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It'll probably last 10 years like the current one.
10 hours more battery life. (on Paper).
CPU IS at least twice as fast.
SSD is 2x to 3x as fast (depending on configuration).
Better screen (brighter & better contrast ratio).
1/4lb lighter.
Much Better Webcam.
Silent
Will support more up-to-date OS features.

Most of all it won't cook your Gonads if you are watching youtube videos.

But specs aren't everything. If you are happy with the current machine, and it's fast enough for your daily needs then there's no real reason to ditch the ol' girl yet except to treat yourself. Personally I prefer the keyboards on the older Macbooks.

Last thing to bear in mind, is that your current Macbook might be worth $300-400 depending on it's condition.
Thanks very much, exactly what i was looking for. Really helpful. Think I might just wait till the new machine has decent discount and then reconsider.
Thanks again :)
 
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You aren't going to get promotion on an Air. Just like the phones, it always going to be reserved for the Pro models.
I would think that at some point, Apple will introduce 90hz panels for the Air and regular iPhones. But ProMotion probably will be only for the Pro models, as you said.
 
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I would think that at some point, Apple will introduce 90hz panels for the Air and regular iPhones. But ProMotion probably will be only for the Pro models, as you said.
Probably at some point. I think ProMotion is so overblown though. I went from the 16" MacBook Pro to the 15" Air and I really can't tell a difference. I also use a Pro Display XDR with a Mac Studio and it doesn't have ProMotion but it’s the best display I've ever owned. I know to some people it’s a big deal but a lot of people like me can absolutely live without it.
 
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I just don't see any scenario in which someone can talk me into believing any color is better than Midnight. He pulls that starlight one out, then shows off the Midnight MBA and I could swear I saw light shine from the heavens. It is the best color MacBook they have ever made, with and without fingerprints.
 
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The wedge is a lie! 😊

That wedge shape fools your eyes into thinking the device is thinner when it’s really thicker through most of the case. The new designs are more honest in that regard.

For better or worse, Apple seems to have decided that their consumer line will be called Air. Part of that is the historical strength of customers willingness to buy the Air even when there was a “MacBook”.

Another reason is to differentiate the consumer line from the Pro line. They are all MacBooks. If you didn’t have the Air suffix, referring to it would be clumsy. Just calling it MacBook would not always be enough. You would find yourself referring to it as the ”Non-Pro MacBook” which is an inelegant phrase. We see that problem with the low end model iPad. What do we call that? The “cheap iPad”? I guess, but it would be easier with a suffix. Same with the best selling MacBooks who deserve to have their own name “Air”.
Thanks for the detailed reply. It's a good point about the fact they are all MacBooks. That said, we don't have the iPhone Air and iPhone Pro, but I see the point, and the iPhones are similar sizes.

As for the wedge, I am still amazed it is true that the wedge has the larger volume (although I don't doubt it is true). Next time you are in a Mac store, put an M1 and M2 next to each other, and look at them side-on. The M1 is marginally thicker than the M2 for the final 3 cm or maybe 4 cm, and for the rest of its length it is thinner. It's a mystery to me!
 
I just don't see any scenario in which someone can talk me into believing any color is better than Midnight. He pulls that starlight one out, then shows off the Midnight MBA and I could swear I saw light shine from the heavens. It is the best color MacBook they have ever made, with and without fingerprints.

100% agree.
 
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once this gets more power (e.g. @M3, or M4) I’ll replace my M1Max MacBookPro with it
 
Could someone please take the time to explain why I would benefit from one of these. I would love one of these machines but I'm just an average consumer and I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013), 2.6 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3. It works perfectly and seems to me as good/quick as the day I bought it nearly 10 years ago..
Why should I get this 15 MBA?
I'm in the same boat: 2.8 early 2013 BTO 16/512
 
Could someone please take the time to explain why I would benefit from one of these. I would love one of these machines but I'm just an average consumer and I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013), 2.6 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3. It works perfectly and seems to me as good/quick as the day I bought it nearly 10 years ago..
Why should I get this 15 MBA?
I can’t tell you why you should get it, but I will say this. It sounds like you and I both have a similar 2013 MBP. Mine has the dual graphics cards and the i7-4960HQ. 16GB RAM and 1TB hard drive space. Essentially handles everything I throw at it to this day.

The sucker still works and remains my daily driver. The only issue is that it has once suffered the ballooning of a battery, and the case is somewhat coming apart.

I have the M1 MBA and that thing destroys my MBP. Why isn’t it my daily driver then? Because I still prefer a larger laptop, but I definitely love the MBA. It’s cool (figuratively and literally), fast, and silent. No fan is a selling point for me.

I will be waiting for the M3 and then reevaluating whether I want a larger MBA or a new MBP to take me through the next decade.
 
I can’t tell you why you should get it, but I will say this. It sounds like you and I both have a similar 2013 MBP. Mine has the dual graphics cards and the i7-4960HQ. 16GB RAM and 1TB hard drive space. Essentially handles everything I throw at it to this day.

The sucker still works and remains my daily driver. The only issue is that it has once suffered the ballooning of a battery, and the case is somewhat coming apart.

