M1 MacBook Air or M1 Pro/Max 14”

[jchatwood]

Help please!

Looking for advice - currently have a 2015 MacBook Pro 13” but it is getting time for a new machine.

To give an idea of what I use my laptop for - I mostly do website design, photoshop, Lightroom, and then the basic web use/word processing etc. Also use for zoom/teams meetings, and a lot of teamviewer sessions.

I can’t decide wether the MacBook Air would be suitable, or go for the newer 14” device, along with the room for more performance if needed. Advice/Opinions appreciated!

 

[bosozoku]

I was in the same situation and decoded to go with 14 inch base mbp! Just more future-proof and screen is awesome!

 

[jchatwood]

How do you find it?! I travel with work regularly, how is the weight? Need to get myself to an apple store to actually check one out! Thanks for the reply!

 

[ITsamsamsam]

first of all sorry for my english.
My use is very similar to yours: for work I use the mac for conferences (teams and similar) and for writing.
I replaced my previous air 2019 because, even for my use, the laptop was too little powerful: a conference with more than 5 cameras turned on was almost unmanageable; during the conferences the fan was deafening and the autonomy ridiculous; even in the consumer sphere there were great limits (4k videos played using the home TV went in "jerks", impossible to play any game, etc.).
In summary: air 2019 was even worse than my old 2015 MBP (the latest model with all the ports you really needed).
I switched to 14 which is, in summary, the Apple best portable you can buy.
No temperature problems (air 2021 has no fans); excellent keyboard and, finally, with good key "travel", exceptional autonomy (11 real hours of autonomy; connected to external monitor, backlight at zero, it goes for 20); non-expensive games (ex: Divinity original syn 2) at 60 fps, 1200P, ultra).
16 GB of ram, 1TB ssd.
What to add?
If the cost is not a problem, take the 14: you will not regret it.
It weighs: yes ... but you can't feel it in the backpack.

 

[jchatwood]

first of all sorry for my english.
My use is very similar to yours: for work I use the mac for conferences (teams and similar) and for writing.
I replaced my previous air 2019 because, even for my use, the laptop was too little powerful: a conference with more than 5 cameras turned on was almost unmanageable; during the conferences the fan was deafening and the autonomy ridiculous; even in the consumer sphere there were great limits (4k videos played using the home TV went in "jerks", impossible to play any game, etc.).
In summary: air 2019 was even worse than my old 2015 MBP (the latest model with all the ports you really needed).
I switched to 14 which is, in summary, the Apple best portable you can buy.
No temperature problems (air 2021 has no fans); excellent keyboard and, finally, with good key "travel", exceptional autonomy (11 real hours of autonomy; connected to external monitor, backlight at zero, it goes for 20); non-expensive games (ex: Divinity original syn 2) at 60 fps, 1200P, ultra).
16 GB of ram, 1TB ssd.
What to add?
If the cost is not a problem, take the 14: you will not regret it.
It weighs: yes ... but you can't feel it in the backpack.

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond! I think from what you said - the 14inch is definitely the way to go! Better to have more power and not require it all the time than the other way round! Thanks!!

 

[Alameda]

I have the MBP 14” and I just bought my daughter the MBA 13”, so I’m in a good position to compare them!

Benefits of the Air: It is MUCH smaller, and the power brick is also much smaller. So if you’re a student and you’re going to carry it in a backpack all day, it’s really fantastic. It’s also half the price of the Pro. You can use both with external keyboards and monitors. It has the very fast M1 processor and the fingerprint ID feature. Lots to love.

The 14” MPB has a long list of advantages.
Disadvantages: Bigger, heavier, twice the price.
Advantages:
Much better screen: Bigger, brighter, better colors.
Faster CPU
Comes stock with 16/512GB. Air comes stock with 8/256GB, and the 256 can be an issue.
The keyboard is much nicer in my opinion.
Better audio.
FaceTime camera is 1080p instead of 720p.
MagSafe power!!! But you can still use USBC for power if you want.
Three USBC Thunderbolt ports instead of two, PLUS HDMI (yay!!!) PLUS an SD card slot. Both models have a headphone connector.

So what’s it boil down to?
1) Your budget, certainly.
2) Your Photoshop use. No question you can run Photoshop on the Air, but there are different levels of Photoshop use. So if you want Air, consider a special order model with 16 GB and perhaps 512GB or even 1TB. My last machine was the MBP 2017 model, with Intel CPU, and it had 8GB and I didn’t have memory problems using Photoshop. But I’m not a super power user.