Which is a good option to buy between an M3 pro MacBook Pro, a M3 MacBook Air and a refurbished M1 pro MacBook Pro?

[Myb007]

I am looking to buy my first MacBook but i don’t know which one to choose from these 3:

1. ⁠14” M3 Pro MacBook Pro(18gb/512ssd)
2. ⁠15” M3 MacBook Air(16gb/512ssd)
3. ⁠16” M1 Pro MacBook Pro(16gb/512ssd) refurbished from best buy.

I will mostly be using for university work, programming, web browsing, watching movies or videos, some light editing and rendering as well. My current laptop is a 15 inch screen and wanted to know if the 14inch be a drastic difference in size. Also the M3 Air and M1 Pro MBP are about the same price but i am a bit sketched out about the M1 Pro MBP being refurbished seeing as i have never bought anything refurbished

Would greatly appreciate some advice

 

[Plutonius]

I am looking to buy my first MacBook but i don’t know which one to choose from these 3:

1. ⁠14” M3 Pro MacBook Pro(18gb/512ssd)
2. ⁠15” M3 MacBook Air(16gb/512ssd)
3. ⁠16” M1 Pro MacBook Pro(16gb/512ssd) refurbished from best buy.

I will mostly be using for university work, programming, web browsing, watching movies or videos, some light editing and rendering as well. My current laptop is a 15 inch screen and wanted to know if the 14inch be a drastic difference in size. Also the M3 Air and M1 Pro MBP are about the same price but i am a bit sketched out about the M1 Pro MBP being refurbished seeing as i have never bought anything refurbished

Would greatly appreciate some advice

For the money, the specs on the M3 MacBook Pro make it a better value than the Air.

I had to make a similar decision lately and decided to get the M3 MacBook Air instead. I wanted the 15" screen (what I consider the optimal size) and the form factor of the Air.

My opinion only but I would only buy a refurbished Mac from Apple's refurbished store and would never consider buying a refurb from Best Buy.

The models with the specs you want are usually on the Apple refurbished store.

 

[ShadowJamie]

I am looking to buy my first MacBook but i don’t know which one to choose from these 3:

1. ⁠14” M3 Pro MacBook Pro(18gb/512ssd)
2. ⁠15” M3 MacBook Air(16gb/512ssd)
3. ⁠16” M1 Pro MacBook Pro(16gb/512ssd) refurbished from best buy.

I will mostly be using for university work, programming, web browsing, watching movies or videos, some light editing and rendering as well. My current laptop is a 15 inch screen and wanted to know if the 14inch be a drastic difference in size. Also the M3 Air and M1 Pro MBP are about the same price but i am a bit sketched out about the M1 Pro MBP being refurbished seeing as i have never bought anything refurbished

Would greatly appreciate some advice

With Safari, Mail, Xcode, Music, and AI running, I’ve recently found myself running out of RAM more frequently, even though I have 16GB. For long-term use, I would recommend getting as much RAM as possible.

 

[Fishrrman]

Wait until November 1, and then take a look at what's offered with the m4/m4pro models.
THEN make your decision.

 

[MacGekko]

I am looking to buy my first MacBook but i don’t know which one to choose from these 3:

1. ⁠14” M3 Pro MacBook Pro(18gb/512ssd)
2. ⁠15” M3 MacBook Air(16gb/512ssd)
3. ⁠16” M1 Pro MacBook Pro(16gb/512ssd) refurbished from best buy.

I will mostly be using for university work, programming, web browsing, watching movies or videos, some light editing and rendering as well. My current laptop is a 15 inch screen and wanted to know if the 14inch be a drastic difference in size. Also the M3 Air and M1 Pro MBP are about the same price but i am a bit sketched out about the M1 Pro MBP being refurbished seeing as i have never bought anything refurbished

Would greatly appreciate some advice

It is tough because although the Macbook Air is 15.3 inches, the old Macbook Pro's at 15.4, look at them side by side, because of the design and notch of the Air, traditional Pro 15.4's are noticeably larger, so walk into Best Buy and compare, because of that same design, I feel the 14" current Pro are more like a 13" size, and the current 16" Pro more resemble the old 15.4" Pro.

I could live with the Macbook Air, but if I have to leave my current mid-2015 Macbook Pro, I might overspend for the 16" Pro, the Air's speakers are so overrated, it just feels like a subpar Apple effort, maybe even flimsy in some respects, hopefully they can last long term but over the years, any Macbook Pro I have purchased lasted at a minimum of 7 years.

With all that said, because of my reluctance to rejoin Windows, the 15" Air probably is superior to most non Apple offerings in that price range.

Fishrrman wrote to wait until November 1st, I agree but you might want to wait until Black Friday because I suspect you might see some crazy deals on M3 Macbook Pros for both the 14 and 16" models. That is of course if the rumors of M4 Macbook Pro's being released around November 1st are true.

 

[MacGekko]

I am looking to buy my first MacBook but i don’t know which one to choose from these 3:

1. ⁠14” M3 Pro MacBook Pro(18gb/512ssd)
2. ⁠15” M3 MacBook Air(16gb/512ssd)
3. ⁠16” M1 Pro MacBook Pro(16gb/512ssd) refurbished from best buy.

I will mostly be using for university work, programming, web browsing, watching movies or videos, some light editing and rendering as well. My current laptop is a 15 inch screen and wanted to know if the 14inch be a drastic difference in size. Also the M3 Air and M1 Pro MBP are about the same price but i am a bit sketched out about the M1 Pro MBP being refurbished seeing as i have never bought anything refurbished

Would greatly appreciate some advice

Was back in Best Buy last night, took another look at all the laptops, for me I think the 14" is way undersized, I have used a 15.4 MacBook Pro for the majority of my computing life, don't think I can go to 14.

Most people advise to only buy refurbished from Apple.

Definitely get a minimum of 16gb ram, after a couple of weeks of using an M3 15 with 8gb ram, I started to see some slowdowns, and this was only with heavy browser tab usage, also because the Air is without fans, it started to get overly hot at times, the keyboard felt good but not certain it would be comfortable for long typing sessions.

It is funny how many Youtube tech review bros went gaga over the MacBook Air, I think it is shilling at its finest, to me, the speakers are not great, something about it sounds overly sassy or muffled, in another thread I posed a question, is there any chance my mid-2015 MacBook Pro would have better speakers, almost everyone wrote there was no chance, but to me, the 2015 Pro sounds better than the M3 MacBook Air 15.

And here is the thing, 16gb ram on the 2015, handles my browser tab usage better than 8gb of unified ram on the M3, maybe that is to be expected, but it is interesting to me nonetheless.

For me, I will have to purchase the 16" MacBook Pro, if I want an equivalent to the 2015 MacBook Pro, the build quality on the 16 looked impressive, side by side with a 15 Air, no contest in my opinion.