130$ difference for 5-7 years (M1 air vs pro)

[KPOM]

Thanks for that What kind of tasks are you running with 16gb and what is the RAM consumption like?

In regards to the 7core GPU vs 8core GPU, when would I really notice the difference?

Given your usage, I highly doubt you would ever notice the difference in the GPU. I bought the 16GB model, but probaly could have gotten by with the 8GB. The OS will basically fill whatever RAM you give it, but if you run low it starts compressing, so it’s hard to compare just by looking at the total RAM usage.

 

[pcmike]

You’re a physician and beating yourself up over an extra $26/year?

 

[vishavg]

You’re a physician and beating yourself up over an extra $26/year?

Haha its not about the money, just finding something that isn’t excessive to my needs. It is easy to just get the best and most expensive every year.

 

[smoking monkey]

The Pro is slightly more expensive, so why not upgrade to the higher Air with 8c GPU and then you'll get price parity and maybe be able to compare better.

 

[Jimmy James]

Haha its not about the money, just finding something that isn’t excessive to my needs. It is easy to just get the best and most expensive every year.

It’s refreshing when people truly consider their needs and still care about value.

 

[M1 Processor]

Thanks for that What kind of tasks are you running with 16gb and what is the RAM consumption like?

In regards to the 7core GPU vs 8core GPU, when would I really notice the difference?

I do some photo editing with 24MB photos, and I am usually doing several things at once. The 7 core is slightly slower than the 8 core, but its not something that you would notice. Trust me this M1 chip is the real deal. In some benches its outperforming my 12 core 3900x Ryzen system with 24 GB of RAM.

 

[phl92]

If I planned to use a computer for 6-8 years I genuinely cannot imagine not spending the extra to go from 8GB to 16GB of RAM. If you plan on doing some video editing, I can't even imagine wanting to opt for less RAM if you only planned to use it for 3.

Is it possible that 8 years from now a Mac with 8GB of RAM will run fine? Sure. It's possible. Would I be wiling to bet on that? Absolutely not. Trusting in app developers to keep RAM needs in check over an 8-year timeframe is just asking for regret.

Do you really think that the base memory needs of the MacOS itself will remain static or improve over a period of 8 years? Certainly has never been the case in the past, and honestly it's not what you'd want, either--if you can do more with more RAM, and RAM becomes more plentiful/cheaper, it would be wrong not to use some of it.

Looking back at 2012, the base Air RAM was 4GB and the most RAM you could buy in an Air or 13" MBP was 8GB. If you had 4GB today you would be in much worse shape than if you had 8GB--one is a standard configuration, one is anemic and demonstrably affects performance in all but light use cases. Over 8 years, you're paying, what, $25/year to hedge against really wishing you had opted for 8GB for the last three years you own the computer, or the difference between replacing it after 6 years instead of getting 8 years out of it?

Thanks. I see where you coming from. The argument that in tech almost every hardware spec got "bigger" in terms of performance/power etc. is valid indeed!
And I am very "optimistic" I am getting the full specd MBP 16GB Ram and 512GB SSD BUT there were some considerations I was not writing first:
My daily work I am still doing on a 5,5 years old Desktop WIndows PC (intel i5 4460, 8GB Ram,) , which runs at the moment "ok" (atm I am not doing any video editing on my desktop). However, even though people here say having both OS at the same time (Windows/mac) is not a problem or even complementing themselves, I am not sure about it (alone the fact how to get videos from iPhone on the PC is such a pain..).
Therefore I am thinking in the next 1-2 years to need also another Home station, and the new Mac mini just seems optimal for that, since I have a good monitor and don't need an iMac.
Therefore I was thinking 8GB Ram on my laptop will be enough since the main work will still be on my desktop in future.

Also the latest price policy of Apple is very interesting, considering that Apple silicon will decrease prices of all of their future devices and making them cheaper than the Windows competitors... this means people will upgrade more often imo. It's not so painful anymore than it used to be... buying a good specd MBP 16" in the past you didn't want to buy that every 3-4 years (unless money didn't matter for you at all)

 

[Makosuke]

And I am very "optimistic" I am getting the full specd MBP 16GB Ram and 512GB SSD BUT there were some considerations I was not writing first:
My daily work I am still doing on a 5,5 years old Desktop WIndows PC (intel i5 4460, 8GB Ram,) , which runs at the moment "ok" (atm I am not doing any video editing on my desktop). However, even though people here say having both OS at the same time (Windows/mac) is not a problem or even complementing themselves, I am not sure about it (alone the fact how to get videos from iPhone on the PC is such a pain..).
Therefore I am thinking in the next 1-2 years to need also another Home station, and the new Mac mini just seems optimal for that, since I have a good monitor and don't need an iMac.
Therefore I was thinking 8GB Ram on my laptop will be enough since the main work will still be on my desktop in future.

