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MacBook Air vs. MacBook Pro Buyer's Guide: 30+ Differences Compared

“If you cannot afford the 14-inch MacBook Pro's $1,999 price tag, but you think you will need slightly more than what the ‌M2‌ ‌MacBook Air‌ has to offer, the ‌M1‌ ‌MacBook Air‌ offers a good middle-ground option for some.”

I assume you mean 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro?
 
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houttbe said:
“If you cannot afford the 14-inch MacBook Pro's $1,999 price tag, but you think you will need slightly more than what the ‌M2‌ ‌MacBook Air‌ has to offer, the ‌M1‌ ‌MacBook Air‌ offers a good middle-ground option for some.”

I assume you mean 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro?
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YES. I came here to say the same. Also, DO NOT BUY THAT MODEL haha. It’s more than the M2 Air, and worse. Fragile display and display cables from 2016 design era, no magsafe, smaller screen and worse camera than M2 Air. Sure it has active cooling, but it doesn’t matter too much in reality - if you’re doing extended video conversions constantly it will still do it, just slower. Look at the 14-inch if that’s your primary use case. By the time you match the 14-inch base spec (16GB, 512GB) the M2 13-inch Pro isn’t that much cheaper.
 
If I had had any say in this I would have discontinued the MacBook Pro 13 and slotted the new MacBook Air 15 into its place price wise. Hell, I would have pushed dropping the price about 100-200 bucks across the entire Air line. The M chips are giving the Airs pro level performance you couldn’t have imagined 3-4 years ago.
 
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Warped9 said:
M2 (and M1) MacBook Air is a very capable mainstream consumer device for most use cases. The M2 MacBook Pros are high-powered dedicated professional devices. You buy a Pro because your work really demands that kind of capability so their cost is an investment in productivity. Or you want bragging rights for having an extreme toy. You buy an Air because you’re more practical, (somewhat) more budget minded and need/want something more general purpose oriented yet still capable of some heaving lifting.

The 13in. Pro is the oddball. It’s a (somewhat) budget oriented Pro device, but there is very little justification for it compared to the Airs. Maybe you like the Touchbar.
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I really disagree. If you look at the starting point, the MacBook Air really is crippleware. There’s not enough ram to be able to open multiple things at the same time. For example, I’m not a professional, but I often need to have several browsers open simply because I use different logins for different websites for different purposes and that’s very convenient. You can’t do that without a lot of RAM

Second, the amount of, SSD storage is also much lower as a starting point on the air versus the pro.

Therefore, if you simply price out a MacBook Pro with its base level of RAM and SSD, versus a MacBook Air without amount of RAM and SSD, the price difference, it’s not that great.

In addition, I really do like the idea that the MacBook Pro has a fan. I do hear the fan kicking on periodically and my iPhone regularly overheats which suggest to meet at the MacBook Air might have that same problem

Finally, for some reason, most readers hereseem to hate the Touch Bar. I don’t understand that. It’s really nice for a lot of auto fill that’s needed to populate websites these days. Being able to quickly shift the brightness or other functions is also pretty easy with that. I view the Touch Bar as a bonus.
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Warped9 said:
If I had had any say in this I would have discontinued the MacBook Pro 13 and slotted the new MacBook Air 15 into its place price wise. Hell, I would have pushed dropping the price about 100-200 bucks across the entire Air line. The M chips are giving the Airs pro level performance you couldn’t have imagined 3-4 years ago.
Click to expand...
I was waiting to see the final specs for the air when it was released. I’m going to probably end up buying the 13 inch MacBook Pro for these reasons:

First, for travel, the physical lateral dimensions are more important to me than shaving a few millimeters off. Weight wise the MacBook Pro and the Equivalent air are pretty much the same as weight.

From a pricing standpoint, the air is priced as a cripple wear. It comes with less RAM and less SSD storage than the pro. That’s simply a marketing gimmick to get people think that it’s more of a low cost option.

Finally, the fan is useful. I have a , 2017 13 inch pro whose motherboard was upgraded in 2019 and I do hear the fan kicking on regularly. That’s with 16 gig of RAM

I suspect that as I get years out of this new device the fan will also come in handy when opening multiple browsers and multiple applications.
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Cam Elppa said:
Totally agree. Use to need a MacBook Pro to edit videos now and then and to export things like movies or photo shop. I have a MacBook Air M2 and OMG it flys!!! It is equivalent to a MacBook Pro of yesteryear and then some. Not till you use one do you realise how capable it is and don’t really need anything more powerful.
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I have both an M2 MBA and an M2 MBP.

I really like my MBP, I love my MBA.
 
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Warped9 said:
The 13in. Pro is the oddball. It’s a (somewhat) budget oriented Pro device, but there is very little justification for it compared to the Airs. Maybe you like the Touchbar.
Click to expand...
It is likely there for corporate purchases.

Purchasing dept tend to be slow to change their orders without approval from upper management so the line item would state "MBP 13" for ~$1300".

Even if Apple's salesmen explained why MBA 13" is better at <$799 a company's purchasing person would have no wiggle room to make a better value decision.

Auditing will have a field day with that purchasing person that may result in employment termination even if it is a + for their employer.

So Apple just sells them that.
 
Thanks for putting this together.
The 15" Air & 16" Pro are a little difficult to compare at the moment as we don't have pricing for equal amounts of DRAM & flash yet (Apple will probably make them available after ordering is available).

However, extrapolating a little bit from other Mac pricing, in the config I'm looking for (16GB DRAM, 1TB SSD, beefy power adapter), there will likely be a ~350$/€ difference between equivalently-spec'd new 15" Air & refurbished 16" Pro.

