Going from a MBP m3 Pro 16 to MBA 15 m4

[bursthead]

Does anyone have any opinions on downgrading to a mba? I currently have been considering take the loss of trading in my MBP to apple and using that credit toward a top of the line mba.

Is the loss of active cooling going to be pretty detrimental? I write alot of papers have over 15-20 tabs open all the time with all the office apps running in the background. I do occasionally like to watch a movie from time to time on it.

The other option is to keep the MBP and try to score a mba m4 under 1k. But then ill have both. I currently have a x1c thinkpad thats collecting dust too..

 

[kitKAC]

I write alot of papers have over 15-20 tabs open all the time with all the office apps running in the background. I do occasionally like to watch a movie from time to time on it.

An Air can easily cope with all of that.

 

[mercedx]

I went from a M1 16” MacBook Pro to a 15” M3 MacBook Air. Screen was the only adjustment for me. Step down from miniled but I got used to it after a week. I contemplated trading it back in for a day or two right after I got it actually but I’m a bit of a display nerd. Lighter weight and superior form factor was 100% worth it for me. Zero issues on performance. I’d say movie watching is the main area you’ll likely notice a difference day to day. 15” Air form factor is brilliant with similar screen real estate to 16” MacBook Pro but dramatically thinner and lighter. Recommend trying one in a store if you can though. Good luck with a decision!

 

[StoneJack]

Does anyone have any opinions on downgrading to a mba? I currently have been considering take the loss of trading in my MBP to apple and using that credit toward a top of the line mba.

Is the loss of active cooling going to be pretty detrimental? I write alot of papers have over 15-20 tabs open all the time with all the office apps running in the background. I do occasionally like to watch a movie from time to time on it.

The other option is to keep the MBP and try to score a mba m4 under 1k. But then ill have both. I currently have a x1c thinkpad thats collecting dust too..

I "downgraded" from M3 Macbook Pro 14 inch to M4 Air 15 inch and is very happy. M4 Air is great machine and I am very happy with both screen and speakers. I only lost HDMI out port and SD card slot which I never used. For HDMI, I have USB C hub.

 

[Christopher Kim]

I also just did the downgrade from a 14" M1 Pro MBP to a 15" M4 MBA. I realized over the past few years I don't really need the power of the MBP - with the advent of the Apple silicon chips (and even more so now that we're on the 4th generation), the power of the base M4 (non-Pro and non-Max) chips is more than enough power for the vast majority of people. Quite a bit of difference vs pre-Apple silicon days, when it was Intel chips... was a larger delta between MBA and MBP, or more specifically, the MBA didn't cover as many people's power needs, as it does today.

Throughout my time with my 14" M1 Pro MBP, I don't think I ever heard the fans spins up. I've read many an anecdote about the same. Agree with others, based on your use case, I think the 15" M4 MBA will work out great. And vs the MBP, the M4 MBA just came out a few months ago, so there isn't an imminent M5 refresh coming.

You could think about a place like Swappa perhaps, depending on what the trade-in value is at Apple? For certain models, the gap between Apple trade-in and "Fair Market Value" on secondary market places can be larger or smaller. For some, the gap is small, and it makes way more sense to just trade-in to Apple and avoid the hassle / potential scams. For others, the gap can be quite large, and it could be worth giving a sale a shot first.

 

[bursthead]

I also just did the downgrade from a 14" M1 Pro MBP to a 15" M4 MBA. I realized over the past few years I don't really need the power of the MBP - with the advent of the Apple silicon chips (and even more so now that we're on the 4th generation), the power of the base M4 (non-Pro and non-Max) chips is more than enough power for the vast majority of people. Quite a bit of difference vs pre-Apple silicon days, when it was Intel chips... was a larger delta between MBA and MBP, or more specifically, the MBA didn't cover as many people's power needs, as it does today.

Throughout my time with my 14" M1 Pro MBP, I don't think I ever heard the fans spins up. I've read many an anecdote about the same. Agree with others, based on your use case, I think the 15" M4 MBA will work out great. And vs the MBP, the M4 MBA just came out a few months ago, so there isn't an imminent M5 refresh coming.

You could think about a place like Swappa perhaps, depending on what the trade-in value is at Apple? For certain models, the gap between Apple trade-in and "Fair Market Value" on secondary market places can be larger or smaller. For some, the gap is small, and it makes way more sense to just trade-in to Apple and avoid the hassle / potential scams. For others, the gap can be quite large, and it could be worth giving a sale a shot first.

I ended up getting a macbook air 15 from best buy today. I'm going to do a trial run on it and see how it fairs. You are completely on point about the performance and quality of apple silicone.

It's pretty sad the amount of scams that are out there. I do not trust buying anything used (apple products) these days from offerup or facebook marketplace.

 

[IJustWannaTalk]

Is the loss of active cooling going to be pretty detrimental? I write alot of papers have over 15-20 tabs open all the time with all the office apps running in the background. I do occasionally like to watch a movie from time to time on it.

Nope. These activities will barely tax the MBA.
Nothing listed will be an issue.

 

[sumprimum]

I also just did the downgrade from a 14" M1 Pro MBP to a 15" M4 MBA. I realized over the past few years I don't really need the power of the MBP - with the advent of the Apple silicon chips (and even more so now that we're on the 4th generation), the power of the base M4 (non-Pro and non-Max) chips is more than enough power for the vast majority of people. Quite a bit of difference vs pre-Apple silicon days, when it was Intel chips... was a larger delta between MBA and MBP, or more specifically, the MBA didn't cover as many people's power needs, as it does today.

