What will I miss the most from a MBP?

[Komodo Rogue]

Hey everyone,

I have been a MBP user for over a decade. My most recent MBP was a 13” M1 with 8GB RAM. They are excellent computers that I recommend to anyone who will listen!

I’m getting a new notebook because I want to upgrade to 16GB. 8GB has been surprisingly effective but a little too small for my use cases as of lately. I also want to upgrade screen size and get a little more real estate so I can have two windows open at once without things feeling too cramped. I want at least 15”.

So I checked out the new 16” MBP and it’s a dreamy machine but 1) the price for the cheapest 16” is higher than I want to spend and 2) a Pro/Max series M chip is, frankly, more than I need. So it’s tough to justify.

This brings me to the upcoming 15” M3 Air. This seems to be perfect for me: I can get 16GB, 15” screen, and won’t totally break the bank (although damn, Apple charges a lot for memory).

Having only used MBP, what if anything will I notice when I start using a non-pro? I am someone who appreciates pro-motion, but when playing with an air at the store, it seemed good enough. Are there other missing bells and whistles I’ll notice when they’re gone?

TL;DR I always used MBPs and now want an Air to save money. Aside from screen and ports, what else might I miss if I go with an Air? I often use a second display but never a third.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I often use a second display but never a third.

Air should do fine.

 

[Christopher Kim]

Think you've got all the considerations - to me, it would really just be lack of ProMotion and ports. On the ProMotion piece, I do think it'll be noticeable at first when you switch, but like all things, your eyes / brain will get used to it. The MBA still has a beautiful screen. On ports, if you don't use the HDMI or SD card slots regularly, you won't miss it. You can always get a USB-C dongle for the rare situations you'll need to connect those things.

The other slight "factor" is if you've had an MBP this whole time, whether you place some value on "having the Pro"... Plenty of people buy the Pro iPhone or Pro Macs not because they "need it", but because there's some "cool" factor of having it. It's a tool, but also incorporates some level of self-expression. Subtle, maybe unconscious, but if we're being honest, probably not zero for most people.

That aside, given you don't need the power of the Pro/Max chips, and the M3 chip is still amazing in its own right, what you gain (much lighter weight, cheaper price) feels like it would make sense for you.

 

[oasantos1]

I upgraded from a base 15" Air to 14 MBP M3 Pro

Performance for the things I do, is identical... and that's with the Air having an M2.

More ports is always nice. I don't have to carry my hub anymore.

The biggest thing for me now, is ProMotion. Once you've used it, IMO you can't go back.

 

[turbineseaplane]

The screen refresh rate

(ProMotion)

Major downgrade to go back to 60hz once you get use to higher refresh rates

 

[Komodo Rogue]

Thanks for the comments. Of what I've read, I actually do appreciate promotion, and the idea of having HDMI available without a port seems likely to come in handy many times throughout its life. But do I $800 prefer those features? Seems quite doubtful... I'm leaning towards giving them up. So that's it? Just screen and ports?

 

[turbineseaplane]

So that's it? Just screen and ports?

"that's it" and "screen"?

I mean, the screen is what you look at the entire time.
It's not a small thing

 

[Komodo Rogue]

"that's it" and "screen"?

I mean, the screen is what you look at the entire time.
It's not a small thing

I don't mean "that's it" in a pejorative way, just like, so that's everything? I created this thread to learn if there are other differences I'm not considering. It sounds like they're pretty identical other than screen and ports, which is welcome news!

 

[Christopher Kim]

I guess technically, you could add slightly better speakers/mic to the list... MBP has "high fidelity" 6 speakers, MBA still has 6 but not "high fidelity"... Same with the mic, MBP has "studio quality" 3-mic array, MBA has 3-mics, but not "studio quality... for both, whatever that means.

I basically never use the speakers on my MBP (pretty much always use my Airpods Pro), other than for something super quick, so not a factor for me. But potentially could be depending on your use case, in which case, would suggest you try them both out at an Apple Store to see if it makes a difference.

But yah, I think that's all the relevant differences...

 

[Komodo Rogue]

I guess technically, you could add slightly better speakers/mic to the list... MBP has "high fidelity" 6 speakers, MBA still has 6 but not "high fidelity"... Same with the mic, MBP has "studio quality" 3-mic array, MBA has 3-mics, but not "studio quality... for both, whatever that means.

I basically never use the speakers on my MBP (pretty much always use my Airpods Pro), other than for something super quick, so not a factor for me. But potentially could be depending on your use case, in which case, would suggest you try them both out at an Apple Store to see if it makes a difference.

But yah, I think that's all the relevant differences...

