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Who is going to buy MBA 15 inch?
- Thread starter StoneJack
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Can attest to that: even my m1 air lives twice longer than 14 pro. M1 Air had 15hr battery when new, 14 pro new averages at 7-10 hrs for me.
battery life on the 14inch is more than fine, i have the m1 14inch and i get about 10 hours, thats enough for my 9-5 with 20% left at the end of the day, now on the m2, with more efficiency cores, my colleagues easily get 2-3 hours more.
sure the mba would get longer battery, but at the end of the day, do you care if you have 30% or 40% when you get home with outlets.
as for the brighter screen, i use a app called vivid, sure it drains battery, but its not like i need it at all times, however when i do need the extra nits, i know its there, the same cannot be said for the mba.
I have owned my 14" for over a year. If you're just using it by itself, that's fine. The hack to jack up brightness does work (aside from the display getting very hot in use and battery life tanking down to 3 hours).
But try to connect to an external display with that hack, and especially try to use it in conjunction with the hack to enable HDMI 2.1 adapter to send 4K120 signal and it's really messy. Combine that with another hack to calibrate screen white point and it's not even worth the trouble.
Yeah, I've consistently gotten around 8-10 hours on my 14" now. It's never been the battery life champ that I was hoping it would be when I upgraded from 13" Pro M1.
Pushing the performance and the display causes even more of a gap. At max brightness (1000 nits) plus max SoC usage (I can push it to this when merging panorama in Lightroom or Photoshop), it's down to barely about 2 hours of battery life and the whole machine gets very toasty. Most of my usage is never that intensive so I'm "downgrading" now to save my eyes.
I have used my 14" like this for almost 2 years. It has racked up many battery cycles because of this constant charge/discharge cycle. Originally, I would think we were "upgrading" from Intel just to avoid this constant need to push more power into the device, but ultimately, it feels to me like I'm just getting maybe more performance, and not much else that's different:
1. The MacBook Pro is still as bulky, if not even more so, than Intel MacBooks.
2. Battery life is still a concern when I'm pushing the device hard. Sure, it can get slightly past 10 hours with light use but I still have to be super mindful when I'm out and about. It's not quite "all day" when it's pushed hard on certain days.
3. Heat is still an issue and fan noise is also still an issue.
Sure, it's a better Pro machine, for whatever that is worth. But it's also overkill for my light use when the same light use elsewhere can net closer to 2 days of constant use (MacBook Pro 13" M1) with lower charging requirements.
i do connect to 2x 32inch 4k ultrasharp via TB4 at home and a apple XDR at work. not sure why i would want 120hz since i don't know a single app that would benefit from.
the only time i noticed my 14inch gets toasty is during encoding sessions, otherwise heat and battery are a non issue.
lol if you push the same tasks through a m2 13 or 15inch, you will also get a drastically lower battery life, and the kicker is, the mba will also takes more time to complete the project since its slower than the pro/max chips.
if you think heat and fan noise is an issue, you definitely don't want to downgrade to the air since it doesn't even have a fan to cool.
I've found I get more screen real estate out of a single 42" display running at actual 4K than daisy chaining multiple 32" displays. 120Hz is just icing on the cake but the main problem is with sending RGB444 signal over to maintain text clarity. Again, different needs. I'm certain your setup works for you but mine may need a re-evaluation overall after almost 2 years.
I did try the same tasks on M2 13". It actually still lasts 5-6 hours like that. Because the chip ends up drawing at most maybe around 15-20W of power (seen via iStat) but the 14" easily draws up to 50W running the same tasks. 14" is faster but it's also drawing a lot more power to get that much faster.
We're talking about 30 minutes vs 50 minutes, too, so is an extra 20 minutes of wait time worth over 2x the power draw? And yes, I timed it too.
Heat and fan noise is an issue for me because the 14" is very eager to kick itself up to 40-50W doing the tasks that I'm trying to do with it. But the 13" M2 has consistently stayed around 15-20W since obviously, it can't even cool itself running like that for long.
