If you do not game, video edit, or photography on it, will MBA be suffice or will MBP be more future proof per the active cooling? Still debating which one to get? It will be one or the other for sure. Just need some help deciding?
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M1 MBA or M1 MBP?
- Thread starter jsoto
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I just went from a 2020 I5/16/256 intel MBA, to a base M1 MBP. Besides the massive performance and battery life boosts, the screen is what I notice most. Much easier to see in my bright office.
The speakers don’t seem any better than the MBA to me. The touch bar is mildly amusing if anything.
Blown away by the speed and smoothness of the M1 and Big Sur. Finally, a laptop that doesn’t cook my lap!
The speakers don’t seem any better than the MBA to me. The touch bar is mildly amusing if anything.
Blown away by the speed and smoothness of the M1 and Big Sur. Finally, a laptop that doesn’t cook my lap!
I went for the MBP because I felt the following are worth the price difference:
Brighter screen.
Better speakers.
Larger trackpad.
Longer battery life.
Active cooling and the extra GPU core are an additional bonus.
Brighter screen.
Better speakers.
Larger trackpad.
Longer battery life.
Active cooling and the extra GPU core are an additional bonus.
Base air. Haven't seen a single reason for more RAM and I'm unlikely to. Not worth 20% extra (or essential 20% extra of the new machine.)
Same with the comparison of the MBA to MBP. Touch pad and screen brightness could be logical considered reasons for the upgrade.
Haven't seen any reason for either published yet.
Having said that, I'm sure that 3% of MBP users do have a real need for the difference in sustained performance (iterative scientific calculations or continuous rendering/compiling). The other 97% of user will find it hard to justify the price premium with the memory management in this current iteration of the M1.
A few people may try to make the gaming argument, but seriously?
Same with the comparison of the MBA to MBP. Touch pad and screen brightness could be logical considered reasons for the upgrade.
Haven't seen any reason for either published yet.
Having said that, I'm sure that 3% of MBP users do have a real need for the difference in sustained performance (iterative scientific calculations or continuous rendering/compiling). The other 97% of user will find it hard to justify the price premium with the memory management in this current iteration of the M1.
A few people may try to make the gaming argument, but seriously?
But they don't sound worse, do they?
Because I had Air 13" 2018 and MBP 13" 2019 side by side and I found that Pro had worse sound quality, almost like totally lacking bass compared to Air. And from what I have heard Air 2019 and 2020 have even better speakers than 2018, not sure if Pro made any progress during that but based on Notebookcheck reviews of the models I could find, their test confirmed Air has a little better audio quality.
I'm also interested about machine temperature during use since Air has not cooling fan. Does it get noticeable warm (and warmed than M1 Pro)? I found often that my MBP 13" 2019 did feel a bit too warm using on my lap.
I’m currently on a 2015 MBP 15in w/ 16GB of RAM & 2TB of Storage, and I’m moving to the M1 2013 MBP w/ 167GB of RAM & 2TB of Storage. I mainly do a lot of recording in Logic Pro and video editing in FCPX, and have been holding off as long as possible in getting a new machine. My choice in the Pro over the Air was that I wanted to keep to something as close as possible to what I currently have had. If I can get another 5+ years out of this new laptop, I’ll be happy. And knowing I’ll be able to push it a little further than the Air makes me feel like it’ll last longer and continue to be useful 5 years later.
No, I don't think they are worse. I was just a little let down that there wasn't a big improvement. Not a big deal by any means. I'm usually focused on the content rather than audio quality, and have other options for when audio quality is the focus, (headphones, bluetooth speakers).
OK. I'm neither using much Macbook speakers anyway as mostly using Airpods but when I happened to have both machines at home testing different things between them I realized that audio in Air was much better than in Pro. I mean going by technical specifications Pro should have better but then looking at reviews and judging by my own ears Air was better than Pro (that was with Air 2018 vs Pro 2019 both 13" models). Sound was very tinny in Pro, almost lacking bass completely while Air had much fuller sound with decent bass too.
I don't think that there's that much of a difference between the MBA and MBP. I would actually buy either right now if my configuration were available locally.
Yeah, everything 16gb is shipping only into December. It’d be neat to have some sort of email notification when a particular product is in stock at a particular location. ?
I'm camping out on Apple.com hoping that a 16/256 shows up. It happens from time to time but they're not around for very long. I also want to avoid stores in areas with high COVID numbers.
My same line of reasoning when I ordered the MBP. Then I saw the benchmarks and some performance tests in videos together. Turns out:
- Macbooks side-by-side saw virtually zero noticeable difference in brightness.
- Active cooling seemed to only matter on extreme workloads with 8-minutes sustained multi-core performance. Single-core operations saw literally same speeds for some software development compile times, which is what I'll be doing. The difference in temps were 2-3 C differential max running the 8-core loads 10 minutes+.
These were the two biggest factors I didn't realize when ordering the MBP. Then I evaluated the drawbacks for getting a MBP:
- For 10% more in cost, I can quadruple the SSD capacity, from 256gb to 1T by getting the Air.
- TouchBar is actually a negative for me. Getting it removed is a plus.
- Resale value - Macbook Air seems to be in higher demand than Pro. Thus we can reasonably assume trying to resell it, more people will look for Airs vs Pro's. However, if I'm buying a high-spec'd 16gb/1T SSD/8 core gpu, it may be hard to recoup most of the cost as second-hand buyers are looking for a value purchase (meaning lower-tiered pricing).
I ended up buying the 16gb/1T SSD at a store, and my original ordered MBP due to arrive today! Will be opening it to do some work comparisons to see if there really is a noticeable/not noticeable performance difference. I am definitely leaning towards keeping the Air right now, as its performance is unreal.
