Just saw the 15MBA. I put it next to the 16MBP. With the MBA lid closed it's still thinner than the bottom part of an open 16MBP. Goes to show how fat the modern MBP has gotten.
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Closed 15" MBA is thinner than the bottom part of an open MBP
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I think most MBP 16-inch customers are fine with how thick it is as long as it continues to offer Pro/Max chips. Doesn’t take away from how impressive the thin profile of the MBA 15-inch is, but it’s a bit of an unfair comparison IMO when you consider the performance differential and the different target markets.
^^ this. It's a completely different performance level/category and the enclose must account for it.
This includes fans for the additional thermal discharge to guarantee sustained performance as well as a significantly larger battery.
16" MBP M2 Max vs. 15" MBA M2:
+46% thickness (1,68 cm vs. 1,15 cm)
+50% battery (99,6Wh vs. 66,5Wh)
+50% CPU (Geekbench Multi 14.404 vs. 9.581)
+194% GPU (Geekbench Metal 131.378 vs. 44.691)
Still quite impressive (both).
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I consider the Apple Silicon 16MBP to be a portable desktop more than a laptop due to the junk in its trunk. 16 Intel MBP was a laptop.
+47% weight
+87% higher charging requirements (the MBA 15 can operate and charge even with a 35W charger but the 16" needs at least around 65W for that for the M1 Pro model)
+infinitely more noise
Different use cases indeed but... I have always thought that the extra thickness for the Pro devices are completely uncalled for considering Apple could create thinner Pro MacBooks in the past with even hotter-running Intel chips.
Yes but apple brought back HDMI ports, SD Card readers etc that many who use the pro machines were asking for.
It was a lot easier to get the machines thinner when they only had USB C
Plus I think most pro users would take the additional thermal headroom afforded by the thicker chassis any day. If you are trying to use the machine in certain fields, less CPU/GPU throttling means faster computation which leads directly to more money made.
Sure but they did the bare minimum to get the HDMI port working and the SD card reader is also bare minimal and isn't even the fastest possible. Both are behind the latest versions by quite a bit and were only put in just to tick off some kind of checklist.
Plus... if they took out HDMI or used mini HDMI, they could have kept the machines thinner, so the point still stands.
I disagree. They could cool up to 100W in the older Intel MacBook Pro 15" and 16" so there is no "additional" thermal headroom here as even M1 Max and M2 Max don't really break past 100W. It's counterintuitive that they made the bodies thicker to try and cool... chips that do not draw as much power as the older chips. The fans in the newer Pro machines are almost never maxed out even when the chips are pushed to their absolute limits so clearly, there's just way too much room here.
Granted, I know there are other reasons why a thicker chassis makes sense. But honestly, I strongly disagree that thermal headroom is one such reason.
The thermal throttling and HOT bodies on then 2016-2019 Intel MacBook Pros was a real problem. In many tasks the cooling solutions in that line of 13” and 15” machines were using was NOT dissipating enough heat to even allow the chips to run at base clocks on all cores. A more efficient solution was definitely necessary.
Spot on. For my usage a MBA would be more than enough, but i got the 16” MPB for the size since the 15” was still a fairly new rumor and I didn’t want to wait. I’m happy I got the MPB solely because of how heavy it is (and the beautiful screen is a plus) since I never have to check my bag to make sure I didn’t forget my MacBook 😂 when I use only my iPad I often have a mini heart attack not remembering if I put it in my bag or not, made worse since I’ve switched to a Garmin watch and don’t get the FindMy notifications right away
The cooling system in the 2019 MBP was so heavily undersized that the $300 upgrade option from i7 (8850H) to i9 (8950HK) actually performed worse due to thermal throttling. Even in the first run of Cinebench. [link]
So thermal headroom (or even adequate dimensioning) is definitely something Apple lacked in the past. Not to mention the acoustic/noise improvements the current models offer.
From the same article, they concluded that the chassis of the past 15" could cool up to 50W, right?
Then check out how much M1 Max itself draws under heavy load:
TL;DR: it's right around 50W.
Also, the 16" Intel MacBook Pro could cool more than the 15" because it was already slightly thicker.
I rest my case.
No. Again. Please look above. The Intel chips were drawing way past 100W of power and that caused them to not just thermally throttle under heavy load but also exceeding power draw possible from the wall wart.
If you owned one of these devices and actually monitored its power draw and thermal characteristics, you'd know.
But the new chips really are not that power hungry or even that hot. Clearly the cooling capacity is way overkill for the chips in the new chassis. Note that the 2019-2020 16" is already thicker than the 15" Intel MacBooks and actually could cool way more:
Putting the 16-inch MacBook Pro's thermal management to the test | AppleInsider
Apple updated the thermal management of the 16-inch MacBook Pro. We put it to the test to see just how much it has improved over its predecessors.