I did try it all out to see whether a downgrade would make sense, and I'd gladly eat the "tax" of slightly longer time to finish tasks. This is a personal device, not a work device, so I don't have to shave every minute from its completion time. But battery life and screen real estate will be highlights.
ah you have that type of setup, yeah i can't imagine putting my workflow through a 42inch tv basically, 4k at 32inch is my absolute limit for pixel density.
for me yeah, an extra 40% longer time to finish a project is an absolute deal breaker, unless you talking about going rendering work on top of a mountain or something so far out that you just cannot jeopardize your battery, i would gladly save that 40% wait time in exchange for some extra wattage drawn at the time.
Yeah, and I do agree that that is valid. If your work depends on that extra 40% longer rendering time, it stacks up over time and trying to nitpick battery life or anything else over that is just not worth it. If it was my main work computer, I would not even hesitate to spend $10K or $20K. But for a personal device, I think it's mostly just that I wanted something that will last for a while and won't require me to watch over every little thing while in use. And I think that's what the MacBook Air will do better than the Pro.
shout out to @bill-p and @ilikewhey for the helpful discussions on the pros/cons of the 14" MBP and 13" MBA. I found the discussions on battery life, display, heat/fan noise, etc., to be extremely helpful, and learning about their first hand experiences with both devices.
Right now I'm heavily leaning towards the 14" MBP, with the simple thought experiment of "what I would regret more?" For me, I'd regret more not spending the extra $50 on the MBP, with the much beefier CPU/GPU, hence the perceived value of future-proofing. Since I don't upgrade that often (the 2012 15" rMBP received a new battery/lower body assembly in July 2020 so it's basically a new machine, with only 53 cycle counts
,) the extra oomph of the M2 Pro just feels better to me.
I'll make the final decision this weekend (before the Costco sale ends) and will continue to monitor this thread for the informative discussions!
Right now I'm heavily leaning towards the 14" MBP, with the simple thought experiment of "what I would regret more?" For me, I'd regret more not spending the extra $50 on the MBP, with the much beefier CPU/GPU, hence the perceived value of future-proofing. Since I don't upgrade that often (the 2012 15" rMBP received a new battery/lower body assembly in July 2020 so it's basically a new machine, with only 53 cycle counts
,) the extra oomph of the M2 Pro just feels better to me. I'll make the final decision this weekend (before the Costco sale ends) and will continue to monitor this thread for the informative discussions!
A few of you seem really dead set on trying to force Air buyers into Pros, for some strange reason. I’m sure if someone really needed all those extra Pro features, then they probably wouldn’t need to be talked into it. You guys are listing features & specs that the majority of posters in this thread couldn’t care less about.
No matter what reasons people have listed so far for buying an Air, someone always has an immediate rebuttal, as if people don’t understand what they’re buying. I can assure you that we fully understand what we’re buying. We’re buying precisely what works for us & not anyone else.
No matter what reasons people have listed so far for buying an Air, someone always has an immediate rebuttal, as if people don’t understand what they’re buying. I can assure you that we fully understand what we’re buying. We’re buying precisely what works for us & not anyone else.
OP disagrees with your assessment.
Right now I'm heavily leaning towards the 14" MBP, with the simple thought experiment of "what I would regret more?" For me, I'd regret more not spending the extra $50 on the MBP, with the much beefier CPU/GPU, hence the perceived value of future-proofing. Since I don't upgrade that often (the 2012 15" rMBP received a new battery/lower body assembly in July 2020 so it's basically a new machine, with only 53 cycle counts
It’s really funny. Several years 15.6” has been the golden standard for laptops for pro/multimedia purposes and due to macbook air introduction, vast majority of people changed towards 13-14” laptops (including others that considered 12” MacBook enough in 2015) with Hp envys/dell xps/lg gram with less than 1kg of weight… now apple has all laptops pipeline updated to M2 but sales are lower than expected, and M3 is far away. What they do? Launch 15” macbook air with other M2 inside but making us believe that is the perfect and revolutionary size to increase sales desperately. The bad thing is that we are going to buy them anyway 😂
1. from all the back and forth i had on here, the one thing i understood is that the "feel" of it is such a personal preference, you feel the mbp is bulky, i feel the mba is flimsy, there is no right answer and only OP can decide for him/herself.
