MacBook Pro 14" vs MacBook Air

[bill-p]

After all the ringing endorsements worldwide in the M1 12 months ago, that’s quite a tepid endorsement!

How utterly amazing the M1 pro must be.

Honestly, my M1 MacBook Pro 13" was amazing. The CPU was fast and responsive with most of my tasks. Sadly, the GPU was less than stellar. It was faster than the last Intel integrated graphics on Mac but far below what a dedicated AMD GPU was capable of.

The M1 Pro took care of that need for me. Also, check this out:



This is after 3 hours of Fusion 360. Fan isn't even on the entire time. Also you can see I occasionally checked in to Cura to slice my finished 3D models. Also was checking websites and listening to some music (not all the time) in Safari via Youtube.

Someone said my M1 Pro 14" was a "unicorn"? I don't think so. This is what the 14" is capable of. People are just too caught up by the initial reviews showing battery life less than 10 hours doing "light work" to dismiss the 14" as having "bad" battery life. Honestly, the 13" Pro did not last much longer than this doing the same tasks. But hey, it excelled at mostly idle tasks, so I guess that's the saving grace.

I don't do "idle", though. I wanted the 14" Pro specifically for Fusion 360 and Cura and some other 3D modeling apps. The machine has not disappoint thus far, and the battery while under this much work has been stellar!

 

[darngooddesign]

12 hours of screen-on time. I don't just leave the computer idle or turn the display off or close it to let it sleep and claim that's "battery life".

For me, it's continuous screen-on time that matters.

I think thats the flaw in your comparison as far as being able to claim that the 14" has the same battery life as a 13" Air, let alone the 13" Pro with its larger battery. For many people "battery life" is also the lid open but the computer being relatively idle, in addition to the active time; because that's how computers are commonly used over the course of a day.

TLDR - An SOC with more efficiency cores will use less power during light to moderate tasks.

 

[Tozovac]

Honestly, my M1 MacBook Pro 13" was amazing. The CPU was fast and responsive with most of my tasks. Sadly, the GPU was less than stellar. It was faster than the last Intel integrated graphics on Mac but far below what a dedicated AMD GPU was capable of.

The M1 Pro took care of that need for me. Also, check this out:

View attachment 1918714

This is after 3 hours of Fusion 360. Fan isn't even on the entire time. Also you can see I occasionally checked in to Cura to slice my finished 3D models. Also was checking websites and listening to some music (not all the time) in Safari via Youtube.

Someone said my M1 Pro 14" was a "unicorn"? I don't think so. This is what the 14" is capable of. People are just too caught up by the initial reviews showing battery life less than 10 hours doing "light work" to dismiss the 14" as having "bad" battery life. Honestly, the 13" Pro did not last much longer than this doing the same tasks. But hey, it excelled at mostly idle tasks, so I guess that's the saving grace.

I don't do "idle", though. I wanted the 14" Pro specifically for Fusion 360 and Cura and some other 3D modeling apps. The machine has not disappoint thus far, and the battery while under this much work has been stellar!

Thanks.

Would you or anyone say that a 2% reduction in battery health after 25 cycles is normal?

 

[Alameda]

Thanks.

Would you or anyone say that a 2% reduction in battery health after 25 cycles is normal?

I would say 2% is a rounding error, and not an actual reduction.

 

[uller6]

It won’t throttle at 90° C.

It must have been at 118° C for a very short time or your MBA has a hardware problem. I’ve never seen above 102° C on my MBA even trying to push it to the limit with all CPU & GPU cores active at the same time.

Why is it important that Chrome is causing temperatures in the low 40° C range?

My M1 MBA regularly runs between 18-24C doing regular office work. Running it all out with Logic Pro or VM work only ups the CPU temp to ~48C. I’ve never seen mine go above 50C, no matter the workload. I have the 8c/16Gb/1T model.

