Who else got an 15" M3 MBA over an 14" M3 MBP?

[thadoggfather]

Even though it was a short lived cycle I have no regrets getting the M2 15 Inch Air. M3 is a boring upgrade I'm not the least bit tempted and I got a great deal on mine and been enjoying it for 6 months now

 

[DHagan4755]

Wow this thread is a great read. Do what ever makes you happy! And the fact people seem to fully recognize the pros & cons but choose what they choose anyway without regrets is awesome.

 

[ascender]

Two weeks on from the last post and it's the 15" Air I always find myself reaching for first. Am going to hand my 14" Pro on to someone else and stick with the Air.

 

[roadkill401]

I got a 15" M3 Air. Seen many people say you're better off getting a 14" MBP. That depends. If I didn't care about the screen size and knew I'd be doing more demanding stuff on it then I'd probably go with the MBP but the Air has more than enough power for me.

The 15" Air the perfect device for me. I like large screens and until last year the only way to get the biggest screen in a MacBook was to buy the super expensive 16" model which has specs that are overkill for me.

For £1,700 I can get a 15" Air with 16GB/512GB. For the same price I can get a 14" MBP with 8GB/512GB. I'd have to spend £1,900 just to match the Air and I'd still have a smaller screen.

If I needed more power then I'd not buy the 14" MBP but the 16" MBP.

i just ordered a mba 15" for the size of the screen. this isn't to be confused with resolution as apple loves to play funny games with numbers and how everything works.

The 14" MBP has a screen resolution of 3024 by 1964 pixels that is much higher than that of the 15" MBA 2880 by 1864 pixels. yet because Apple inherently uses screen scaling when you bring up your applications at that native resolution everything would just be too small so they scale all the windows to make it legible. You don't get a fine grain control over the scale factor so in my example, the 14" screen crops off 23% of the screen real estate over the 15" mba. For me that means that Logic on the 15" will give me access to all the instrument plugin options as well as the volume slider on the 15" mba, where the 14" or 13" screen versions crop one of those off so you need to pick what part you'd like to see and the other is hidden. Not that practical for me.

 

[MacAle2]

I just bought a new M3 Air 15" after having two consecutive 16" MBP machines. I realized over the last year that I didn't really need the power of the Pro and my M1 16" was very heavy in comparison to the Air. I was hesitant at first because I have been using a Pro MacBook since 2012 when the first Retina display arrived on the 15". Two weeks in I have no regrets. The Air is light, the 15" screen is nice to my eyes and performance and battery life are fantastic.

 

[AlexMaximus]

I just bought a new M3 Air 15" after having two consecutive 16" MBP machines. I realized over the last year that I didn't really need the power of the Pro and my M1 16" was very heavy in comparison to the Air. I was hesitant at first because I have been using a Pro MacBook since 2012 when the first Retina display arrived on the 15". Two weeks in I have no regrets. The Air is light, the 15" screen is nice to my eyes and performance and battery life are fantastic.

Wow, exactly what I wanted to hear. I always had MBP‘s, so I am dragging my feet when it comes to the Air. But You are fully correct. I should try it

 

[helloapple1]

I just bought a new M3 Air 15" after having two consecutive 16" MBP machines. I realized over the last year that I didn't really need the power of the Pro and my M1 16" was very heavy in comparison to the Air. I was hesitant at first because I have been using a Pro MacBook since 2012 when the first Retina display arrived on the 15". Two weeks in I have no regrets. The Air is light, the 15" screen is nice to my eyes and performance and battery life are fantastic.

Thanks for sharing. Is there anything that you're missing from 16" MBP? I love the 120hz screens on the MBP.

Btw try putting the 15" MBA in Low Power Mode as it extends the battery life quite a bit with very little performance hit (depending on your use case).

 

[fteter]

This has been a great thread to read - really made me think about how to replace my personal 2013 MBA. The current MBA sits next to the MBP provided by my employer. Both are 13" screens, but spend most of the time in clamshell mode plugged into larger monitors.

After reading everything here, considering my own experiences, and doing lots of research I went with the MBA - 15" screen. The price point andthe larger screen came into play for me (the latter because I plan to do more work while traveling in the near future). It should arrive next week. We'll see how it goes.

 

[dizmonk]

I have the 14 M3 and had the 15 M2 MBA. Both are excellent. For my purpose, the biggest benefit of the MBA is the form factor, while the biggest asset of the 14 m3 are the speakers.

 

[Jessemtz25]

Here and there I checked for the MBP 16" but price was not acceptable to me and for my light usage my MBP did it's job until more and more apps didn't run after an update because I run Mojave which is less and less supported by apps. Thanks to current market hype some money found it's way into my pockets and at the same time the new M3 MBA was announced.

I didn't do a lot of research when I ordered the 15" MBA 16/2TB.

Why MBA over MBP? My thoughts were:
Currently I still use my 2012 13" MBP.

- used it 99% in clamshell mode cause I found the 13" too small -> wished the screen was larger
- didn't like the noise of the fan -> wished it would be silent
- I used the sdcard card slot years ago when I used my digital cam, now i use only my iphone for photos -> I can live with a donge which could also be used for newer USB-C devices like iphone or ipad
- the MBA comes with only 2 USB-C connectors but so does the M3 MBP
- Today I checked again the displays 14" MBP vs. 15" MBA and I can't follow the hype about the MBP screens. But what was very visible to me was the difference in screen size. I work often with spread sheets so more screen space is very helpful.

Would have loved to have an USB-A slot but the MBP doesn't have one either.

Any comments?

I went to 15" and sold my 2020 MBP. No regrets so far but my use is light and the price difference was worth trying out an air this time around.