I have the M1 MBA and that thing destroys my MBP. Why isn’t it my daily driver then? Because I still prefer a larger laptop, but I definitely love the MBA. It’s cool (figuratively and literally), fast, and silent. No fan is a selling point for me.

I will be waiting for the M3 and then reevaluating whether I want a larger MBA or a new MBP to take me through the next decade.
2.8 i7 here, I can't justify a new yet...I'm shocked that the m1 works that well..but pleased to hear it's actually better
 
2.8 i7 here, I can't justify a new yet...I'm shocked that the m1 works that well..but pleased to hear it's actually better
Longer story.

The ballooning of my MBP during the pandemic created a somewhat panic scenario. Got an early 2020 MBA i7 so that I could keep working from home.

First thing I noticed from both the feel and synthetic benchmarks is that it was very similar to my MBP. I could count on tasks to be processed in a similar amount of time. Things like Handbrake, for instance.

Then the M1 was released and I thought on it for a few months. The i7 MBA was still very nice, but I dropped the money on the M1 version. I was immediately blown away by the fact that Apple was not exaggerating. The speed difference between the i7 MBA (and 2013 i7 MBP) was night and day. Again, Handbrake was my first measurement. Just glided through conversions like they were nothing. Was even more fun to watch the M1 beat the i7 in *emulated* i7 benchmarks on Geekbench. Coming from the old world of PPC emulating x86, this was unheard of. Lol

Finally, after all that, I was able to get Apple to repair the MBP. After months of two MBA use, I still was drawn to the 15” screen of the MBP.
 
I can’t tell you why you should get it, but I will say this. It sounds like you and I both have a similar 2013 MBP. Mine has the dual graphics cards and the i7-4960HQ. 16GB RAM and 1TB hard drive space. Essentially handles everything I throw at it to this day.

The sucker still works and remains my daily driver. The only issue is that it has once suffered the ballooning of a battery, and the case is somewhat coming apart.

I have the M1 MBA and that thing destroys my MBP. Why isn’t it my daily driver then? Because I still prefer a larger laptop, but I definitely love the MBA. It’s cool (figuratively and literally), fast, and silent. No fan is a selling point for me.

I will be waiting for the M3 and then reevaluating whether I want a larger MBA or a new MBP to take me through the next decade.
understood, and thanks for reply. Everyone else in the house has 13inch macs a couple of them the 13" M2 air which are great machines but i prefer to use my old 15 as its simply that bit bigger and easier on my eyes.
My 2013 MBP also has the dual graphics but as the other guy said it does cook my gonads at times. Still a very capable machine for almost 10yrs old.
 
Could someone please take the time to explain why I would benefit from one of these. I would love one of these machines but I'm just an average consumer and I have a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013), 2.6 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3. It works perfectly and seems to me as good/quick as the day I bought it nearly 10 years ago..
Why should I get this 15 MBA?
If your MBP is truly working for you, then perhaps you can just save your money, put it into something that will increase in value instead of depreciate. The M-series Macs are incredible nice and have far far bettery battery life -- but there will always be a newer and better one on the horizon when you've outgrown the MBP you have.
 
I got sick of space grey and chose silver for my 14”, love how it looks like my 2006 MBP just thinner. And the wedge was always ugly to me, at the time it made sense but now it seems like Apple can have both thinness and uniformity
Wedge was ugly to me too. I'm surprised so many people want the wedge back. I considered it a cheat for making the notebook look thinner that it actually was.
 
Can I ask a favor macrumors. Literally THE thing that differentiates this computer from others and the reason that you buy it is the screen size. So can we get some comparisons of the 15" Macbook Air SCREEN next to other laptops doing things that actually take advantage of a large screen (ie showing a single small window in the center of the screen or a screen saver is not helpful). I'd love to see a comparison of the 15", 14" and 13" viewing 2 documents by side for example. I think a lot of people are wondering if the screen size of the 15" is significant enough to warrant either A) spending more money over the 13" MBA, or B) giving up the better specs and ports of the 14" MBP.

Just a suggestion for the full video review.
I compared a 13" to a 14" in the store side by side and the displays appeared equal to me. I have to be taught that the 14" is a better screen—that somehow I will notice a variable refresh rate of the 14" during scrolling (!!) or the brightness of the screen during a movie (Mac OS has a limit to 500 nits).

15" is a measurable noticeable difference with an obvious benefit.
 
Here is how 15.3" m2 at ~3:2 aspect ratio compares to 13.3" m1 mba at 16:10 aspect ratio:

1686754125177.png



via http://www.displaywars.com/13,3-inch-16x10-vs-15,3-inch-3x2

The 15" has ~36% larger area. The notch complicates things a bit, whether you define the whole screen as usable.

As a 16:9 display, the 15" has 27% larger area.

I currently own both machines and the 15 feels perfect. The 13" m1 was a great computer and I still love it but the screen on this new machine is far more functional in my opinion. I also prefer this body to the old tapered style.
 
Yes then it renders properly - but it is significantly smaller. My eyes aren't what they used to be, so the more space setting doesn't really work for me.
I use "More Space" and wear reading glasses. Cheaper than buying a new laptop with a bigger screen :)

However, I'd then just use "More Space" on the new laptop, so I'm considering upgrading (from a 2020 MBA) anyway.
 
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