MBA vs MBP (i5, 256GB, 16GB RAM)

[thequicksilver]

Screwdrivers make horrible hammers too.

Buy the tool for the job you need to do.

Very happy with my MBA - it runs cool and silent most of the time. My usage is low power with occasional brief bursts of CPU - such as exporting RAW photos - then I hear a fan for a minute and go silent again.

You also forgot to mention the MBP is 8th gen CPU vs MBA's 10th gen CPU. Why is that?

@galaxy6 - you need to decide if your usage is going to be CPU intensive or mostly light usage, which also has an impact on spec'd battery life (MBA longer). If you're going to run video conversions or games or other sustained cpu loads, then the MBP is likely a better fit. For safari, mail, photo editing, organization, etc my MBA has been working great. The MBA's wedge shape also gives a different feel than the MBP's squared off nose. Either way, buy from a place you can return/exchange if you wish.

Hi, interesting post, and some good advice here, especially on the exchange point. There's a couple of things I'd add here.

Background: current machine is a 2016 12" retina Macbook, I bought and returned a 2020 i5 / 16 / 512 MBA for reasons I'll explain below, and I've ordered an i5 10th gen Intel MBP to replace it. I also have a powerful desktop that I use for anything taxing.

The heat situation on the MBA is overblown in most circumstances. However I was surprised on the MBA at some of the things that got it hot. The killer for me was 60fps 1080p video playback, videos I shot on my phone. 90+ºC, fans full speed, with quite a few frame drops. This was one of the problems I was trying to solve from my rMB.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: you said "If you're going to run video conversions or games or other sustained cpu loads, then the MBP is likely a better fit." - I 100% agree with you. But in my pretty short time with the Air, I was alarmed at what things caused sustained CPU loads. I don't consider 60fps video playback a pro level feature.

Ultimately - for me at least - the absolutely beautiful Air form factor (seriously, it is a stunning machine) can't trump the performance constraints in my use case.

TL;DR: If you go for the Air, there's a strong chance you'll love it, but make sure you can return easily if the performance doesn't meet your needs.

 

[deeddawg]

The heat situation on the MBA is overblown in most circumstances. However I was surprised on the MBA at some of the things that got it hot. The killer for me was 60fps 1080p video playback, videos I shot on my phone. 90+ºC, fans full speed, with quite a few frame drops. This was one of the problems I was trying to solve from my rMB.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: you said "If you're going to run video conversions or games or other sustained cpu loads, then the MBP is likely a better fit." - I 100% agree with you. But in my pretty short time with the Air, I was alarmed at what things caused sustained CPU loads. I don't consider 60fps video playback a pro level feature.

Thank you for your kind words.

As for your experience with video, that's interesting - I'd expect video playback to be normal usage so it's interesting you have that experience.

While I don't do much video on my MBA (when I watch television shows I use my ATV4K), I have brought up a couple of Alton Brown Good Eats Reloaded youtube videos at 1080p and never detected the fan turning on, even doing one of them in Chrome.

I dug into Photos for a couple 1080p videos from my iphone XS and they seem to be 30fps -- and don't seem to cause any fan noise or heat.

What phone did you shoot the video on and how'd you set it to do 60fps? I'm happy to try something here.

 

[thequicksilver]

I dug into Photos for a couple 1080p videos from my iphone XS and they seem to be 30fps -- and don't seem to cause any fan noise or heat.

What phone did you shoot the video on and how'd you set it to do 60fps? I'm happy to try something here.

Heresy on a Mac forum I know… but I use a OnePlus 6. 😲

Shot using the default camera app there's options for 1080p30, 1080p60, 4K30 and 4K60, all H.264 MP4 files. I tend to use 1080p60 for any sporting events. I tried playback using my normal apps - IINA, VLC and Plex, where most of my collection is stored.

Incidentally the 4K30 ones were much better in terms of frame drops, but had the same heat effect (90+ºC instantly) which I was OK with - not a frequent activity on a 13" ultrabook.

 

[bill-p]

Screwdrivers make horrible hammers too.

Buy the tool for the job you need to do.

Agreed. Well put.

So... just to chime in, I got a MBA i5 2020. Promptly returned it within the week. It just doesn't work for me.

My usage involves:
1. Google Chrome for website debug, and occasional media consumption at 4K. The MBA will heat up and go crazy if I hit any video that has a 4K option, regardless if 4K is playing or not since 1080p is also encoded in VP9, which is not hardware accelerated. Luckily... I don't try to do Chrome for everything, so let's just say the MBA was passable here.
2. Code compilation. Needless to say, this was not happy with the MacBook Air.
3. Photo editing with Capture One Pro and Lightroom. Neither is truly happy with the MacBook Air. The stock Photos app was... passable but nowhere near as powerful as the other tools.
4. Playing Spotify in Safari while in VS Code. Should be easy enough? Nope. Hit 90 degrees with the MacBook Air and even my mouse cursor would lag.

So with that said, the MacBook Air just isn't for me. My 2018 MBP 13" is... faster, cooler, and actually even quieter.

I got a 16" MBP now to replace the 13" and while the 16" is indeed a bit overkill for the other use case, it's allowed me to get rid of my Windows laptop as well.

