures at home are high. I am buying a camera to do Zoom on a Windows desktop to offload the work from laptops as Desktops don't have the thermal issues.

Hmm. Should I be considering the 16 inch? Is it possible it's that big of a thermal upgrade?

 

[pshufd]

Hmm. Should I be considering the 16 inch? Is it possible it's that big of a thermal upgrade?

I'd favor the Pros, especially if you're doing other stuff during the Zoom calls. If you record calls, then your computer has to do video transcoding. I think that either Pro has the CPU horsepower - it's just that it's not nice to have the fans running loud while you're in a call. I do use an external mike and speakers so that the fan is less of an issue as I can place them some distance from the laptop.

If you keep your home at 65 degrees and you have good airflow, then probably not an issue. If you're in Florida or Arizona where it's hot and ambient temperatures are in the 80s, then your fans will likely make some noise.

 

[Jacobi]

So, I tested out a friend's base i3 MBA with Google Meet and Zoom today. On Google Meet in particular, the thing got too hot to touch in the area above the function keys. Fan was quite loud. My question is: will a base 13" MacBook Pro not have this issue, or is this bound to happen in any laptop running video chat for a while? Will there be a difference?

 

[Dhock_Holiday]

MacBook Air sounds like a vacuum cleaner when I used it for MS Teams, to the point where other people complained about the background noise.

 

[JMountainDew]

Thanks for starting this post. My 2015 MBP runs super cool and quiet, but I am also interested in purchasing one of the 2020 base models just to update to more robust components. I am having to run and annotate powerpoint presentations on zoom these days, but don't want any unnecessary fan noise. Please keep sharing your experiences with the new models.

 

[Jacobi]

Thanks for your input! Can somebody with a 2020 MBP please comment if they have experience with video calls?

 

[edubfromktown]

Thanks for your input! Can somebody with a 2020 MBP please comment if they have experience with video calls?

I have a 2020 13” 4-port 2 GHz MBP.

It has never had “thermal issues” nor does a 2020 MBA i7. My fans have rarely come on- most often when I am moving a lot of data to an external hard drive or messing with bulk photo modifications in Adobe Lightroom.

I participate n different calls (not Teams or Google stuff so far). I avoid Google Chrome as it is by far the most resource intensive browser currently available ad far as I am aware. Other Chromium-based browsers like SRWare Iron, Vivaldi, etc. work quite well and do not drive temps up nearly as much in my experience.

The last couple of days I was on a Zoom meeting/conference with 1,000+ participants (on audio) and presenters showing slides, etc.

My fans never came on and average CPU temps were high 40’s / low 50’s C depending on what else I was doing.

 

[matram]

I use both MS Teams and zoom regularily on my 16”. MS teams seems to draw a lot of power 40W. But the 16” handles this well. No fan noise that I notice.

 

[Lomity]

I returned the 2020 Air (i5/8/512) and bought a 2020 Pro (i5 Gen10/16/512) because of the fan when using Zoom. I greatly prefer the Air's wedge shape but the fan was often at MAX when anyone was doing a screen share. For everything other than Zoom the Air was quiet. The Pro is quiet while in Zoom calls & I am driving a 4K monitor, as well.

 

[Jacobi]

I returned the 2020 Air (i5/8/512) and bought a 2020 Pro (i5 Gen10/16/512) because of the fan when using Zoom. I greatly prefer the Air's wedge shape but the fan was often at MAX when anyone was doing a screen share. For everything other than Zoom the Air was quiet. The Pro is quiet while in Zoom calls & I am driving a 4K monitor, as well.

Thank you; this is the kind of answer I was looking for!