Throughout my time with my 14" M1 Pro MBP, I don't think I ever heard the fans spins up. I've read many an anecdote about the same. Agree with others, based on your use case, I think the 15" M4 MBA will work out great. And vs the MBP, the M4 MBA just came out a few months ago, so there isn't an imminent M5 refresh coming.

You could think about a place like Swappa perhaps, depending on what the trade-in value is at Apple? For certain models, the gap between Apple trade-in and "Fair Market Value" on secondary market places can be larger or smaller. For some, the gap is small, and it makes way more sense to just trade-in to Apple and avoid the hassle / potential scams. For others, the gap can be quite large, and it could be worth giving a sale a shot first.

How would you rate the difference in screen size and quality? And what about typing experience — does thinness of mba make any difference?

 

[Christopher Kim]

I notice the difference in screen size for sure, going from 14" MBP to 15" MBA. Screen quality, I don't really notice the difference... maybe ever so slightly when I'm scrolling text quickly on a webpage, I sort of "ghost" remember that the MBP was a little smoother given the 120hz vs 60hz. But honestly, part of it is that I'm a techy guy / Apple enthusiast / MR member (lol), so I'm sort of looking for it. So maybe it's slightly there, but also might be somewhat psychological. Main take-away is that I don't miss the ProMotion at all (whereas, I do think I would miss it if I lost ProMotion on my iPhone or my iPad).

Otherwise, I don't notice anything else different about the screen. I don't watch any HDR content, so didn't benefit from the MBP screen from that aspect. And even when watching movies / YouTube, I don't notice the Mini-LED difference / contrast, black levels, etc. at all. The 15" MBA has a still beautiful screen - Apple has always made fantastic screens, even if on paper, the refresh rate / max nits of brightness / specs may not be as impressive as those from other mfgs.

In terms of keyboard / typing experience - I actually am finding myself preferring the tactile experience of the 15" MBA keyboard vs the 14" MBP. I don't know if there's been any tweaks to the keyboard in the 14" MBP since 2021... but just based on my comparison, the 15" MBA feels more satisfying. So I actually would say +1 to the MBA keyboard - but again, not scientific, just vibes!

Lastly, I do notice the difference in the thinness of the MBA. I use my 15" MBA on my lap a lot in bed - it feels great. And will reiterate the view from others that the MBA never gets warm during normal usage.

 

[StoneJack]

How would you rate the difference in screen size and quality? And what about typing experience — does thinness of mba make any difference?

As an owner of both devices, I would say: the differences are so negligible in everyday use so I'd say that there is no difference. Speakers on MBA are also extremely good and quite loud too, you don't miss anything. Keyboard on Air is excellent. My devices: macbook pro m3 14 inch (exchanged) and macbook air m4 15 inch (current).

 

[Christopher Kim]

As an owner of both devices, I would say: the differences are so negligible in everyday use so I'd say that there is no difference. Speakers on MBA are also extremely good and quite loud too, you don't miss anything. Keyboard on Air is excellent. My devices: macbook pro m3 14 inch (exchanged) and macbook air m4 15 inch (current).

Out of curiosity, what did Apple give you on trade-in value for your 14" M3 MBP? They're offering $625 on my 14" 2021 M1 Pro MBP... The "FMV" based on Swappa feels like it's closer to $900 given it's a 32GB / 1TB config, and has excellent battery health still (94% with 167 cycles). My 14" MBP was a $2899 config when I bought it!

This is one of those situations where I might just give it to a family member - whether $625 or $900, I feel like the "value" of the computer is a lot more to someone, and would make a great gift.

 

[Mac_Professor]

I don't think you will be disappointed. I got a 14inch MacBook Pro Max, even got an Ivanky dock powering 3 monitors. I still use my M1 MacBook Air 95% of the time as it does everything and its light, I can put it into my backpack when I travel and I connect it to a 32inch 4k monitor in a nook in living room so I'm rarely up in my office. The 15inch Air will handle everything you need. Unfortunately for me I used Getupgraded to get the laptop so I'm stuck for 2 yrs at least unless I get full price to pay it off. Believe it or not I still use my M2 Mac mini pro for a large portion of work and for what I do I do not notice a difference in performance in basic tasks, multiple tabs, basic video editing, running Windows vm all with 16gb of ram and superfast external M2 drive. Go figure I wish I never ordered the M4 as I realized I was happy with what I had.

 

[StoneJack]

Out of curiosity, what did Apple give you on trade-in value for your 14" M3 MBP? They're offering $625 on my 14" 2021 M1 Pro MBP... The "FMV" based on Swappa feels like it's closer to $900 given it's a 32GB / 1TB config, and has excellent battery health still (94% with 167 cycles). My 14" MBP was a $2899 config when I bought it!

This is one of those situations where I might just give it to a family member - whether $625 or $900, I feel like the "value" of the computer is a lot more to someone, and would make a great gift.

Yes it was around 600 dollars indeed

 

[helloapple1]

I don't think you will be disappointed. I got a 14inch MacBook Pro Max, even got an Ivanky dock powering 3 monitors. I still use my M1 MacBook Air 95% of the time as it does everything and its light, I can put it into my backpack when I travel and I connect it to a 32inch 4k monitor in a nook in living room so I'm rarely up in my office. The 15inch Air will handle everything you need. Unfortunately for me I used Getupgraded to get the laptop so I'm stuck for 2 yrs at least unless I get full price to pay it off. Believe it or not I still use my M2 Mac mini pro for a large portion of work and for what I do I do not notice a difference in performance in basic tasks, multiple tabs, basic video editing, running Windows vm all with 16gb of ram and superfast external M2 drive. Go figure I wish I never ordered the M4 as I realized I was happy with what I had.

Will you sell your 14” MBP?