 

[deeddawg]

Heresy on a Mac forum I know… but I use a OnePlus 6. 😲

Shot using the default camera app there's options for 1080p30, 1080p60, 4K30 and 4K60, all H.264 MP4 files. I tend to use 1080p60 for any sporting events. I tried playback using my normal apps - IINA, VLC and Plex, where most of my collection is stored.

Incidentally the 4K30 ones were much better in terms of frame drops, but had the same heat effect (90+ºC instantly) which I was OK with - not a frequent activity on a 13" ultrabook.

*shrug* - I don't care about brands, I care about what does what I need done and works well with the other stuff I have. I hear the OnePlus6 is a nice phone.

My only guess is a video codec something forcing the MBA to decode in software. I found and played some 1080p 30fps stuff from my phone and my MBA doesn't seem to notice.

 

[deeddawg]

Agreed. Well put.

So... just to chime in, I got a MBA i5 2020. Promptly returned it within the week. It just doesn't work for me.

My usage involves:
1. Google Chrome for website debug, and occasional media consumption at 4K. The MBA will heat up and go crazy if I hit any video that has a 4K option, regardless if 4K is playing or not since 1080p is also encoded in VP9, which is not hardware accelerated. Luckily... I don't try to do Chrome for everything, so let's just say the MBA was passable here.
2. Code compilation. Needless to say, this was not happy with the MacBook Air.
3. Photo editing with Capture One Pro and Lightroom. Neither is truly happy with the MacBook Air. The stock Photos app was... passable but nowhere near as powerful as the other tools.
4. Playing Spotify in Safari while in VS Code. Should be easy enough? Nope. Hit 90 degrees with the MacBook Air and even my mouse cursor would lag.

So with that said, the MacBook Air just isn't for me. My 2018 MBP 13" is... faster, cooler, and actually even quieter.

I got a 16" MBP now to replace the 13" and while the 16" is indeed a bit overkill for the other use case, it's allowed me to get rid of my Windows laptop as well.

Good inputs.

#1 - interesting, and that perhaps explains why I wasn't seeing any performance issue with 1080p video on youtube in chrome playing around with Alton Brown Good Eats Reloaded episodes yesterday and today. Max 1080p, so perhaps a codec that's supported in hardware.

#2 - yep, probably not a match for a MBA if you're frequently compiling code.

#3 - haven't done much with LR so far, mostly just PhotoMechanic culling stuff - but so far it's seemed okay. I have a MBP15 on a dual monitor clamshell setup for when I'm doing serious photo editting - my MBA is a sofa/travel/portability system replacing an old 12" MB

#4 - that seems really odd - but I don't use spotify so no idea what it's resource utilization is but that's strange.

Anyway, best of luck with the MBP16 - nice system.

 

[bill-p]

Good inputs.

#1 - interesting, and that perhaps explains why I wasn't seeing any performance issue with 1080p video on youtube in chrome playing around with Alton Brown Good Eats Reloaded episodes yesterday and today. Max 1080p, so perhaps a codec that's supported in hardware.

#2 - yep, probably not a match for a MBA if you're frequently compiling code.

#3 - haven't done much with LR so far, mostly just PhotoMechanic culling stuff - but so far it's seemed okay. I have a MBP15 on a dual monitor clamshell setup for when I'm doing serious photo editting - my MBA is a sofa/travel/portability system replacing an old 12" MB

#4 - that seems really odd - but I don't use spotify so no idea what it's resource utilization is but that's strange.

Anyway, best of luck with the MBP16 - nice system.

#1 Yeah... Youtube is weird like that. If you use Chrome and you hit a video that has 4K option, it'll force VP9 even on 1080p. For example:

Force 1080p, then right click the video, choose "Stats for Nerd". It'll show VP9.

#2 Yeah, I compile codes a lot. Kinda what I do.

#3 Let's just say LR is probably the most bloated photo editing software in existence. Well, maybe second to Photoshop. Capture One Pro is far better, but... let's just say the MBA is not up to par with the MBP here.

#4 Probably some runaway javascript. But the MBA can't deal with that. Tidal is pretty much the same way. Youtube in Safari is pretty cool, though, for the most part. But still, the fans hum softly with the MBA. The MBP stays silent.

And thanks, the 16" has been nice. I have had it for some weeks now and found that some of the issues people have reported are not really issues for me, or I don't see them with my machine at all. It's certainly overkill for some tasks, but the extra horse power is very much appreciated for the 3D modeling and shader programming tasks I used to do on the Windows machines.

 

[deeddawg]

#3 Let's just say LR is probably the most bloated photo editing software in existence. Well, maybe second to Photoshop. Capture One Pro is far better, but... let's just say the MBA is not up to par with the MBP here.

I've been on LR since given a license to v1.0 due to Adobe's purchase of Pixmantec

Agree on the bloatware aspect.

I was really hoping Luminar4 would allow me to finally leave LR - I'd stayed on 6.14 so far, and as I dug deeper into Luminar4 I realized it's just not there yet. Doesn't support XML sidecar files, and the file paths for the library are apparently absolute rather than relative. (I keep my current stuff I'm fiddling with in a folder that's synced between my two macs - including the LR catalog for those - just gotta remember not to launch LR on both at the same time).