 

[bill-p]

I think thats the flaw in your comparison as far as being able to claim that the 14" has the same battery life as a 13" Air, let alone the 13" Pro with its larger battery. For many people "battery life" is also the lid open but the computer being relatively idle, in addition to the active time; because that's how computers are commonly used over the course of a day.

TLDR - An SOC with more efficiency cores will use less power during light to moderate tasks.

If the computer is idle, the cores are not in use at all, so more or less efficiency cores don't matter.

Also the 14" has a bigger battery than both the 13" Pro and the Air. And as stated, I did test "mostly idle" battery life as well, the Air did not last longer than the 14". If I just leave the 14" all by itself without really doing anything at all, then it lasts 15-16 hours while the screen is on.

Thanks.

Would you or anyone say that a 2% reduction in battery health after 25 cycles is normal?

MacOS seems to account for battery health differently compared to iStat. I wouldn't worry about that number. Here's a screenshot I took about an hour after that.

 

[Queen6]

If the computer is idle, the cores are not in use at all, so more or less efficiency cores don't matter.

Also the 14" has a bigger battery than both the 13" Pro and the Air. And as stated, I did test "mostly idle" battery life as well, the Air did not last longer than the 14". If I just leave the 14" all by itself without really doing anything at all, then it lasts 15-16 hours while the screen is on.



MacOS seems to account for battery health differently compared to iStat. I wouldn't worry about that number. Here's a screenshot I took about an hour after that.

View attachment 1918971

Idle is a pointless value. The 13" M1 will simply draw less versus the 14" M1, just how it is simple as that. As ever it all boils down to usage, workflow and picking the right tool for the job.

Q-6

 

[AlexanderUK]

I don't know if this helps your discussion but as I mentioned in another thread I've recently done the Air VS Pro frustration dance myself. I'm a web developer so granted my usage will vary from yours (less GPU but still heavy RAM and multi-core and sustained bursts), but I ended up settling on the Air (8x8 16GB 1TB).

For all the pro's advantages (and yes there are a number), several of the Air's weaknesses can be mitigated against (ports via a hub, lower quality sound and mic via a headset, etc) and for those that can't (performance & throttling), the price difference between the Air and the 10Core Pro in the UK was £850 when I bought the machine... which was half the cost of the Air.

That was the deciding factor, rather than shave a few minutes off my workflow (yours would vary), I could use that cash in a few years time to reduce my outgoings on the next model which could possibly outperform this years pros.

PS Tozovac: If you are concerned over battery stats, I recommend buying AlDente Pro. It "manages" your minimum and maximum charge levels (over the Apple one) so you should suffer overall less degradation of your battery. Nothing is a given mind but it has a massive following both here and among developer community.

 

[maerz001]

I appreciate the OP, and what he was trying to say. We have the base M1 MBA. It has been a wonderful machine, and we even have it setup with two users: my wife and myself. The screen and keyboard of the 14" MBP are enticing to me, but we literally have no use for most of that power/performance. We charge the MBA maybe once or twice a week, and neither of us are "pro" users in any sense of the word. (I don't even know what Light Room looks like!)

For a comparison: for our workflows it goes toe-to-toe with my brand new, work-issued Dell XPS 13" (i7-1185, 16GB RAM). Crunching numbers in Excel, several Edge browser tabs open with different sites (& Pandora playing music), MS Teams (calls and meetings sometimes), a Citrix app or two occasionally. All of this with the icing on the cake: I snagged the MBA for around half the Dell: $760 vs $1350.

I still recommend the (refurbished) base MBA all the time, as I don't think the next-gen MBA is going to be as cheap as the current version.

Hows memory pressure when 2 persons are logged in? I guess 8GB can be limiting if both have a few apps open?

 

[arvinsim]

I don't know if this helps your discussion but as I mentioned in another thread I've recently done the Air VS Pro frustration dance myself. I'm a web developer so granted my usage will vary from yours (less GPU but still heavy RAM and multi-core and sustained bursts), but I ended up settling on the Air (8x8 16GB 1TB).

