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I think that it mostly has to do with the fact that the MBPs are getting a full refresh/new model this fall. Trying to dump this product while they still can. Especially since the next model is the return of much asked for things, such as magsafe and non USB-C ports.
I had to wait three weeks for the Air, while I could have gotten a Pro ASAP. The pro has little upside for a higher price while a divisive feature in the Touch Bar.
 
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Funny, I love mine.

Better battery life, bigger trackpad, and best of all, the Pro's display has nearly double the contrast ratio of the MBA. It is much more pleasing to look at. Worth it for me for sure.
Also, if you live somewhere that gets hot and don't have AC (common in Northern California for some reason), a fanless computer might not be able to sustain hours of video calling.
 
Also, if you live somewhere that gets hot and don't have AC (common in Northern California for some reason), a fanless computer might not be able to sustain hours of video calling.
The M1 Air would be fine. Mine is barely warm after a 30-minute zoom call.
 
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The M1 Air would be fine. Mine is barely warm after a 30-minute zoom call.
Try a 85˚F room, running Google Meet (much less efficient) instead of Zoom and maybe taking notes in a Google Doc at the same time for an hour. That common GSuite use case is way more CPU-hungry than it should be. The M1 Air does thermal throttle under heavy load, which is the only reason the Pro is faster despite having the same CPU.
 
I originally got the M1 MBA, returned it, got an M1 MBP and absolutely love it, and I think the price, although maybe a tiny bit too high, nevertheless justifies all the extra features.

Also i’m a part of the love the touchbar gang. When i’m using my macbook portable i find it super useful for pretty much any application, especially using it with BetterTouchTool which makes it insanely more useful than the stock touchbar is. And when i’m plugging in my macbook at my desk I have an apple keyboard with the classic controls anyway. Best of both worlds:)
 
It's so interesting that I see deals on M1 MBP left and right. Hardly any on M1 MBA.

Is M1 MBA really in that much more demand and that much more desired?
Yup. There’s very little reason to go with the Pro over the Air, frankly. I expect the upcoming 14 and 16” models to be the true Pro’s.
I ended up going with the 16GB/1TB MBA because it’s the only model that was regularly stocked in-store, and I didn’t feel like waiting a flipping month for the 16GB/512 model just to save a bit.
 
Man bad day for people who are reading this that just bought a M1 Chip MacBook.
Not really. It’s only the 8GB model. The 16GB models never go on sale, and are in such demand that months after launch the delivery window is still 3 weeks-Month out from order date. All these sales tell me Apple clearly under-estimated demand for the 16GB variants, and they’re having to unload the 8GB sku’s however they can while still trying to save face.
 
I'm a pro user and don't need discrete graphics. And since I don't need it, I don't want it. A mobile GPU is like a leaky nuclear reactor:
- expensive
- produces a lot of heat
- melts down eventually
32GiB RAM, I could use. 16GiB is enough for now, but you never know.

Anyway, the AS GPU is comparable to a desktop Nvidia 1050ti.
Compared to the Radeon Pro 5300M that the Intel MBP comes with, it's not a whole lot slower according to https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-1050-Ti-vs-AMD-Radeon-Pro-5300M/3649vsm965657
The 5500M does a lot better (39%) according to the same site: https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-1050-Ti-vs-AMD-Radeon-Pro-5500M/3649vsm960765
So, it's worse but not unusable.
Mentioned this on another thread but pertinent here too. On this video they compare the MBP with an LG in a similar category:
(important part around 10mins in)
But in summary, M1 has a gpu score of ~20K while the other has ~15K, yet on another more real world test the M1 has over 80fps while the LG has ~45fps. That’s close to 2x performance output for what a synthetic test said it was roughly 50% more.

Try a 85˚F room, running Google Meet (much less efficient) instead of Zoom and maybe taking notes in a Google Doc at the same time for an hour. That common GSuite use case is way more CPU-hungry than it should be. The M1 Air does thermal throttle under heavy load, which is the only reason the Pro is faster despite having the same CPU.
Saw online a DIY hack by buying some $20 heat transferring thermal pads and laid inside (roughly, nothing crazy... just dropped in there). It would basically allow an M1 Air behave like an MBP over sustained loads too:
1615436557174.png

And this one over sustained 10mins at full throttle multi core rendering:
1615436624295.png


Might help. However it doesn’t say anything regarding lifetime, if warranty is voided, etc... but if it doesn’t throttle then I guess the system is deeming it safe to continue on.
 