The extra CPU & GPU cores don't matter that much to me, but here's what does:
  1. 3rd Thunderbolt port
  2. HDMI port
  3. extra inch of screen real-estate
  4. potentially, longer service & support life & less depreciation
  5. active cooling
  6. bigger battery
  7. I can get the 16" refurbished with the config I want now
 
Longplays said:
It is likely there for corporate purchases.

Purchasing dept tend to be slow to change their orders without approval from upper management so the line item would state "MBP 13" for ~$1300".

Even if Apple's salesmen explained why MBA 13" is better at <$799 a company's purchasing person would have no wiggle room to make a better value decision.

Auditing will have a field day with that purchasing person that may result in employment termination even if it is a + for their employer.
Click to expand...
yep
& this is why the primary output of large corporation is:
waste
 
funkboy said:
yep
& this is why the primary output of large corporation is:
waste
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. It gets sold to companies that sell it to poor nations that can use it or to companies that use refurbished office equipment.

The days of giving away trash is gone unless it has some residual value.

Anything thinking it goes to the dump is half right, a fraction of the time.
 
funkboy said:
Thanks for putting this together.
The 15" Air & 16" Pro are a little difficult to compare at the moment as we don't have pricing for equal amounts of DRAM & flash yet (Apple will probably make them available after ordering is available).

However, extrapolating a little bit from other Mac pricing, in the config I'm looking for (16GB DRAM, 1TB SSD, beefy power adapter), there will likely be a ~350$/€ difference between equivalently-spec'd new 15" Air & refurbished 16" Pro.

The extra CPU & GPU cores don't matter that much to me, but here's what does:
  1. 3rd Thunderbolt port
  2. HDMI port
  3. extra inch of screen real-estate
  4. potentially, longer service & support life & less depreciation
  5. active cooling
  6. bigger battery
  7. I can get the 16" refurbished with the config I want now
Click to expand...
To put it simply most people will buy based on price.

For my use case I'd be inclined to buy a MBA 15" M2 as it is half the price of a MBP 16".
 
Very generalized article that does not help those of us in the middle. It should be obvious to anyone that if you just use email and watch movies the Air is fine, or if you are editing a Hollywood movie, you need a Pro. But I'm a professional photographer who shoots on location so I'm always on the move and editing the photos where ever I am. I use Lightroom and Photoshop when the client demands it, but prefer to use Capture 1 and AffinityPhoto when the client does not care. Portability is important to me since I'm already carrying around 50-150 pounds of photo equipment, but having a slightly larger screen is helpful too. Storage space is important since I fill up about 1TB every couple of months. I also need to think about the future as photo editing programs evolve to include new ways to create masks and remove or clone objects nearly automatically. So I'm a creative yet I'd not consider my use case something that needs a lot of computer resources. For any of you in a similar situation, what is your expierence with the Air and the Pro? That information is what would help me. Thanks.
 
It would be nice to see more coverage of the lower resolution displays on the Air models. I know it doesn't matter much to most customers, but the lack of reasonable scaling options means you might want to pick a laptop based on resolution instead of just screen size. The 15" Air has a lower resolution display than the 14" Pro, which is worse than rumored but may actually be a plus for many users.
 
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Yeah, weird “new” post today that originally started in Jan. Not seen that before. To be fair, it’s been an insane week. Have no idea how you guys could possibly keep
Up. Just as a reader, I can’t. 🤪
But yeah… This one’s a bit confusing.

Back on topic: the MBP is clearly a beast. But the MBA is stunningly capable and hilariously light/thin. It’s major shortcoming is its lack of dual monitor support. If that is something critical to your workflow, the MBA isn’t for you. Otherwise, a truly incredible machine. And now that there’s a 15”… Look the F out.
 
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How about OS support? Will the air get less support? Any experience? If the pro gets only one more year of OS support I would chose the pro over the air.
 
Crazy how they hold the MBA back on the external displays. For all their boasting, even an intel MBA can handle more displays without modifications like DisplayLink.
 
Nice write-up — thorough, clear, and well organized.

A nitpick. Did you really mean to use “weary” instead of “wary”?

”The 15-inch ‌MacBook Air‌ should offer a good balance of portability and display area, but users weary of its size should opt for the 13-inch model.”​
​
After all, it's hard to be “weary“ of a *newly* introduced size!
 
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Johnstrass2 said:
I really disagree. If you look at the starting point, the MacBook Air really is crippleware. There’s not enough ram to be able to open multiple things at the same time. For example, I’m not a professional, but I often need to have several browsers open simply because I use different logins for different websites for different purposes and that’s very convenient. You can’t do that without a lot of RAM

Second, the amount of, SSD storage is also much lower as a starting point on the air versus the pro.

Therefore, if you simply price out a MacBook Pro with its base level of RAM and SSD, versus a MacBook Air without amount of RAM and SSD, the price difference, it’s not that great.

In addition, I really do like the idea that the MacBook Pro has a fan. I do hear the fan kicking on periodically and my iPhone regularly overheats which suggest to meet at the MacBook Air might have that same problem

Finally, for some reason, most readers hereseem to hate the Touch Bar. I don’t understand that. It’s really nice for a lot of auto fill that’s needed to populate websites these days. Being able to quickly shift the brightness or other functions is also pretty easy with that. I view the Touch Bar as a bonus.
.
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MacBook Air is not crippleware. 8GB unified is plenty to do lots. You can open every app that ships on your system at once and memory pressure is still green in activity monitor. You can virtualise Win11 speedily in parallels, even on M1 with 8GB. Try it. It’s super fast. Ram usage is NOTHING like on Intel.
 
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