Upgraded Macbook Air (2020) or Macbook Pro 13"?

[drbrydges]

I'm looking to get a new Mac and I'm wondering if I upgrade the Air to 16GB with i5 processor versus the base Macbook Pro 13" with 16GB would be better for music recording. I'm not doing anything crazy, just GarageBand, maybe some Logic. Otherwise it'd be for basic computing. Thoughts?

 

[ruslan120]

Personally I would wait for the base Macbook Pro once it’s updated from 13” to 14”. Besides basic compute tasks the Macbook Air is limited in terms of its cooling capabilities which will hurt anything remotely “intensive” (even watching 4K videos causes the processor to go to 100* and causes the fan to ramp up).

For an extra few hundred dollars you get a better computer, better screen, etc within a marginal weight difference.

 

[drbrydges]

Personally I would wait for the base Macbook Pro once it’s updated from 13” to 14”. Besides basic compute tasks the Macbook Air is limited in terms of its cooling capabilities which will hurt anything remotely “intensive” (even watching 4K videos causes the processor to go to 100* and causes the fan to ramp up).

Yeah, I've heard not great things about the cooling capabilities so that's been a reason to hesitate.

 

[ruslan120]

I think it’s mostly a student laptop for taking notes, going quad core lets them multitask with Notes, Spotify, etc.