I originally ordered the MBP with 16 gig ram, then once I'd watched/read all the reviews switched to the Air with 16 gig ram + bigger SSD.
It seems the Air is beyond capable of performing most of the pro tasks I'd need it for (photo editing/3D render), so I'm choosing between something highly capable and something slightly more capable. For that extra cash all I'm going to see in terms of benefit is a few minutes saved on certain intermittent (for me) processes. Ram will be a bigger quality of life upgrade in my case. Of course you might want the slightly better speakers, extra battery and touch bar...but id rather have ram and ssd. Plus the Air is nicer design visually and ergonomically IMO.
I think you have to ask yourself that, considering the M1 Air beats out an entry level MBP 16" (from what I read, don't come at me) in many use cases, do you really need to haggle over the slight improvement in performance with the MBP? If price vs. spec is a consideration, then more than good enough should beat out best available.
It seems the Air is beyond capable of performing most of the pro tasks I'd need it for (photo editing/3D render), so I'm choosing between something highly capable and something slightly more capable. For that extra cash all I'm going to see in terms of benefit is a few minutes saved on certain intermittent (for me) processes. Ram will be a bigger quality of life upgrade in my case. Of course you might want the slightly better speakers, extra battery and touch bar...but id rather have ram and ssd. Plus the Air is nicer design visually and ergonomically IMO.
I think you have to ask yourself that, considering the M1 Air beats out an entry level MBP 16" (from what I read, don't come at me) in many use cases, do you really need to haggle over the slight improvement in performance with the MBP? If price vs. spec is a consideration, then more than good enough should beat out best available.
I came from a 2013 top of the line MBP with an 2.7ghz i7, 16gb of ram, and 512 ssd. I do a lot of photo editing, graphic design, and some light video editing from time to time. Honestly I felt comfortable getting the cheapest MacBook Air with these benchmarks and so far it has not disappointed. It handles my 4K video files from my fuji XT3 FAR better than the $2000 custom PC I built just 8 months ago.
Unless you need to do sustained workloads like long rendering jobs or processing the Air is just as good as the Pro. The Pro will just help you on sustained workloads so instead of it taking 15 minutes to do a long operation it might take 10 minutes on a Pro. Ultimately the choice is yours but for my money, my iPad Pro was so nearly the device I wanted but the Air perfectly fits the bill for me. YMMV
Unless you need to do sustained workloads like long rendering jobs or processing the Air is just as good as the Pro. The Pro will just help you on sustained workloads so instead of it taking 15 minutes to do a long operation it might take 10 minutes on a Pro. Ultimately the choice is yours but for my money, my iPad Pro was so nearly the device I wanted but the Air perfectly fits the bill for me. YMMV
What I haven't seen is how it handles professional trading platforms. One other thing that I'd like to know is if you can use two 4k monitors in clamshell. I've seen videos where it doesn't work if the internal screen is in use.
We're the reason why they never show up. I originally thought that they didn't have 16 GB configurations at the stores but I heard about them here and I've seen a few of them in searches - so they exist - you just have to be fast. This is like trying to buy 25 pound dumbbells at Dicks. I've been trying to get one for about four months. I check Dicks website daily.
I can say that it does the "PLZ FIX" email quite well from out of the office, hah. As for the 4k I'm not sure but it rendered perfectly fine on my 34" ultra wide monitor 1440p. Idk if it's a Mac limitation just running on HDMI but it was limited to 50Hz. Display port output might do better but I don't know how readily available that is for my current setup to go from USB C to dongle to Display Port.
Thanks everyone for all the replies. The MBP has many tempting things. If it just had the regular function keys I would be sold on it in a heartbeat! I am coming from a VERY old MBP. It is a MBP mid 2010 i7 2.66 GHz Dual Core. So any machine will smoke what I currently have. Made it last this long with a SATA SSD even though it has only SATA 2, and maxed out RAM which for this machine is 8GB. It has been a great machine till it started to experienice the GPU kernel panic 3 years ago. The GPU panic has gotten really bad this year to almost make it not useable. Have been getting by with my various Windows machines and would occasionally fire up the MBP for a special need. I am leaning towards the MBA it will be my main MAC machine. I am really curios for what a M1 iMac will be down the road. Have iPad Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro. Just missed having the MAC.
Now should I get the 7 or 8 Core GPU? I will be upgrading to 16GB of RAM and 1TB SSD.
I already purchased my Apple Gift Cards since they are on sale at 10% off at the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal for this purchase!
Now should I get the 7 or 8 Core GPU? I will be upgrading to 16GB of RAM and 1TB SSD.
I already purchased my Apple Gift Cards since they are on sale at 10% off at the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal for this purchase!
Agree!
I just got the M1 Mini and love it's cool operation and no fan at all!
Now that I can see firsthand how cool the Mini runs, I am thinking of replacing my 16" MBP that is a real lap thigh burner.
The Intel i7 cooker is so hot running all day not doing anything that I had to get a laptop cooling fan to keep the heat down.
Since I don't do any video editing or heavy work on it, I am looking at the M1 MBA to replace the Intel heater - which is similar to my fanless 12" rMB which I love so dearly!
Was debating the same thing MBP vs Air. After some analysis of how I use the computer and predicting future resale value I went with the Air 16GB 1TB (helped that it was in stock locally). My logic is that the Air will likely have a better resale value since when the 16" M1 Pros come out, people will prefer that over the 13" Pro. I don't think Apple will update the Air again before the 16" Pro comes out so hopefully will be able to sell the Air for about what I bought it for (and then get the 16" M1? Pro which is what I really want lol).