Hi all, I need to pickup a MBA for graduate school research. I'll be doing the basics - lots of Chrome tabs and Office apps. I have been using Windows for a few years but would like something with a large screen and great battery life. I will be keeping my Windows laptop for advanced Excel and other Windows only applications.
I had my eye on the Space Grey 15" MBA for several months. I like how it looks good in an office environment. I'm not a fan of colorful or light laptops. I know this might sound ridiculous, but I'm thinking of ordering a M3 15" MBA for $100 less through a third party retailer. I don't really care about the camera upgrade and only use 2 monitors with the laptop closed at most. How big is the difference between M3 and M4? Is it stupid to buy the M3 version at a discount because I prefer the color?
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Hello Jarousin,
I cannot comment on the M3 performance, since I don't have one. I can talk about my experience with a 15" Air M4 32/1T midnight. I also can tell you that my previous machine was a 16" M1 Pro 16/1T in space gray.
I liked the Pro in almost every aspect, I never heard the fans, but size and weight was always an issue. I considered the 14" pro but for me it is too small to work effectively without an external screen all the time. I am also a student, but also a teacher so my use case can be similar to yours.
I understand the color dilema, a computer we like to look at and use is more productive. I like black colors on devices, although my 15 pro is white because of a good deal, but I use a black case and the front is black anyway. My biggest concern was about fingerprints, honestly they are somehow visible, but not much.
The experience has been so far fantastic. The processor temperatures are similar to M1 Pro, typically less than 40ºC, and even on the lap the computer is very comfortable. With the Pro it was not as pleasant mainly because of the weight. Here are some photos comparing a M1 2020 Air (previous version without the notch), the Air and the Pro.
I find the M4 faster than the M1 Pro that I had, and cannot really see, unless side by side, the difference in display quality (I don't have HDR content). Side by side there are differences in the blacks, but the 120Hz promotion is, to me, a gimmick. For working in documents, coding, browsing and mail I cannot see a manifest difference.
The battery life is just mind blowing. Writing, coding, browsing, mail, Wi-Fi on and BT the computer draws around 4w. I use aldente and limit battery charge to 85% with 7% sailing. I placed a matte screen protector that was satisfactory for some days, then it started showing dust so I removed it. I never saw a nano display in person to compare, but those are just available on the pro, which I think is adequate for the user target. The Air could benefit from it, but I doubt many people would buy it anyway, it is more expensive and from what I saw on images and videos the image is not as sharp (as well as with the screen protector I was using).
The. sound is amazing on the Pro. But in my use case I used it maybe 4/5 times in more than 2 years of ownership, and of those 2 were to show my colleagues 😂. I prefer earphones/headphones. But if you use the computer sound for music and to be engaged the Air 15 is clearly inferior in this aspect. Not so in terms of maximum volume, but more on bass. It is just not in the same league.
Next ports. Yes, it would be better to have ports on opposite sides of the computer, but only the headphone jack is present on the right side. I believe it has always been like that on the Airs, it makes the construction easier I guess. Since it has magsafe at least there are two fully available ports. Would I trade the magsafe for a third port? Yes. Even more if that port was on the other side.
I don't miss HDMI or SD card slot. I am not a graphics/photographer worker. For an external display I have a 30e USB-C hub that connects one port to HDMI, Ethernet, Power and extra USB ports. On some occasions I use a portable monitor (16" 2,5k from AZORPA) that makes it even better since I don't have to power the display.
As for the M3 vs M4. I would not consider the software support time as a differentiator. M1 is 5 years old and it will still have support for more 2 or 3 at least. I believe even more, I would expect around 10 years since launch. Surely it will show its limitations in AI support and some features will lag or start to be unavailable. Not an issue for M3.
The differentiator is real dual monitor support, better GPU, more CPU cores and faster memory interface, energy efficiency due to optimized node, 2x faster neural engine.
Will that make me spend 200USD/euro more in the same configuration? Yes, that is around 10% on a 32/1T version and it would be difficult to find a 24G version of M3 here, most are 16G and 512GB SSD at most.
Mine costed 2374e with education discount. For comparison a 14 Pro with same configuration would cost me 2554e. The nano display would cost more 171e, reaching 2725.
Feel free to ask me anything about the machine, I'll try to help.
