Is It Worth The Compromise?

[gregpod9]

I have the MBA M1/16GB/512GB/8C GPU and I like it, however I'm going back and forth between the MBA and MBP M1 8GB/512GB. I wish that I could afford the MBP 16GB/512GB, but its out of my budget. Here's the dilemma:
MBP 8GB/512GB
Losing half of the memory, but gaining a better screen, active cooling, better speakers, better mic, better battery life, larger touchpad, touch bar (not sure if I would like it or not like it).

I know that I wrote a similar post about this and I did not get a straight answer. My workload is not very heavy. I might start doing video editing next year. I have no desire on the base MBA due to its non-pro M1 processor. Right now, it seems that I have buyers remorse due that I feel that the MBP is slightly a better laptop and a lot of people favoring the MBP over the MBA, even if half of those people will only use their MBP M1 for basic use. My questions are
1. Is it worth sacrificing 16GB memory on my MBA and spending $50 more in getting the MBP M1 8GB/512GB?
2. Should I hold on to my MBA and sell it or trade it for the redesigned MBP when it comes out next year?

 

[NT1440]

Unless something is actually blocking your workflow, why take the downgrade in specs?

 

[jerryk]

Every review I have seen does not show much of a difference between the Pro and Air for most moderate workloads. Also, not sure how the M1 SOC is not "Pro" (whatever that means). Chips are binned based on testing and sometimes are exactly the same and just software downgraded. Also, these are Gen 1 SOC and new versions will be out next year (14 and 16" with later version of SOC). I would caution againts overspending.

 

[deeddawg]

Losing half of the memory, but gaining a better screen, active cooling, better speakers, better mic, better battery life, larger touchpad, touch bar (not sure if I would like it or not like it).

I know that I wrote a similar post about this and I did not get a straight answer. My workload is not very heavy.

Likely because you're asking about stuff that's perceptual/subjective and very difficult to quantify in objective terms.

What does "better" *really* mean to you in terms of speakers, battery life, screen, etc?

Can you describe exactly what benefit those would provide you in your usage?

Without a colorimeter do you think you can discern the difference between the displays? Could your ears discern the difference between the system speakers? Do you already find yourself actually reaching the end of the MBA's battery and wishing you had an extra hour or so? Has the passive cooling of the MBA been limiting to you in some matter so far; or in what way do you expect it to be limiting?

In the end you will need to decide for yourself. Some here will say go with the lower RAM spec MBP, some will say stick with the MBA - and they'll all be right in context of their own personal thoughts of which is "better" for them.

 

[KShopper]

I have the MBA M1/16GB/512GB/8C GPU and I like it, however I'm going back and forth between the MBA and MBP M1 8GB/512GB. I wish that I could afford the MBP 16GB/512GB, but its out of my budget. Here's the dilemma:
MBP 8GB/512GB
Losing half of the memory, but gaining a better screen, active cooling, better speakers, better mic, better battery life, larger touchpad, touch bar (not sure if I would like it or not like it).

I know that I wrote a similar post about this and I did not get a straight answer. My workload is not very heavy. I might start doing video editing next year. I have no desire on the base MBA due to its non-pro M1 processor. Right now, it seems that I have buyers remorse due that I feel that the MBP is slightly a better laptop and a lot of people favoring the MBP over the MBA, even if half of those people will only use their MBP M1 for basic use. My questions are
1. Is it worth sacrificing 16GB memory on my MBA and spending $50 more in getting the MBP M1 8GB/512GB?
2. Should I hold on to my MBA and sell it or trade it for the redesigned MBP when it comes out next year?

You seem to want the "Pro" badge for some reason. You have FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) based on marketing, mostly.

Ignore that instinct, the computer you have does 95% (probably 100%) of what the MBP model would do, esp. since you have 16GB RAM as well. The M1 chip is literally identical in your MBA model and the Pro. The other "qualitative" factors like "better screen, better mics" are *very* subjective and you will never notice a problem with the ones you have. This is pure marketing, Apple *wants* you to have FUD and pay far more for the MBP. Resist and enjoy the lightest, fastest, most efficient laptop ever made.