It sounds like you're making a good call there for a long-term purchase. I tend to upgrade my home computers every 3-5 years, but at work we've got 10-year-old (high-end for the time) iMacs and 9.5-year-old midrange Windows boxes that are still at least usable, so I'm not exactly unfamiliar with getting the most mileage out of computers you can. At least to date, though, "have enough RAM" has been something that helped a lot with that strategy (if you had 4GB in your Windows desktop rather than 8GB, I'd wager you wouldn't be feeling the same way about it).

Basically, my strategy, which hasn't failed me yet, has been: If you're going to be using it for a long time, you should probably overspec a bit to start with. You'll probably thank yourself a few years down the line, and/or be able to squeeze another year or two out of it.

Having a Mini or other desktop to supplement the laptop doesn't really change the equation much. You can certainly compensate for a less-well-equipped laptop by having a second computer to do the heavy lifting, but if you plan on using the laptop for that long you're still not going to want it to be unpleasant to use toward the end of its life.

Also the latest price policy of Apple is very interesting, considering that Apple silicon will decrease prices of all of their future devices and making them cheaper than the Windows competitors... this means people will upgrade more often imo. It's not so painful anymore than it used to be... buying a good specd MBP 16" in the past you didn't want to buy that every 3-4 years (unless money didn't matter for you at all)

We have absolutely no idea what Apple silicon costs Apple to design and fabricate, particularly at the lower volumes of desktop processors relative to mobile ones, so as far as I know any speculation about it costing less than Intel parts is just that. They might be much cheaper for Apple to design and fab, or they might actually cost more. We simply don't have any way of knowing.

An interesting and competing issue is that on one hand, Intel CPUs have stagnated pretty significantly for the past several years, so even an fairly old machine wasn't generally that much slower than a new one, while at least thus far Apple mobile chips have been increasing in performance at a much higher rate, which is why they've recently surpassed Intel parts despite starting out much slower. If Apple is still on the steeper part of the curve, that would point to near-future Macs having the sort of significant speed bumps from one generation to the next that we haven't seen in a while.

On the other, you can as of today buy a MacBook Air that can in many cases compete directly with a top-of-the-line 16" laptop from two weeks ago. This would point to you being able to get more life out of your old Mac 5+ years from now than is the case today, rather than a faster turnover.

Personally, I don't see any particular reason to assume that the general price points of Apple's small number of models will change significantly. They can obviously sell plenty of computers at those price points, so if they're doing a cost-benefit analysis they're probably going to come at it from the other direction--"We paid Intel $350 for the CPU in this model, so what can we build for $350 to replace it?" The fact that pricing is relatively flat with the M1 transition kind of indicates this is the case, since Apple doesn't like to mess with its margins, and they've demonstrated they can offer a huge boost in performance at the same price point.

 

[acidfast7_redux]

It is a not brainer.... go for the Air

agree.

 

[vishavg]

Looks like I will be going with the base Macbook air and saving the money for an iPad mini during the refresh! The 8gb of ram seems to be more than enough for all of my needs and not worth the additional 270$ here in Australia. Besides, reviewers are editing 4K videos with multiple google chrome windows open on just 8gb! As for the hard drive space, I've got 100gb left on my current 256gb after 4 years, so that also won't make much sense.

My only worry is that as Apple continues to make the silicon chips better developers will no doubt improve the apps and perhaps the apps in the future will be more RAM hungry? But then again that goes against optimized unified memory...

 

[phl92]

It sounds like you're making a good call there for a long-term purchase. I tend to upgrade my home computers every 3-5 years, but at work we've got 10-year-old (high-end for the time) iMacs and 9.5-year-old midrange Windows boxes that are still at least usable, so I'm not exactly unfamiliar with getting the most mileage out of computers you can. At least to date, though, "have enough RAM" has been something that helped a lot with that strategy (if you had 4GB in your Windows desktop rather than 8GB, I'd wager you wouldn't be feeling the same way about it).