Saw online a DIY hack by buying some $20 heat transferring thermal pads and laid inside (roughly, nothing crazy... just dropped in there). It would basically allow an M1 Air behave like an MBP over sustained loads too:
View attachment 1742019
And this one over sustained 10mins at full throttle multi core rendering:
View attachment 1742020

Might help. However it doesn’t say anything regarding lifetime, if warranty is voided, etc... but if it doesn’t throttle then I guess the system is deeming it safe to continue on.
I was actually wondering about that. There are fan pads and stuff that do nothing, but what you linked is interesting. In a pinch, you can also just put the laptop on a cold surface since the metal underside conducts heat so well. I've used ice packs or even a glass table in the past to prevent stupid Google Hangouts from stuttering on my old laptop.
 
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We have deployed 25 M1 MacBook Pro's this year so far (another 100 to go this year... we have 300 Mac's and 1600 iPads in our JAMF so far), and since its a work setting they are using them for their profession, so 'Pro' . The extra battery life the 13" Pro offers over the Air is important to our users, and they are impressed by the battery life and speed, but the thing they get most excited over is the Touch Bar, they love it. I like it too, and I don't want Apple to go back to static buttons. I get the annoyance on the original Touch Bar not having a physical ESC key as you do tend to just feel for the ESC key and it was not on the edge of the bar, but that's fixed now.

I'm sure pre M1 Mac's the MacBook Air sold much better than the entry level 13" Pro, so I'm not surprised the Air is selling much better and the Pro keeps getting the sales. I think some are forgetting Apple have not refreshed the high end 13" Pro yet (the 4 USB C port version) hence Intel 13" is still for sale, and the 2 port 13" Pro likely did not sell that well in the Intel version.
 
Not really. It’s only the 8GB model. The 16GB models never go on sale, and are in such demand that months after launch the delivery window is still 3 weeks-Month out from order date. All these sales tell me Apple clearly under-estimated demand for the 16GB variants, and they’re having to unload the 8GB sku’s however they can while still trying to save face.
Imho its acceptable to sell base spec Air with 8GB of RAM and 256Gb of storage for really light usage(we dont know yet how much paging will wear out these new M1s), but everything else should come with 16GB these days, especially for Apple prices, even on Air, let alone something that is called Pro.
Not hating, just stating the obvious from my perspective, just look at Windows laptops, same bs there, everything around $1k and up should come with 16GB, not paltry soldered 8GB.
Its all about milking customers 200€ for 8GB of RAM upgrade, crazy!
Might be getting either Mac Mini or updated 14” Air or 14” Pro with more ports and definitely 16GB or 32GB of RAM. Buts thats late autumn or next year at best. And that will cost alot.
 
Touch bar is trouble awaiting to happen, stay away from this very-expensive-to-swap component:



My 0.2$ is to skip all myriad of problems it gives, more than I am able to reckon reading those comments linked above
 
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Thanks all early adopters for buying a M1 MacBook in the last 4 months and living threw all the issues with the system. My 16 month old MacBook Pro 16 has been running great with zero issues with EGPU box and a 3080 card with three monitors. Will I get a Mac with an Apple processor yes, but not for at least 2 1/2 years when all issues are ironed out of the platforms.
 
It would be nice if these M1's could do dual monitors without workarounds. It's preventing me from buying one.
I had one and returned it for this very reason. I recently had to lead an online training over several days and need the extra screen real estate to keep all my windows and apps easily accessible. Nothing worse as a trainer than looking like you are putting on a schtick looking for a window that got buried.
 
That's good for new buyers but as someone who spent almost £2000 three years on a new 13" MBP, don't tell me that these things hold their value.

And yes, I have the junk keyboard, with one key that's flaky enough to be a problem but not reliably bad enough to be guaranteed to be able to show Apple that it needs swapping.
 
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