 

[MK500]

better screen, active cooling, better speakers, better mic, better battery life, larger touchpad, touch bar

better screen : Identical except for brightness. Air screen is already very bright. Unless you are doing HDR work professionally, this won't matter or be noticeable. And if you are doing HDR work professionally you can't really use the Pro anyway (you need an external display).

active cooling : Testing has shown 15% hit on the 8 GPU air when it gets hot. A small desk fan set on low completely corrects it if you want. This really isn't an issue.

better speakers : Just a little more base because of the larger case. Not much different.

better mic : This is probably the most significant difference. But the Air mics are perfectly fine. Also if you really need a great mic, you will plug in an external mic anyway.

better battery life : Yes this is true. But 10 hours is easy on the Air even under decent workload. How much battery do you need? The battery also makes it heavier.

larger touchpad : For me the Air touchpad is already really large. I doubt this is much of an issue for anyone.

touch bar : For many the physical keys are superior to the Touch Bar. It's not well loved.

I can afford either the Air or the Pro. I chose the Air because I think it is superior. Lighter, thinner, quieter. I would pay a premium to get an Air vs. the Pro if Apple had priced it that way, but I'm happy they didn't.

 

[deeddawg]

Resist and enjoy the lightest, fastest, most efficient laptop ever made.

MBA isn't all that light anymore... My (work-provided) Lenovo X1 Carbon is lighter.

Be cool if Apple would put an M1 in a rMB12 chassis with the new keyboard. Then we'd really have something.

 

[acidfast7_redux]

better screen : Identical except for brightness. Air screen is already very bright. Unless you are doing HDR work professionally, this won't matter or be noticeable. And if you are doing HDR work professionally you can't really use the Pro anyway (you need an external display).

active cooling : Testing has shown 15% hit on the 8 GPU air when it gets hot. A small desk fan set on low completely corrects it if you want. This really isn't an issue.

better speakers : Just a little more base because of the larger case. Not much different.

better mic : This is probably the most significant difference. But the Air mics are perfectly fine. Also if you really need a great mic, you will plug in an external mic anyway.

better battery life : Yes this is true. But 10 hours is easy on the Air even under decent workload. How much battery do you need? The battery also makes it heavier.

larger touchpad : For me the Air touchpad is already really large. I doubt this is much of an issue for anyone.

touch bar : For many the physical keys are superior to the Touch Bar. It's not well loved.

I can afford either the Air or the Pro. I chose the Air because I think it is superior. Lighter, thinner, quieter. I would pay a premium to get an Air vs. the Pro if Apple had priced it that way, but I'm happy they didn't.

I agree.

I find the mics more than adequate for my needs and significantly better than my previous rMBP.

The webcam is also excellent.

I would wager that this is the first time that the MBA does enough in base configuration for people to not require an MBP.

At sub-£900, you're going to struggle to find a better machine once the OS is considered.

 

[Bacci]

Memory in the M1 world is not the same as in the Intel world. 8GB will get you a longer way in the new architecture. Also remember that occasional swapping on a disk that runs at 2800+ MB/s is not that big of a deal.
Furthermore, laptops are like cars. A more recent model with lower specs will fetch more in resale value than an older model, fully loaded. And Apple makes a lot of money on its overpriced upgrades.
Hence the best value is the base model with 256GB disk.
Get a SANDISK extreme 1TB (now selling for $149) or 2TB external MVNE SSD disk (the new 1050MB/s version) for your files.
Sell the laptop in two years for the newest Apple model. Second hand MacBooks retain high values. Much more fun than hanging on to old gear.
The difference between sale value and the newest model will be hardly more than what you'd waste on "future proofing" upgrades at Apple's prices. My $0.02.

 

[Buck987]

I would get the pro with 8....so some stuff takes slightly longer, to me the brighter screen is worth it.

