m1 13'' mbp vs air?

[semistandard]

A positive side effect of m1 pro/max macbook pro's being released is that the price of 13 inch version went down.
I have seen 16 inch 1tb version of mbp13 being sold almost as same price as air with same configuration... Now I am curious - does 13 mbp has any real advantages over the air? Because air has 2 clear advantages - weight and function keys that are missing from the mbp 13'' version.

I had a thought about getting a m1 pro/max... However I am not sure they are worth the price difference.
1. Price.
2. For CPU intensive tasks m1 is still very fast.
3. 16 gb ram is not that bad.
4. GPU performance gains are not relevant for things I care about - ML and gaming performance. Gaming has poorly supported on macs and for doing ML not on the cloud - one needs an NVIDIA GPU at the moment of writing. I do not mean to insult anyone here... I might have considered m1 max/pro if I were a film maker, photographer or Youtuber... (I am wrong about this point, feel free to correct me...).

 

[maerz001]

The M1 mbpro has better cooling, more battery and brighter display.
Touchbar is a personal taste. I prefer it

 

[tomstone74]

Have been in a similar situation deciding what MacBook should be my first MacOS device, as long-term Windows user. In the Windows world, I'm using a DeskMini X300 config (AMD 5600G, 64GB RAM, 1TB SDD) as my Desktop-PC and I can't leave that world, cause I have to maintain some Windows based applications I have written in the past.

My first MacOS device should be to get into MacOS, in particular I would like to learn more about XCode/Swift (I'm a DEV guy), no real usage for some serious video/photo editing stuff. I won't travel with the MB, cause it's outside my day job, so just for fun, but still, a full desktop solution ala Mac Mini isn't an option either. For consuming media on the couch or on the ergo meter etc., I also have an iPad Pro 12,9" 2018, which is perfect for that.

I was forth and back between 14" and 16". Had a look on those in a store several times. Watched a lot of Youtube videos on the new machines. Do I need 32GB (or even more) for my DEV / getting into MacOS use case or is 16GB sufficient etc. All those questions which are discussed in this MacBook Pro forum to death .

Then I went back a few steps, watched again Youtbue videos, read reviews etc. on the MBA M1. And the heck, I'm 90% sure now, this is all I would need for my first MacOS / XCode / Swift experience, also not with an absurd shipment date.

Sure, the new MBP have more ports, bigger screens, all gorgeous, but at the end, for my use case, I will go with a MBA Refurbished, once a 16G/512G config pops up at Apple and then will reconsider going larger, heavier, more pricey whatever, once I'm used to the new world resp. if one or another issue has been potentially fixed/improved in the new MBP area coming 2+ years.

 

[madat42]

I chose the M1 mb pro 13 over the Air because it had an overall slightly better screen, sound, battery life, and active but quiet cooling. Weight’s not an issue for me as the Pro is 3 lbs and the Air is 2.8. All that being said if the Air had been closer to 2.5 lbs, I’d have gone with that.