2. again, it depends on your workflow, my job needs me to render a marketing vid on the fly once or twice a day. everything else is zoom/slack/productivity suites. from all that i get about 10 hours.
3. it does spin up to a somewhat audible level, i'm guessing around 900-1000rpm since thats what i have set the fan curve on my gaming pc and its about as audible as that. however the MBA doesn't even have a fan, so once the heat builds up, it will throttle.
glad to be of help, sadly the only factor we cannot tell you definitely is how it feels in your hand, personal preference plays too much into this area and only you can decide of the 14inch is too bulky or the mba feels too flimsy.shout out to @bill-p and @ilikewhey for the helpful discussions on the pros/cons of the 14" MBP and 13" MBA. I found the discussions on battery life, display, heat/fan noise, etc., to be extremely helpful, and learning about their first hand experiences with both devices.
Right now I'm heavily leaning towards the 14" MBP, with the simple thought experiment of "what I would regret more?" For me, I'd regret more not spending the extra $50 on the MBP, with the much beefier CPU/GPU, hence the perceived value of future-proofing. Since I don't upgrade that often (the 2012 15" rMBP received a new battery/lower body assembly in July 2020 so it's basically a new machine, with only 53 cycle counts
I'll make the final decision this weekend (before the Costco sale ends) and will continue to monitor this thread for the informative discussions!
other than that, i fully recommend anyone to buy the base mba, 13 or 15inch regardless, but once you start speccing it and the msrp approaches the 14inch price bracket, you might as well close that gap and get it all.
1. Yeah, feel is subjective. I don't deny that and it's really "to each his own" here. I just snap a case on to my MacBooks anyway so I can freely "throw" them around so the added thickness of the Pro has been a massive negative even in comparison to the old Intel ones.
2. Of course, it depends on workflow. Like I mentioned... I do mainly photography, and coding. None of what I'm doing really needs this much power from the Pro except for maybe the occasions I spin up Fusion 360. But again, more runtime helps anyway as I'm not scrambling for an outlet if I just happen to push the device on that day.
3. The Air throttles but I don't think it's as much of a drop as you're insinuating. Also, the 15" does provide more cooling surface so for sure it will be better than the 13" body. If I did not notice a significant performance drop with the 13" M2, I'm pretty sure I won't notice anything at all with the 15".
Costco offers the Macbook Pro 14 for $1749 here and comes with 2 year warranty. Brand new and I wouldn't really qualify an authorized seller like Costco "3rd party" as others have said.
Costco UK has the MB Pro 14 for £1,919.98 and also includes 2 extended year warranty.
https://www.costco.co.uk/Computers/...GB-SSD-14-Inch/p/MacBookPro14M2Pro16CGPU512GB
It still costs more in the UK than the 15" MacBook Air, not forgetting that it's 14" compared to the Air's 15" screen. It makes no sense for someone who doesn't need the power of the Pro to pay more when they can get an Air. The MacBook Air exists for a reason, it is also the most popular MacBook for a reason.
Holy s**t - just double checked: I paid $50,- more for my late 2016, base model (8/256) 2,0 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5-processor 13" MacBook Pro in OCT. 2016, than what the 15" base model costs today in 2023. Both off the local apple store site.
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sure its a tad smaller but its a much better screen, the "base" MacBook Air is the most popular, BTO specced up is another story.
As I’ve mentioned before, people who buy the Air don’t need or care about the 14” having a bit of a better screen. How do you know that it’s the base that’s the most popular? It doesn’t matter if it’s specced up or not, the Air is still the most popular Macbook. There is no point in someone buying a Pro when they don’t need all that power.
I plan on getting one. My 2016 MBA is just about done. I have an iMac (2019)and iPad (open box 10.5) to round out the bunch.
I do, tried a air 2 was full of light bleed, blacks are grey and speakers are rubbish. Sold it wouldn’t bother with a air again, it’s the 10.5 ipad Pro reborn, except white spot and rubbish speakers lol