But if the screen is OK for you...keep what you have and stop driving yourself crazy. There is no wrong path.

 

[jerryk]

Based on this review, the mic on the Air sounds better to me.

 

[deeddawg]

Get a SANDISK extreme 1TB (now selling for $149) or 2TB external MVNE SSD disk (the new 1050MB/s version) for your files.

Maybe for stuff you infrequently access, but IMHO not a great idea for stuff you regularly use.

Not only is an external a PITA to manage anytime you're working away from a desk, but it's also substantially slower.

I have the cited 1TB Sandisk external SSD. It's nice. But remember "up to" doesn't mean you actually get that rate... Here's it on my M1 MBP:

... and here's the internal SSD (M1 MBP 16/1T):

 

[PinoRavvit]

i'm sure it's been asked before but is there much compromise in getting a 8GB RAM than 16GB?
i don't do anything that requires heavy workload (yet) so 16GB is futureproofing. however i might get into video editing or something at some point.

my order's been processing for while so i was thinking of getting from amazon instead

 

[deeddawg]

i'm sure it's been asked before but is there much compromise in getting a 8GB RAM than 16GB?

Asked before?

Only around seven hundred posts in one thread alone....

I am really torn between 8GB vs. 16GB RAM

Not sure there's anything more to be said than what's in that thread, other than if you had reason to choose what you chose, and that reason hasn't yet changed, then best to wait it out.

In six or eight or twenty months your extra two or three weeks wait to get what you originally wanted will seem immaterial.

 

[deeddawg]

I would get the pro with 8....so some stuff takes slightly longer, to me the brighter screen is worth it.

... and this is something very individual as we use our computers in different environment.

With my 400 nit early-2020 i5 MBA, typically used the screen at ~70% brightness, with rare occasions bumping it up another couple notches. Can't ever remember it being insufficiently bright. Thus for me, screen brightness was not a factor in choosing MBA vs MBP.

 

[jazz1]

Oddly, I went with the MacMini because the price structure afforded me a bump in RAM and SSD storage vs. the MB Air that I ordered and cancelled. It was a hard decision because I was quite the fan of my no dead 12” Macbook and I’ve checked out my daughters Intel MB Air and like the form factor.

I thought that in the meantime my iPad Pro would fill for a laptop (the iPad Pro has a MK). Now that I’m reading rumors of second generation AS with physical revamping of MacBooks I think that, for me, I’ve made a wise choice.

I guess my point is be flexible in your thinking regarding models and specifications with a true evaluation of your needs. Good luck with your choices everyone!

 

[Bacci]

Maybe for stuff you infrequently access, but IMHO not a great idea for stuff you regularly use.

Not only is an external a PITA to manage anytime you're working away from a desk, but it's also substantially slower.

I have the cited 1TB Sandisk external SSD. It's nice. But remember "up to" doesn't mean you actually get that rate... Here's it on my M1 MBP:

View attachment 1688593

... and here's the internal SSD (M1 MBP 16/1T):

View attachment 1688594

Point taken, but having over 200GB worth of files to frequently access is a lot though.
Folks who constantly work with video files have a specific use case.
Moreover, the more space left free on the internal drive, the faster it is for the important stuff like reading system files and swapping.

 

[1240766]

I changed from the MBA to the MBP. Although I much prefer the form of the Air, and don't really care for the Touch Bar, the active cooling is important to me. I work all day with my computer, sometimes I need to write a program or two, and I would rather have the horse power to maintain the load. That was really my compromise.

On another note, with the Pro you get - more brightness, better speakers/mic, faster SSD, active cooling, larger battery and larger/faster charger... so all in all, the cost different seams to justify to me.

 

[pugxiwawa]

Memory in the M1 world is not the same as in the Intel world. 8GB will get you a longer way in the new architecture. Also remember that occasional swapping on a disk that runs at 2800+ MB/s is not that big of a deal.