For all the pro's advantages (and yes there are a number), several of the Air's weaknesses can be mitigated against (ports via a hub, lower quality sound and mic via a headset, etc) and for those that can't (performance & throttling), the price difference between the Air and the 10Core Pro in the UK was £850 when I bought the machine... which was half the cost of the Air.

That was the deciding factor, rather than shave a few minutes off my workflow (yours would vary), I could use that cash in a few years time to reduce my outgoings on the next model which could possibly outperform this years pros.

PS Tozovac: If you are concerned over battery stats, I recommend buying AlDente Pro. It "manages" your minimum and maximum charge levels (over the Apple one) so you should suffer overall less degradation of your battery. Nothing is a given mind but it has a massive following both here and among developer community.

I arrived at the same conclusion. After hemming and hawing over what Macbook to buy, I just couldn't justify the Macbook Pro price and have decided to get the 16GB 1TB M1 MBA.

TBH, the only thing relevant for developers IMO for the Pros is the higher RAM configuration.

 

[Tozovac]

I arrived at the same conclusion. After hemming and hawing over what Macbook to buy, I just couldn't justify the Macbook Pro price and have decided to get the 16GB 1TB M1 MBA.

TBH, the only thing relevant for developers IMO for the Pros is the higher RAM configuration.

I've been wanting to replace my 2013 MBA with either an MBA or 14" MBP, have been going back & forth for a week or three, but just decided with the help of a few convincing YouTube videos to keep using my M1 Mac mini for now, and "pocket" the $1200-2000 I would have paid out of pocket after trading in the Mac mini ($520 trade-in value from Apple)... Those who need powerful portability won't have this option but this works for me luckily.

 

[jdb8167]

TBH, the only thing relevant for developers IMO for the Pros is the higher RAM configuration.

The much faster SSD is also going to show up for builds.

 

[bill-p]

TBH, the only thing relevant for developers IMO for the Pros is the higher RAM configuration.

More CPU cores, more RAM, higher RAM bandwidth, faster SSDs, etc... all help with coding, although admittedly, not that much. I wouldn't say M1 Pro is significantly faster than M1 at compiling code, but it is faster anyway.

The thing is, if you can afford the new MacBook without breaking the bank, then they are kind of a no-brainer for moderate intensity workflows.

 

[arvinsim]

More CPU cores, more RAM, higher RAM bandwidth, faster SSDs, etc... all help with coding, although admittedly, not that much. I wouldn't say M1 Pro is significantly faster than M1 at compiling code, but it is faster anyway.

The thing is, if you can afford the new MacBook without breaking the bank, then they are kind of a no-brainer for moderate intensity workflows.

Yes, if one can afford it, it's fine.

It's just that I feel that the cost to value is not that great.

Admittedly, if you need >= 32GB RAM, then you need it. No way around it.

 

[Queen6]

Yes, if one can afford it, it's fine.

It's just that I feel that the cost to value is not that great.

Admittedly, if you need >= 32GB RAM, then you need it. No way around it.

That's how it's kind of always been with Apple

100% stock, never clean installed: if the new MBP's can hold up to the same standard then the value wont be to shabby...

As ever time will tell. The 2016 redesign was pretty much a designers dream over users practical needs. The 2021 MBP is absolutely a step in the right direction.

Personally I would buy a 14" MBP in a heartbeat of I had the need. Right now the 13" M1 MBP serves me better and also allows Apple time to work out the kinks

Q-6

 

[Thisismattwade]

Hows memory pressure when 2 persons are logged in? I guess 8GB can be limiting if both have a few apps open?

We seem to constantly be at 6-7 GB in "Memory Used". Since the last 24 hours have been particularly busy for this little machine I can post some "strenuous" stats. (Haven't restarted the machine in over a week; I'm the only one who does it.)

Phys Memory 8 GB
Memory Used 7.04 GB
Cached Files 924 MB
Swap Used 3.19 GB

Just last night while we were watching a video on the laptop, I decided to stop checking Activity Monitor. This machine has proven itself over the last couple of months, and we've never had any issues with it under our usage. ?