Macbook for Programming M2 Air vs Pro 14

[proximazen]

So, im a student and for next years courses ill need a Macbook for learning IOS developement. Ill not only be using it for Xcode/IOS but also for learning game developement in Unity with C# and web developement where ill be part of a team developing ReactJS projects and running rest APIs in NodeJS and .Net Core. Im trying to get away with paying as little as possible since im a poor student so id rather not spend more than needed, but i also dont want to be barely chugging along. I hate it when the laptop noticeably slows down.

So i was considering the M2 Air because of its no-fan profile and lightweight profile considering ill be chugging it along to tons of different places. I generally prefer 13" laptops. However, i was concerned with it being powerful enough to do Unity developement?

I can configure it with either 16 or 24gigs of memory, i was wondering if i could get away with 16Gigs when running APIs and emulators at the same time or if i should spring for 24 gigs?

But, if i spring for 24 gigs im not that far away from an M1 Pro 14" with an 8Core CPU and 32 gigs of ram.

Any advice?

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

Check out Alex Ziskind on YouTube. He’s a professional coder that has tested all the new MacBooks and is pretty enjoyable to watch and I’m not even into that type of stuff.

 

[Zorori]

So, im a student and for next years courses ill need a Macbook for learning IOS developement. Ill not only be using it for Xcode/IOS but also for learning game developement in Unity with C# and web developement where ill be part of a team developing ReactJS projects and running rest APIs in NodeJS and .Net Core. Im trying to get away with paying as little as possible since im a poor student so id rather not spend more than needed, but i also dont want to be barely chugging along. I hate it when the laptop noticeably slows down.

So i was considering the M2 Air because of its no-fan profile and lightweight profile considering ill be chugging it along to tons of different places. I generally prefer 13" laptops. However, i was concerned with it being powerful enough to do Unity developement?

I can configure it with either 16 or 24gigs of memory, i was wondering if i could get away with 16Gigs when running APIs and emulators at the same time or if i should spring for 24 gigs?

But, if i spring for 24 gigs im not that far away from an M1 Pro 14" with an 8Core CPU and 32 gigs of ram.

Any advice?

Air should do all that. I do on an M1 and previously on various slower (and hotter!) Intel MBP 13s

16gb will also handle all that. 24gb is nice to have for tools like Kubernetes, you don't need it for simple Docker setups

 

[Gudi]

The cheapest M1 Mac is already too fast for every student.

 

[Toutou]

16 GB M2 Air and you’re set comfortably. Or even M1 Air if you don’t mind the older design.