 

[Quackington]

The air is a horrible purchase, it only has 10watts of available power till it throttles....

Basically spotify makes it get to 90-100c, not a unit thats going to last.

The pro is still better, 2017 onward. I would never buy a MBA after learning about these engineering shortcuts. They have obviously designed it this way to limit its performance. But thermally this is a design that i will have long term negative effects. Beyond board thermal stress, and components being thermally shocked over time, batteries hate heat and it kills them. Ti did a huge study on this, and its not a good thing, if that tiny fan that runs 24/7 failed, had alot of dust etc.... it can cause some serious issues or performance issues.

How common are these Air issues? I’m still rocking a 2011 11” Air with 4GB ram and although it really needs an upgrade, it’s still fine for browsing, word processing, Excel etc. My SSD failed in October last year, but that’s the only issue I’ve had - I had it replaced.

 

[deeddawg]

How common are these Air issues? I’m still rocking a 2011 11” Air with 4GB ram and although it really needs an upgrade, it’s still fine for browsing, word processing, Excel etc. My SSD failed in October last year, but that’s the only issue I’ve had - I had it replaced.

Super common if you’re a YouTube reviewer looking to generate clicks on your site to generate revenue.

otherwise read a bunch of stuff here. Whether you’ll have an issue seems to depend on how cpu intensive what you do is. If you watch videos in a codec macOS has to decode in cpu then you’ll have more of an issue than if you watch videos in a hardware decoded codec.

Generally if you do stuff that’s constant high cpu load you should buy a MacBook Pro not an air

My MBA has bee cool and quiet.

 

[Quackington]

Super common if you’re a YouTube reviewer looking to generate clicks on your site to generate revenue.

otherwise read a bunch of stuff here. Whether you’ll have an issue seems to depend on how cpu intensive what you do is. If you watch videos in a codec macOS has to decode in cpu then you’ll have more of an issue than if you watch videos in a hardware decoded codec.

Generally if you do stuff that’s constant high cpu load you should buy a MacBook Pro not an air

My MBA has bee cool and quiet.

Thanks. Definitely not a a YouTube reviewer or content creator of any sort, unless you count forum posts as content creation ;-)

I guess that’s why my 2011 MBA has been fine!

 

[bluespark]

Screwdrivers make horrible hammers too.

Buy the tool for the job you need to do.

Very happy with my MBA - it runs cool and silent most of the time. My usage is low power with occasional brief bursts of CPU - such as exporting RAW photos - then I hear a fan for a minute and go silent again.

You also forgot to mention the MBP is 8th gen CPU vs MBA's 10th gen CPU. Why is that?

@galaxy6 - you need to decide if your usage is going to be CPU intensive or mostly light usage, which also has an impact on spec'd battery life (MBA longer). If you're going to run video conversions or games or other sustained cpu loads, then the MBP is likely a better fit. For safari, mail, photo editing, organization, etc my MBA has been working great. The MBA's wedge shape also gives a different feel than the MBP's squared off nose. Either way, buy from a place you can return/exchange if you wish.

Exactly this. The MBA is going to be a perfect choice for people who like the shape, price, and who won't be using CPU-intensive apps. That's a lot of people.

 

[roncron]

I bought a 2020 MBA i5/16/1TB and returned it after 8 days due to heat/fan issues and due to the fact that it wasn't any faster than the 2018 MBA I was hoping to replace. On paper, the 2020 MBA should be way faster. But I did side by side comparisons of different tasks. The 2020 model was no faster at completing processor-intensive tasks than the 2018 MBA because the 2020 model got hot and slowed down. For everyday tasks, I didn't perceive any real-world difference in performance. So for me, the only benefit of the 2020 MBA was the much improved keyboard - which I loved, but not enough to justify the cost.

My employer bought a 2020 MBA i3 for me to use at work (which is at home these days). It does a little better with heat & fan, but not great.

After returning the MBA i5 that I had bought for myself, I ended up ordering a 2020 13" MBP, the model with the 10th-gen processor. Absolutely no problems with heat or fan noise, and performance is perceptibly faster when doing processor-intensive tasks. It's about $300 more expensive than the MBA with the same SSD and RAM. That $300 buys you two fans with proper heat pipes, 2 extra Thunderbolt 3 ports on the right-side, 500 nits display with better color gamut.

I don't like the TB, but I set it to display extended control strip all the time, which for me reduces what I didn't like about it. Plus, the 2020 MBP now has physical ESC and power/fingerprint sensor keys that are separate from the TB.

 

[deeddawg]

with better color gamut

Genuinely curious.

In what specific circumstances do you find the P3 wide-color helpful vs the sRGB space?

 

[roncron]

Genuinely curious.

In what specific circumstances do you find the P3 wide-color helpful vs the sRGB space?

I don't need it, it's not like I'm a professional photographer. I just think it looks better, colors look richer, esp. when viewing photos or watching movies. I think the MBA display looks very nice, but side by side I prefer the MBP.