Why Pick a MBA over a MBP?

[BigMcGuire]

So I run W11 in Parallels, I use Visual Studio 2022, I run 3 browsers with 15-20 tabs each, and I run Teams and a dozen other apps. I find having >=32GB of ram a must. Right now I'm running 64GB of ram and:

So an Air wouldn't work well for me.

But MOST people out there aren't going to be doing what I'm doing. 24GB of ram, or even 16GB of ram is PLENTY. Just watching Netflix (or streaming app here), chatting with friends, gaming, video editing, coding, server management, file management - Air is beyond plenty.

Just trying to assist ---- An Air will do 95% of what people need. For the 5% that need more, they know already and won't be asking this question for the most part.

For me? I want the ability to do the above if I need to. I want the slightly better screen. I want the CPU cooling so when I need something heavy done, I can do it. But what I do has to be in the extreme minority of most users here, even video editors. We have plenty of videos on Youtube of heavy hitter streamers using an Air to easily video edit and even develop.

I miss the Air's portability and lightness.

 

[Cashmonee]

...well, I was under the impression, regardless of an adapter, the MBA simply cannot handle dual external monitors.
Are you saying otherwise?

I just found this out yesterday. I have a new position at my work and the office comes with two monitors. I have a work-issued M2 Air. They gave me a DisplayLink dock, installed a driver, and it works. I have not tested it extensively yet, but they apparently have a few deployed already with no issues. I do not know the exact model, because I am not at work.

 

[bill-p]

So here's one more reason I found for myself. Finally I can get 4K 120Hz and 10-bit to happen to my LG C2 OLED TV all at once with M2.

The M1 Pro chip could only do 4K 120Hz at 8-bit. No amount of finaggling or hacking could get 10-bit to work. Not that it's super important for most folks, but for photo editing, it makes a difference. And now I'm certain "moving up" to the MacBook Air was the right decision for me. Single external display is all I need since a single 42" display is better than stacking multiple 32" displays side by side for my use case.

 

[Technerd108]

So I run W11 in Parallels, I use Visual Studio 2022, I run 3 browsers with 15-20 tabs each, and I run Teams and a dozen other apps. I find having >=32GB of ram a must. Right now I'm running 64GB of ram and:

View attachment 2218511

So an Air wouldn't work well for me.

But MOST people out there aren't going to be doing what I'm doing. 24GB of ram, or even 16GB of ram is PLENTY. Just watching Netflix (or streaming app here), chatting with friends, gaming, video editing, coding, server management, file management - Air is beyond plenty.

Just trying to assist ---- An Air will do 95% of what people need. For the 5% that need more, they know already and won't be asking this question for the most part.

For me? I want the ability to do the above if I need to. I want the slightly better screen. I want the CPU cooling so when I need something heavy done, I can do it. But what I do has to be in the extreme minority of most users here, even video editors. We have plenty of videos on Youtube of heavy hitter streamers using an Air to easily video edit and even develop.

I miss the Air's portability and lightness.

I understand what you are saying but MacOS will use as much available ram before straining the CPU so even though your machine is using all that ram to accomplish your tasks it doesn't mean that an air with 16gb or 24gb would not work.

You might need a laptop cooler though. Lol

 

[Rodneyp]

So after much debate and jumping back and forth between the 15” air and 14” pro I went with the Pro. I will be processing a few hundred photos just about every week. I like the size better too 14” is my sweet spot. It also fits in the laptop slot of my camera bag which is a big deal for me.

 

[Technerd108]

So after much debate and jumping back and forth between the 15” air and 14” pro I went with the Pro. I will be processing a few hundred photos just about every week. I like the over size better too 14” is my sweet spot. It also fits in the laptop slot of my camera bag which is a big deal for me.

Enjoy your 14" Pro! It is a great laptop that I am sure you will enjoy for years to come!

 

[Cashmonee]

So after much debate and jumping back and forth between the 15” air and 14” pro I went with the Pro. I will be processing a few hundred photos just about every week. I like the size better too 14” is my sweet spot. It also fits in the laptop slot of my camera bag which is a big deal for me.

I just made the same exact choice for very similar reasons. I could probably get by with a 15" Air, but I think the size is just a bit too large for me. I had a CoreDuo and Core2Duo 15" MacBook Pro, but then switched to 13" in 2013. After seeing the 15" Air and 16" MacBook Pro, I just don't think I can go back to that size. The 14" Pro is a nice compromise (or maybe even an intermediate step). Plus, it will be nice to have the power if necessary. I do like to play a few games and I use Lightroom, both doable on the Air, but more comfortable on the Pro. And I keep my computers for close to 10 years usually (5 for me, 5 as a family machine), so spending the extra isn't the end of the world.

 

[xboxbml]

I just found this out yesterday. I have a new position at my work and the office comes with two monitors. I have a work-issued M2 Air. They gave me a DisplayLink dock, installed a driver, and it works. I have not tested it extensively yet, but they apparently have a few deployed already with no issues. I do not know the exact model, because I am not at work.