Basically, my strategy, which hasn't failed me yet, has been: If you're going to be using it for a long time, you should probably overspec a bit to start with. You'll probably thank yourself a few years down the line, and/or be able to squeeze another year or two out of it.

Having a Mini or other desktop to supplement the laptop doesn't really change the equation much. You can certainly compensate for a less-well-equipped laptop by having a second computer to do the heavy lifting, but if you plan on using the laptop for that long you're still not going to want it to be unpleasant to use toward the end of its life.


We have absolutely no idea what Apple silicon costs Apple to design and fabricate, particularly at the lower volumes of desktop processors relative to mobile ones, so as far as I know any speculation about it costing less than Intel parts is just that. They might be much cheaper for Apple to design and fab, or they might actually cost more. We simply don't have any way of knowing.

An interesting and competing issue is that on one hand, Intel CPUs have stagnated pretty significantly for the past several years, so even an fairly old machine wasn't generally that much slower than a new one, while at least thus far Apple mobile chips have been increasing in performance at a much higher rate, which is why they've recently surpassed Intel parts despite starting out much slower. If Apple is still on the steeper part of the curve, that would point to near-future Macs having the sort of significant speed bumps from one generation to the next that we haven't seen in a while.

On the other, you can as of today buy a MacBook Air that can in many cases compete directly with a top-of-the-line 16" laptop from two weeks ago. This would point to you being able to get more life out of your old Mac 5+ years from now than is the case today, rather than a faster turnover.

Personally, I don't see any particular reason to assume that the general price points of Apple's small number of models will change significantly. They can obviously sell plenty of computers at those price points, so if they're doing a cost-benefit analysis they're probably going to come at it from the other direction--"We paid Intel $350 for the CPU in this model, so what can we build for $350 to replace it?" The fact that pricing is relatively flat with the M1 transition kind of indicates this is the case, since Apple doesn't like to mess with its margins, and they've demonstrated they can offer a huge boost in performance at the same price point.

I totally agree.
I will get the 16Gb Ram version.

Also this new uploaded review might be interesting for the 8 vs 16 GB Ram decision.
He statet that both machines (MBA and MBP) run out of Ram storage while rendering a big 4k 10bit Video in FCP. He said it's definitely a Ram issue and if you gonna use FCP with high video footage get the 16Gb for sure.

 

[Tha Professor]

I am in the same boat. I am mostly debating the SSD size though. I dont need 512GB right now, but if I want this to last me 6 years, the last thing I want is running out of space.

 

[James_C]

I am in the same boat. I am mostly debating the SSD size though. I dont need 512GB right now, but if I want this to last me 6 years, the last thing I want is running out of space.

I know an External Drive is not as convenient as internal storage but as the M1 Macs have Thunderbolt 3 / USB 4 connectivity you can add an external SSD drive to expand your storage capacity.

 

[vishavg]

I am in the same boat. I am mostly debating the SSD size though. I dont need 512GB right now, but if I want this to last me 6 years, the last thing I want is running out of space.

What kind of work will you be doing?

 

[ascender]

You don’t need sustained max performance

Is that not the key thing here in terms of performance? All the reviews are saying that both laptops run cool to the touch with great battery life & performance no matter how many apps you have running.

But if you’re doing things all day that need sustained max performance, the Pro will do those things faster.

Then you have the differentiators like the brighter screen, TouchBar and speakers/mic. Which may make a difference to you, but may not.

I still think these two models being so close is just going to cause confusion to your average consumer.

 

[vishavg]

Is that not the key thing here in terms of performance? All the reviews are saying that both laptops run cool to the touch with great battery life & performance no matter how many apps you have running.

But if you’re doing things all day that need sustained max performance, the Pro will do those things faster.

Then you have the differentiators like the brighter screen, TouchBar and speakers/mic. Which may make a difference to you, but may not.

I still think these two models being so close is just going to cause confusion to your average consumer.

Agreed. I think people are still a bit in awe of how well optimized a "base" MacBook could be. I know I sure am. My wallet was ready to buy the most spec'd out thing, but the gains just seem marginal at best. Especially for a "non-pro" user like myself.

 

[adrianlondon]

I looked into this around 8 months ago. Obviously, this was Intel Macbooks.

For me, I decided I wanted function keys not a touch bar and would forgo the extra screen brightness, so went for the Air. Microphone and speaker quality isn't something I'm fussed about. Using my Macbook outside in the summer, I did sometimes think a bit of extra brightness would be useful but still not worth the cost (or loss of a row of keys).

