choosing a macbook

[san23]

My office is buying me a macbook with a budget around the $2,500 mark (plus minus a bit should work as well). I don't have a heavy workload: I will be doing lots of word processing, browsing with multiple browsers & tabs, some Excel stuff, lots of PDFs, some PPTs and some music.

I have desktops at work and home so this will be primarily for use on travel ~ once a month

I'm confused between three models (in the specified price range): A MBP 14” with M3-pro chip OR a M3 15” MBA OR a M3 13” MBA both heavily souped up on RAM (and storage).
Weight is super-important to me so the 13" MBA is attractive but I worry that the screen may be too small to be productive (as I'm growing older; 13" was great in my younger days).

The 15” MBA seems like a good choice but is similar in weight (inside my briefcase) to the 14” MBP so that's confusing also. I make presentations from time to time so the HDMI port on the MBP is nice but 1 dongle would nullify the advantage.
Your inputs on choosing between the 3 models mentioned would help me reach a decision. Thanks much.

PS. not worried about 'latest' so I'm looking to make this purchase now.
PPS. cross-posting to the pro subforum; hope that's ok.

 

[curnalpanic]

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[joeblow7777]

If your workload and intended usage is just web browsing, productivity stuff, and some music that's pretty similar to my own. I'd say that an MBA should be quite sufficient, with the advantage of being slimmer and lighter than a MBP. The 15" model is still very portable. As you said, a simple dongle will take care of port limitations.

16GB of RAM should also be sufficient for that workload. That should leave you with enough money left over to bump up the storage as much as you'd like.

The only advantages I see for the Pro in your situation is having the HDMI port built in and having slightly longer battery life.

 

[krspkbl]

15" Air is the best choice. Good screen size, lightweight, and has more than enough power for you. Yeah the 13" is lighter/smaller but you have to work on a 13" screen. Personally that's a no go for me. I've been waiting many years for a 15" Air and now it's finally here I got one. It's the sweet spot for laptops. The 14" Pro is smaller and more expensive and the extra 1" on the 16" Pro is not worth the asking price unless you needed that kind of performance.

 

[bellflyer14]

15" Air is the best choice. Good screen size, lightweight, and has more than enough power for you. Yeah the 13" is lighter/smaller but you have to work on a 13" screen. Personally that's a no go for me. I've been waiting many years for a 15" Air and now it's finally here I got one. It's the sweet spot for laptops. The 14" Pro is smaller and more expensive and the extra 1" on the 16" Pro is not worth the asking price unless you needed that kind of performance.

I was going to upgrade my 8/256 15" Air to a 16gb/512 model on sale for $1449 at Best Buy, but found a practically brand new open box deal on a M3 Pro MBP 14" 18/512 for $1413, so I went that route. 14" is a bit smaller but I think I'll adjust. Plus the screen seems much more crisp to me anyway, than the MBA

 

[StoneJack]

14 inch Pro is your choice because it has inbuilt HDMI output for presentations.

 

[neo_cs193p]

MBA 15", 16GB / 1TB. No need to go over $2k based on your specified use.
Even if you sometimes have to carry an HDMI adapter, I think it's still much more important to have that 15" display 100% of the time. If you set its resolution to native 2x scaling, the UI will be very comfortable for your eyes, and when you really need more room for stuff on your screen, you can switch back to the default non-integer scaled resolution.

Another pair of old(er) eyes.