Sorry this is false. IF your use case requires frequent memory swap, you WILL notice the performance degradation. No matter how fast SSD is it's simply not even close to ram speed by several order of magnitude. Personally I would not downgrade going from 16GB to 8GB. The performance hit in losing 1/2 of memory is not worth the incremental benefits that pro provides. $200 gets you double the memory if you stay with Air but only small incremental (if any) benefits with Pro. Seems to me memory is better ROI.

 

[MK500]

On another note, with the Pro you get - more brightness, better speakers/mic, faster SSD, active cooling, larger battery and larger/faster charger... so all in all, the cost different seams to justify to me.

Faster SSD? First I heard of it.

 

[deeddawg]

Faster SSD? First I heard of it.

This comes from the MBA marketing material claiming the MBA has "Up to 2x faster SSD" while the MBP material claims "Up to 3.3GB/s sequential read speeds", and that the prior MBA SSD speeds were in the ~1.3GB/s range.

Now as for real world, I see similar speeds on my M1 MBP as NotebookCheck claims for the Air using the 5GB read/write on Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, though my write speed is a little higher. Not enough that I'd anticipate a discernible real world difference in most use cases.

Apple MacBook Air 2020 M1 Entry Review: Apple M1 CPU humbles Intel and AMD

The M1 based entry-level Macbook in our extensive technical test.

www.notebookcheck.net

 

[Bacci]

Sorry this is false. IF your use case requires frequent memory swap, you WILL notice the performance degradation. No matter how fast SSD is it's simply not even close to ram speed by several order of magnitude. Personally I would not downgrade going from 16GB to 8GB. The performance hit in losing 1/2 of memory is not worth the incremental benefits that pro provides. $200 gets you double the memory if you stay with Air but only small incremental (if any) benefits with Pro. Seems to me memory is better ROI.

What exactly did I say that is false? The faster that data can be moved around in memory and shared between the processing cores, the less memory is needed. And memory bandwidth on the M1 chip is roughly 3x faster than on a 16-inch MacBook Pro. I have yet to see the first 8GB M1 user complain about serious (i.e. noticeable) slowdowns with 20 browser tabs and all apps they typically use opened at the same time.
Telling people to pay $200 more for 16GB always sounds good, after all everyone's a power user, but is not necessarily good money spent for their use case.

Here's a disk speed comparison between 2020 i5 MBP 512GB and 202 M1 Air 256GB I ran a few weeks back:

 

[Runs For Fun]

Sorry this is false. IF your use case requires frequent memory swap, you WILL notice the performance degradation. No matter how fast SSD is it's simply not even close to ram speed by several order of magnitude. Personally I would not downgrade going from 16GB to 8GB. The performance hit in losing 1/2 of memory is not worth the incremental benefits that pro provides. $200 gets you double the memory if you stay with Air but only small incremental (if any) benefits with Pro. Seems to me memory is better ROI.

Seriously people need to stop saying this. 8GB on the M1 is no different than 8GB on x86. There's so much false information being spread about this.

I would absolutely take the 16GB Air over the 8GB Pro.

 

[trevpimp]

It seems that you would be happier and satisfied with purchasing the new MBP over the MBA

I had buyers remorse for purchasing an iPhone 11 when I heard lots of rumors of how good the battery was on the 11 pro max so I return the 11 and later bought the 11 pro max and that hit the spot for my satisfaction

Purchase the MBP it will always seem better to you deep down

 

[MK500]

Seriously people need to stop saying this. 8GB on the M1 is no different than 8GB on x86. There's so much false information being spread about this.

I would absolutely take the 16GB Air over the 8GB Pro.

There is some difference. My other Macs have 32 and 64GB RAM and my 16GB acts as if it has MUCH more RAM than it actually does. Apple is clearly able to do some magic in the M1 design in concert with Big Sur. I'd like to better understand this as well.

Great example is the video in this post. Check out the memory pressure at the end:

16GB of RAM and 75 open apps…what could go wrong? – The Robservatory

robservatory.com

I agree though; 16GB Air all the way over 8GB Pro. No contest.