Just curious... did you try and play a movie with DRM protection yet? Like in your Apple movie library. I'm guessing that won't work. Obviously at work that may not be an issue for use case.. I did the same thing with my old 2015 and using an external monitor off a dock with DislayLink driver I could not play DRM movies. I ended up finding an old TB2 OWC dock on Facebook Marketplace and of course that works, but of course, only 1 external monitor.

 

[Cashmonee]

Just curious... did you try and play a movie with DRM protection yet? Like in your Apple movie library. I'm guessing that won't work. Obviously at work that may not be an issue for use case.. I did the same thing with my old 2015 and using an external monitor off a dock with DislayLink driver I could not play DRM movies. I ended up finding an old TB2 OWC dock on Facebook Marketplace and of course that works, but of course, only 1 external monitor.

I haven’t tried yet (and as you said, I don’t watch movies at work). Our IT guy did say that if I tried something like Netflix, it likely wouldn’t work because it sees it as screen recording. I don’t anticipate being back in my office until July, so I can’t test it.

 

[xboxbml]

I haven’t tried yet (and as you said, I don’t watch movies at work). Our IT guy did say that if I tried something like Netflix, it likely wouldn’t work because it sees it as screen recording. I don’t anticipate being back in my office until July, so I can’t test it.

Right, that's what I encountered.. sees it as screen recording and DRM doesn't allow that.. pita.. As long as you are aware of DisplayLink capabilities.. IF you need that, and multiple monitor support, MBP does that(you can connect any USB C supported dock and run 1 monitor off that(only 1), and a second off one of the other USB C ports). Drawback of MBA forever, and I don't see Apple changing that anytime soon. One of the distinctions of MBP vs MBA. You kinda can't fault Apple for that.. Give people a choice on a good product that meets the reduced needs at a lower price.
Me using a Thunderbolt 2 dock on this, and IF I had an actual Thunderbolt monitor, I could possibly then chain a second Thunderbolt monitor off that and I could POSSIBLY actually run dual monitors off this. Problem is TB equipment in itself is VERY expensive and highly unavailable as not very common other than actual Apple TB monitors. Plus I'm not at all sure if this old 2015 could actually do 2 monitors even in that setup.

 

[miniair2023]

Yes. If you mostly use a mac to browse webpages and do word processing then you don't really need a MBP. An MBA is sufficient enough for the job.

 

[geta]

Hmmm… weight and battery life.

Unless someone having specific task/need that require MBP, the 13”/15” MBA will be more then enough.

 

[Cricketman]

Think about it this way

Pretend you can buy a souped up pick up truck for 50k. It can tow heavy loads, has tons of cargo space, and is big and bulky and takes up a lot of space on the road. You can go off-roading and climb rocks and stuff on this if you want. This thing is pretty fuel efficient compared to other trucks, but still may be considered a “guzzler”.

Or you can get a nice looking sleek SUV for 50k. It’s fast and zippy, and nimble enough to navigate in the city you live. This is very fuel efficient.

You work an office job, you don’t need to tow heavy things at great speeds. You need to get from A to B without any problems and you’d like to look good doing it. Maybe once a year or two you put a bike on the back for a trip out of town on the weekend. But for day to day, what do you really need?

 

[ctjack]

Ok, just glanced over MBA15 at costco … i am totally sold. That screen and estate looked gorgeous and big.

 

[pugxiwawa]

Just got MBA15 in addition to M1 MBP16. The size and weight advantage to MBA15 can't be understated. To me it's the absolute perfect travel laptop that Apple finally gave us after all these years. I wouldn't want to take MBP16 out of house anymore.

 

[Tagbert]

The Macbook Airs do not have fans which is the biggest issue with using it as a creative professional device. You can use it as one, but it'll be slower since the lack of fans or any heatsink means it will get thermal throttling from any intense actions and the only way it can be cooled is passively.

The Macbook Pro 14 inch has a heatsink, as well as an HDMI and SD card slot, and a much better 1440p Liquid Retina XDR display, the same display found in the iPad Pro. That last bit is why the MBP would be a better fit for photo editing, since you'll have a much higher quality display to work with that supports HDR.

So if I was in your shoes I'd get to the pro. Yeah it's a pound heavier but to be honest I don't even notice a difference (but then again I lift heavy equipment all the time lmao) The 14 inch is very portable.

Doing photo editing is unlikely to engage enough CPU and GPU cores at once to push it to its thermal limits. Potentially if you were doing large graphic designs with large numbers of layers and filters you might get into that area occasionally but even then the performance limits are pretty high.

 

[Surfsalot]

Think about it this way

Pretend you can buy a souped up pick up truck for 50k. It can tow heavy loads, has tons of cargo space, and is big and bulky and takes up a lot of space on the road. You can go off-roading and climb rocks and stuff on this if you want. This thing is pretty fuel efficient compared to other trucks, but still may be considered a “guzzler”.

