16GB 512GB MacBook 13.6" Air M3 vs 14" Pro M4

[colonelbutt]

I can see there are many comparison threads but I can't find this one. If anyone knows one then please send me a link.

I have given my daughter my Macbook Air M2 (8gb/256gb) for her university work. It is fine to cover that.

So I have to get a new one now.

In terms of price in the UK, taking into account the discount I can get for both, the macbook pro M4 base model is is 25% more.

Basically I use office, web browsing, adobe Lightroom and do some occasional python and other programing languages (for deployment on remote server) using Visual Code.

I like the pro as it has better speakers, as I often listen to music in my office. The SD card is a definite boon for photography, although a plug in Sd card box is not a hassle. There is also the speed increase. It is not just M3-M4, it is also due to the cooling system, which throttles down the cpu speed much less (or never) in the Pro, compared to quite often in the Air. On the other hand, the Air is lighter, which is great for travel.

I just wonder whether anyone has made this decisions and can comment on their thoughts. Obviously I don't really "need" anything the Pro has over the Air, on the other hand, the difference in price amortised over 3 years is not much, on the other hand, the difference in price is most of a Watch 10, on the other hand, it is nice to have something lighter, on the other hand I love the sound of the Pro speakers, etc. etc.

Love to hear rational and non-rational thoughts

 

[Steve121178]

Sounds like you’re leaning towards the Pro, so get the M4 baseline model.

 

[Nismo73]

Have been using a M1 13" Air, I just got the M4 16/512gb 14 today and it's a great machine. The sound quality alone listening to songs on Apple Music is so nice...and obviously the screen.

If I was to get a new M3 Air it would've been the 15", and for the comparable Pro M4 w/ 16gb/512gb it's $100 more, so no brainer really there. With the education discount it's $1499 US for the 14 M4 base.

Going back and forth picking up the 13 Air and 14 Pro, the Air isn't obviously lighter.

 

[raythompsontn]

I made the switch from a 13” M2 Air (16 gig, 1 tb) to the 14” M4 Pro (24 gig, 1 tb). You say you use Lightroom. I imported 5,000 photos with Lightroom and the M4 was twice as fast as the M2. Using the SDXC slot the import from a SDXC card is really fast. Rendering thumbnails is much faster. The screen is slightly bigger and seems clearer. The machine is fast. Everything else is about the same as the M2. I have no regrets.

I had no need to upgrade, no tangible reason, I just wanted to upgrade. Importing photos was slower on the M2 but I was doing something else so speed was never an issue. I could still live happily with my M2.

 

[colonelbutt]

I made the switch from a 13” M2 Air (16 gig, 1 tb) to the 14” M4 Pro (24 gig, 1 tb). You say you use Lightroom. I imported 5,000 photos with Lightroom and the M4 was twice as fast as the M2. Using the SDXC slot the import from a SDXC card is really fast. Rendering thumbnails is much faster. The screen is slightly bigger and seems clearer. The machine is fast. Everything else is about the same as the M2. I have no regrets.

I had no need to upgrade, no tangible reason, I just wanted to upgrade. Importing photos was slower on the M2 but I was doing something else so speed was never an issue. I could still live happily with my M2.

thanks, very interesting

out of interest, where is your location of catalogue and photo library ?

I found on the M2 that I had to have the photos locally, which was a real pain. I find the apple connection to my SAN (using SMB) was unreliable, and just got loads of pauses. I would be happy to reconfigure the san to use another network protocol if it was more reliable with apple, but haven't heard of anything.

The catalogue has to be local I think for lightroom, which is ok I guess. I think there is a way to use sym links, but I didn't try due to the SAN issue I found.

 

[raythompsontn]

where is your location of catalogue and photo library

The catalog resides on the Mac in the Pictures folder. The images are also imported into the pictures location. The pictures don't remain there.

During a sporting event, such as football, I may take 1.5K images. These are loaded, processed, all but about 200 eliminated, then exported to the desktop, removed from Lightroom (and the Mac), and the folder on the desktop moved to external storage.

The most processor intensive part of the process is the import when Lightroom is building the thumbnails. I imported 5K images which maxed out the M4 Pro CPU for about 5 minutes building the previews. During the export the CPU barely goes above 10%.

 

[DeepSix]

Going from 2.8lbs to 3.5 is very noticable. The Pro is just too heavy and the 13 Air is the sweet spot for weight.

 

[OSMac]

Was a big fan of the 15” M2 Air due to its low weight, running silent &cool with a perfect-sized screen. The larger width and distributed weight makes it sit comfortably on a lap too.

Yet the screen quality on the 14” M4 Pro takes the prize. Watching HDR content simply amazes. For common tasks, it also runs cool and quiet. The form factor is OK but not ideal compared to the Air.

All of these Mac Silicon machines run fast enough for most. I think if I had an M3 Air I’d keep it until the Pro has a design refresh, but if someone is coming from and older Intel laptop the faster M4 Pro with its impressive screen and faster speeds might be the way to go.

 

[DeepSix]

Was a big fan of the 15” M2 Air due to its low weight, running silent &cool with a perfect-sized screen. The larger width and distributed weight makes it sit comfortably on a lap too.

Yet the screen quality on the 14” M4 Pro takes the prize. Watching HDR content simply amazes. For common tasks, it also runs cool and quiet. The form factor is OK but not ideal compared to the Air.

All of these Mac Silicon machines run fast enough for most. I think if I had an M3 Air I’d keep it until the Pro has a design refresh, but if someone is coming from and older Intel laptop the faster M4 Pro with its impressive screen and faster speeds might be the way to go.

I think the screen on the Pros is overrrated. Ive compared them to my Air and I honestly can't see a difference. Even 500 nits vs 600 nits is not noticable.