 

[James_C]

I wanted function keys not a touch bar

Yep, same for me in my decision to go for the Air. The fact that the Air did not have the Touch Bar that I have hated for the last 4 years outweighed some of the other advantages of the M1 Pro for me.

 

[2979382]

I was very much on the fence too, I admit. I took this morning my old early 2019 Air to the shop, and presented it for trade-in. The shop assistant asked me what machine I would like to use the trade-in for. I ended up going for the Pro for the following reasons:

• brighter screen - on the 2019 Air I occasionally felt it would have been nice to have the extra brightness
• touch-bar - not so much because I like it, but rather the fact that I am a developer, so being able to test these features, and develop for the touch-bar more reliably, made sense
• better microphones - I am planning to create some audio-visual content soon that will benefit from studio-level microphones
• 20h battery life - I don't expect actual 20h, but even in a non-optimal situation, it will give me more juice than the Air
• size - the difference in size between the Pro and Air is negligible
• I genuinely want to attempt to make the M1 machine my primary daily driver and development machine, be that web, Flutter or native. If it pans out as I hope it will, that leaves my 2018 MacBook Pro 15" available for trading in for potentially an Apple Silicon iMac or iMac Pro in 2021
• I will likely trade this M1 13" Pro in as well before the 2 year warranty (yes, I got 2 years, as it's a premium reseller), for a newer model, but until then I wanted to see what's the most this amazing little new CPU can handle

As you can see, my reasons kind of fall into three distinct categories:

1. what I want to achieve with this machine
2. what unique gains I get from this machine
3. longer term strategic planning

Note, an unexpected surprise (which I totally forgot about until Apple emailed me), is that any of these new machines will get you a free year of Apple TV+ subscription, so that's 60 bucks saved. If you have anything to trade in, and your local store does trade-ins, I would advise you to go for it. I got 533 bucks for the old Air, which to me feels like a fair deal, saved me some money and hassle trying to sell it myself.

 

[lJoSquaredl]

with the air's passive cooling after 30 min you will have a performance drop

I'm curious how big that'll be tho. Like would it be noticeable? I wouldn't care much about 10 less fps in games if i'm already over 60, and if it just adds another minute to video exports that's not too big of a deal. Slight performance reduction to not have any fans seems like a decent trade off and a reason you go for the Air in the first place, right?

 

[James_C]

I'm curious how big that'll be tho. Like would it be noticeable?

firstly you are unlikely to see any throttling unless you are really pushing the M1 chip - rendering 4k videos in Final Cut or working with large projects in Logic, compiling programs or gaming.

If you are doing these things then you will typically see a 10-15% decrease in sustained performance.

In summary unless you are spending a significant amount of time in these Pro apps you will not notice it.

 

[MacModMachine]

delete

 

[Tha Professor]

What kind of work will you be doing?

Spreadsheets, Data Viz, SQL, light coding and document editing. All these things are in cloud. But then, you have things like photo and video library, which also lives in iCloud, but it keeps adding up and you might want to keep that locally Just in case...

 

[macddy]

I'm curious how big that'll be tho. Like would it be noticeable? I wouldn't care much about 10 less fps in games if i'm already over 60, and if it just adds another minute to video exports that's not too big of a deal. Slight performance reduction to not have any fans seems like a decent trade off and a reason you go for the Air in the first place, right?

There is one thing you need to take into account as well, and an apple technician can confirm this too.

if you are planning to use high intensive apps like music software, video editing and gaming hours on end and you want to keep this mac for 4-8 years, then you should go with the pro. The reason is that the active cooling wont wear down the macbook as quickly as the air will be after intensive use in many years..

but of course you need to find out yourself how long you wanna keep it etc

 

[James_C]

if you are planning to use high intensive apps like music software, video editing and gaming hours on end and you want to keep this mac for 4-8 years, then you should go with the pro. The reason is that the active cooling wont wear down the macbook as quickly as the air will be after intensive use in many years..

I am not saying your wrong, but I don't think there is any evidence of this. I doubt the Apple Tech knows either given that the machines have just been released. The Air manages heat by throttling the Mac back to reduce the temperature.

So firstly I don't think the Air gets significantly hotter than the Pro for this reason.

Secondly and more importantly the Intel Mac Notebooks get much hotter than the M1 Notebooks under load even with a fan doing an impression of a jumbo jet, and they often last for more than 5 years. Look at the iPads they last for many years without a fan.