Macbook pro M3 base VS 15 MBA 16gb ram

[wyrdness]

In a knee-jerk way, sure. But unless you see the difference in the screens, hear the difference in the speakers, and feel the difference in the weights and you’re coming at them blind (as many do, online) it’s more difficult (budgeting aside). Until my wife went to an Apple Store to play with the MBAir 13” and MBPro 14” “side by each” 🤗 it was a toss up. Once she did, there was no way to get her to budge from getting a MBPro (for her, it’s the speakers) and thus there is at least one, quite content, base M series chip shopper of the 14” MBPro out there…

Personally, since Apple no longer make a 12” MacBook and I’m more flexible in my tech choices than I’ve been able to be in the past, my 16” MBPro has Desktop Duty and my 11” iPad Pro is my portable computer. When it comes to portability, I value portability the most… but I’m unwilling to give up on a great screen.

Fair point. I haven't actually compared the speakers of my Air and Pro, but the Air's speakers are far better than an HP laptop I had that claimed 'Bang & Olfsen sound). I'd still pick the Air over the Pro for personal use, partly because of the Air's lightness.