Or you can get a nice looking sleek SUV for 50k. It’s fast and zippy, and nimble enough to navigate in the city you live. This is very fuel efficient.

You work an office job, you don’t need to tow heavy things at great speeds. You need to get from A to B without any problems and you’d like to look good doing it. Maybe once a year or two you put a bike on the back for a trip out of town on the weekend. But for day to day, what do you really need?

Truck anyday

 

[Rodneyp]

You are correct after a week of having the MBP and testing I have yet to hear the fans. Does not mean they have not come on I just could not tell it if they did so I am guessing they have not.

 

[Tagbert]

So I run W11 in Parallels, I use Visual Studio 2022, I run 3 browsers with 15-20 tabs each, and I run Teams and a dozen other apps. I find having >=32GB of ram a must. Right now I'm running 64GB of ram and:

View attachment 2218511

So an Air wouldn't work well for me.

But MOST people out there aren't going to be doing what I'm doing. 24GB of ram, or even 16GB of ram is PLENTY. Just watching Netflix (or streaming app here), chatting with friends, gaming, video editing, coding, server management, file management - Air is beyond plenty.

Just trying to assist ---- An Air will do 95% of what people need. For the 5% that need more, they know already and won't be asking this question for the most part.

For me? I want the ability to do the above if I need to. I want the slightly better screen. I want the CPU cooling so when I need something heavy done, I can do it. But what I do has to be in the extreme minority of most users here, even video editors. We have plenty of videos on Youtube of heavy hitter streamers using an Air to easily video edit and even develop.

I miss the Air's portability and lightness.

That was a very rational and discerning post. Refreshing.

 

[Tenashus1]

You are correct after a week of having the MBP and testing I have yet to hear the fans. Does not mean they have not come on I just could not tell it if they did so I am guessing they have not.

No fans for me either. The 14" MBP M2 is a great machine!

 

[mysticmanix]

I have a 16 pro that I'm definitely going to sell now. I've been trying out a 15 air the past three days, one of the pluses I really like is the closeness of the keyboard to the desk or your lap. I personally have some wrist issues, this is a huge difference for me, the bottom thickness of the 15 is probably half the height of the 16, it lets my wrists comfortably sit almost flat and not arched up. Second is the palm rest deck space from the outer edge to where the keyboard starts, on the 16 it's 11cm, on the 15inch air it's 10.3cm, and on the M1 air it's 9cm. Again, if you have wrist problems like me the extra length that has to be there to accomodate the larger screen really causes problems along with the height.

One weird thing on the 16 I have is that the trackpad click is definitely lighter than I'd like, I have it set to hardest click but it still feels softer than any air that I've had while I like the click to be as hard as possible. I suspect it's because the depth of the 16th dissipates the force of the click more. The keyboards on the 14 and 16 inch pros that I've tried also have shorter travel distance and feel "hollower" than the 2 M1 airs, M2 air, and the 15 inch M2 air I've tried.

The screen real estate is amazing and honestly not that huge a difference from the 16 inch, but the fact that it's only slightly heavier than an M1/M2 13 inch air is such a huge bonus.

 

[Beau10]

That was a very rational and discerning post. Refreshing.

It absolutely is... one thing though, to those on the fence and might *need* more cooling, memory, and power, is the M3 may give that push in another 6-8 months.

The screen unfortunately is probably set in stone until OLED makes an appearance in what may be the M4 release but more likely M5.

 

[Wokis]

Indeed I find the memory being the limiting factor for the MBA. The end of a longer photoshop-session with some open browser-tabs brings me to yellow memory pressure. 24GB.

The power of the M2 is absolutely fine, it's just the darn RAM.

Been DisplayLink-ing a second monitor from the get-go and outside of a few rare cases of noticing the compression, it's been totally fine. Still it's an extra step with added cost that I wish wasn't necessary. Though it freed up a TB-port on the dock so there's the silver lining I suppose.

Would I opt for MBP today? No, don't think so. It's just so darn light and "bringable". It's not far from ipad-level portability. Very versatile and powerful for the class it's in.

 

[wrcousert]

I understand what you are saying but MacOS will use as much available ram before straining the CPU so even though your machine is using all that ram to accomplish your tasks it doesn't mean that an air with 16gb or 24gb would not work.

You might need a laptop cooler though. Lol

Do you know of any laptop coolers that will work with the 13.6" M2 MacBook Air? I heard about internal heat syncs that you can install, but I'm not interested in doing anything that could void my warranty.

 

[Wokis]

Do you know of any laptop coolers that will work with the 13.6" M2 MacBook Air? I heard about internal heat syncs that you can install, but I'm not interested in doing anything that could void my warranty.

On this topic, a laptop cooler isn't going to do much because the heat build-up is air-insulated from the chassis if you don't add the thermal pad which you don't seem interested in doing (though understandable).

Your best bet would be pointing a fan towards the keyboard as that is the key place where hot air is able to escape on an unmodified MBA.