Hmm… that is pretty relevant. My wife and I watch TV on my MBP pretty frequently…

 

[theorist9]

Everything has been pretty much covered above, except for two things:

1) The difference in the MPB's screen isn't just Pro Motion. It's sharper (17% higher pixel density) than the Air's, and has a higher max brightness (600 nits SDR/1000 nits HDR for the MBP vs. 500 nits for the Air). But if you didn't notice those differences in the store, then it probably doesn't matter to you.

2) The MBP, at least based on specs, has a longer battery life. But the Air's is already quite long, so that may not matter.

Your other option is a 14" MBP. It would retain all the advantages mentioned above for the MBP, and be closer in price to the Air, though the screen size may be too small for you.

 

[geta]

Zero loss compared to your M1 13” MBP, and since it doesn’t have ProMotion, no need to think about it… the 15” MBA will be nice upgrade over your 13” MBP.

 

[bradman83]

It depends a lot on what you're going to be doing with the machine. Will you need the extra CPU and graphics horsepower that the Pro and Max chips bring?

For most tasks the standard M chip is great. That even includes light photo editing workflows using Photoshop and Lightroom. But things like playing games, even older games like Cities Skylines, will be aided by the beefier GPU and cooling fan.

Have you considered the 14" MBP with the base M3 as an option as well?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

OP, I presume you know that Apple offers an easy "compare 3 Macs" tool to line up all of the key variables for compare & contrast: https://www.apple.com/mac/compare/?modelList=MacBook-Air-M2-15,MacBook-Pro-14-M3,MacBook-Pro-16-M3 If you haven't seen that, you might want to take a look.

 

[Komodo Rogue]

OP, I presume you know that Apple offers an easy "compare 3 Macs" tool to line up all of the key variables for compare & contrast: https://www.apple.com/mac/compare/?modelList=MacBook-Air-M2-15,MacBook-Pro-14-M3,MacBook-Pro-16-M3 If you haven't seen that, you might want to take a look.

I did not, thanks!

 

[Cape Dave]

Hmm… that is pretty relevant. My wife and I watch TV on my MBP pretty frequently…

FYI I have the M2 15. The first time I used the speakers I was 100% totally blown away. I had never heard such sound come from a laptop. I looked around the hotel room to see if there were speakers somewhere else. I have not tried the Pro 16 speakers. Looking forward to that. But in the meantime, I love my M2 like crazy!

 

[Moreplease]

ProMotion for user-interface smoothness at 120 Hz is meaningless to me and probably most people – especially when the display response lag makes scrolling text unreadable anyway (due to blur).

The major benefits of ProMotion are energy efficiency (offset by the many reasons a MacBook Pro uses more power than a MacBook Air) and smoothness of video playback by matching the frame rate of, say, 24p for movies – in supported applications. If you try to display 24 frames per second with a 60 Hz refresh rate you unavoidably get judder rather than a smooth motion cadence. But most people don’t even notice that.

Otherwise, the Pro display supports high dynamic range content – again in supported applications. The Air doesn’t. This is enabled by high localised peak brightness of 1600 nits (not 1000 nits as someone said above). Due to the logarithmic response of our eyes to brightness, this is not as great a difference compared to the Air’s 500 nits as you might expect, though plainly noticeable. And it’s achieved by 10,000 LEDs for localised backlight adjustment. Since 10,000 is far too few zones for the millions of pixels, this crude method causes artefacts at high-contrast edges. It’s a bit of a kludge. Colour gamut is not much better than the Air: both hit about 90% of the AdobeRGB colour space, which is very good and better than, say, the M1 Air and most competitors. And both are accurately calibrated and profiled out of the factory, which is a rarity.

Other Pro versus Air differences, assuming the M3 Air doesn’t change them, which it might:

• the M3 Pro chip versions of the MacBook Pro (but not the base M3 chip versions) have “2x2” USB ports of twice the speed (they support about 2 GB/s rather than 1 GB/s with the fastest USB drives, etc.)
• M3 Pro versions of the Pro have three Thunderbolt / USB ports shared across left and right of the computer (versus just two on one side on the Air and M3 versions of the Pro)
• the Air has its headphone port on the right. The Pro has its headphone port on the left, which better matches the typical cable entry point of over-ear headphones (left side). Both Pro and Air ports are capable of driving high-impedance headphones with very high sound quality, the likes of which previously required an external headphone amp (I used a USB-connected Sound Devices MixPre-3)
• the Pro has an HDMI port and SD card slot, which the Air does not, though there are easy workarounds
• the Pro has Wi-Fi 6E (probably coming to the M3 Air?)
• the Pros come with 70 W or 96 W chargers versus 30 W or 35 W for the Airs, though it’s debatable if that’s a good thing. I prefer smaller and lighter chargers for travel, especially since the battery life is now so long, and I prefer to charge the battery slowly to extend its lifespan. However, of course you can buy a small, slow charger for the Pro separately if this matters to you (or use your iPhone charger).