The new MacBook Pro 16 with Apple Silicon chips is actually even thicker still despite running a much more efficient chip. This does not compute.
Thickness would be justified for the 14" because it needs to cool M1 Max, sure. But it's clear Apple's thermal solution is way overkill for the M chips.
Have you ever really worked with a 16“ Intel machine? I currently have the i7 version as a work machine and can‘t wait for the day I can replace that with a M2/M3 Version of the 14“ or 16“ because even with average workloads that thing gets hot and loud. You can‘t do a MS Teams call without those super annoying fans kicking in.
Yes, the cooling solution in the 16“ might seem overkill, but that‘s what actually enables Apple to run that thing silent most of the time, even with heavy workloads.
Personally I absolutely prefer a little bit more thickness over the noise of the Intel machines. I think most professional users care more for silence and sustained performance than a few millimeters more thickness and that‘s exactly why Apple designed it that way.
If you prefer having a notebook that‘s nice to look at because it‘s so thin, that‘s what the Air is for. The Pro has another target group.
I did. That's how I knew the magic number was 100W for the 16".
And that's also why I jumped on M1 and abandoned the device as soon as possible.
And that's also why I now know M1 Max's magic number is "under 100W" and M1 Pro's magic number is "under 50W".
What you may not see yet is that... even something like the M2 MacBook Air 15 is already faster than the 16" Intel... in sustained performance, while being fanless and much lighter. I found that for myself, in 2019, the performance of the 16" was "acceptable" if it didn't also have to deal with the graphics processor sucking up power for external displays. M1 and M2 solved that issue and then more.
So now in 2023, I don't know why you and everyone else suddenly thinks "Pro" audience needs much faster devices than what was already top of the line in 2019. But that's another discussion entirely. My point still stands: the older bodies of at least the 16" could cool even M1 Max properly for sustained performance. The new chips are really not that hot. Sure, the fan would be louder, but if silent work under sustained performance was important, then again, that's where the 15" Air will come in. 15" Air happens to be the only Apple device that's truly silent while running sustained performance faster than the old 2019 16". Bonus points for it being much thinner and lighter now too.
The dimensions are almost exactly the same though (give and take 2 mm). Though the AS models are a bit heavier, 2.15 instead of 2.0 kg.
Hot and noisy laptop with miserable battery life.
I would not go back to hot and noisy laptop with 3 hours of battery life under my typical workload.
M1Max is most of the time with fans off, or in under 1500rpm, and can easily get 8 hours.
Increased weight and thickness is fine. Reminds me Macbook Pro 2011.
Buy Macbook Air 15' if you value weight and thickness more. At least now you have an option.
And since with electronics power draw relates to heat and with insufficient cooling (as in 16" Intel), that means the Intel machine ist just annoying to use, especially during the summer.
The fact that the AMD GPU in the 2019 model had to be active just in order to use an external display is a serious design flaw by Apple. That's 20-30 watts of wasted energy just to have some extra screen real estate which could easily have been done by the Intel iGPU.
Of course the M2 ist faster than the 9th Gen i7 in the 2019 MBP. For most of the time it's also enough.
As for why people need/want faster machines: depending on the work someone is doing, it makes a lot of a difference. I work as a software developer. For me it's a huge difference whether I have to wait 5 minutes for the test suite to complete or if it's just 2 minutes or less. For music and video editors or professional photographers these numbers will be even more drastic. For professional use cases time is usually equal to money. So why waste time waiting for a machine if something faster is available?
Running code compilation and test execution with big projects on a passively cooled Air will certainly lead to throttling and make it slower which means more time spent waiting.
And there are tons of use-cases where the M2 just doesn't cut it with only 24 GB of RAM. I usually use at least one virtual machine, multiple docker containers, multiple IDE windows and still have some browser tabs open as well as often running a Teams call in parallel. That does not work properly with less than 32 GB of RAM.
(actually that could work with less RAM with efficiently written software and websites but neither JetBrains nor Microsoft nor most web developers will ever do that
)To sum it up: just because your usage scenario does not require something faster than the M2 does not mean that there might not be others who actually need the performance to save time. And a lot of these people don't want to compromise on cooling and noise, so the 16 " is made for them.
throw in a dongle for sd card, throw in a dongle for hdmi, that overall weight of everything quickly shrinks.
The logic board in my 2017 15” MBP makes popping sounds as it heats up and cools down. Also only gets 3 hours of battery life when using the dGPU, and 5 hours using the iGPU.
My 12.9 iPad Pro is way thinner than a M2 MacBook Air even. It is not that impressive.
My M1 Macbook Air is thinner than my Mac Mini, but thicker than one of my arm hairs.
