M3 Max MBP 48gb Ram Vs New M4 Air 32gb Ram for coding and video editing?

[techspark]

Hi, I presently have the 16 inch macbook pro with 48 gb ram and m3 max processor, its a very powerful machine but its not very portable and lap friendly.

I work from cafes a lot, travel a lot and want something light and portable, the pro is too heavy and with its charger it gets too heavy to manage and carry it around.

I am getting $1600 for my macbook pro and if I buy the new m4 air 15 inch with 32gb ram I barely have to pay anything additional. Now my question is will it be a BIG downgrade in terms of performance?

I use the machine for following:

1. Editing youtube videos in premier pro - usually 1080p and 4k videos around 10min in length - max 1 video per day.

2. Using Photoshop to edit thumbnails

3. Using xcode to code ios apps - I presently connect it to one external monitor.

4. The normal web surfing, facetime and watching content on youtube, have around 15-20 tabs opened in chrome at a time, and have around 4-5 apps running in the backgroud like photshop, excel, whatsapp and chatgpt.

I am okay if my rendering takes 7 mins instead of 5 mins, my compiling takes a few extra seconds, I am okay with the trade off.

My Pro is 1 year old now, I am only getting 50% of the value I paid a year back, so is this a worthy consideration? Will i see substantial difference in performance for my use case and is the Air's screen as good as the pro or will I immediately notice it and regret it?

Although I am okay with slightly longer compile and redering times but I would not be okay with lag while coding or editing in the timeline, will the macbook air be as good as the pro in this regard?

Is there anyone here who has downgraded from a pro to air and how did you feel about it?

Just looking for some thoughts before I make the leap. Thanks!

 

[Howard2k]

Are you maxing out the M3 Max today? Have you watched Activity Monitor?

In terms of raw horsepower there's no comparison at all for multicore performance, the M3 Max is around 1.5x as fast, though single core will be close between the two. And GPU on the Max should also be substantially better.

But if you're only pushing your current machine to 5% of its potential then you're not going to notice much difference.

Best thing to do is look at Activity Monitor when you're compiling or encoding and see how hard it's working when you're doing these tasks.

For the screen, only you can determine that. For some the Air screen is unusable. For others it's totally fine.


EDIT: The pro also has active cooling, the MBA does not.

 

[techspark]

Thanks for your answer. I checked out the 15 inch air today at the apple store and although the weight and size difference is significant I was not too impressed with the screen and the trade off I was making in performance. It also has 18 hrs batter life vs 22 hours on my pro and I am thinking i will just carry my pro without the charger and keep it charged at night and that should make it more portable and maybe I will exchange it next year for an m5 or m6 air and by then hopefully there will be more ram available. Thanks for your inputs, appreciate it!