Which MacBook to drive Studio Display?

[guitarguy19]

Hi all,

Looking for some advice on upgrading my home office setup! The purchase is planned for Q1 2023 timeframe…but trying to do some research and budget planning now.

My current setup is a 2020 MBA (i5) driving a Studio Display monitor. This fits my needs well as I work at the desk at home and take the laptop with me for meetings and stuff. Very convenient. The ASD was a recent add a few months ago and have been loving it so far. Pricey I know, but beautiful, and really fits my needs with the screen real estate and built in webcam and solid speakers - both features I value a lot in my addition of the external display.

Though I’m relatively happy with my current setup, I’m looking to upgrade the MBA because the household is in need of a new family computer as my old 2010 MBP is finally on its last leg. So the MBA will be decommissioned from biz use to household use and it will more than satisfy performance requirements for that, and I will upgrade for the biz.

My question: which MB to buy? Looking at the M1 MBA, M2 MBA, 14” MBP or…?…as candidates. The 13” MBP is not on the list as I don’t want that Touch Bar.

2 Points to consider:

* My usage for the machine isn’t necessarily super heavy processing, but is pretty well versed: browsing, email and calendars, virtual meetings, spreadsheets and docs, web design, some photo editing, lighter video editing, GarageBand for guitar stuff, and of course driving the ASD.

* My one knock on my current setup: several times I have had the fan on my MBA kick on when I’m running the ASD and am multitasking, particularly running GarageBand or Google Meet / FaceTime plus spreadsheets, browsing, or other apps on the side. The MBA specs are 1.1GHZ QC, 8GB, 512GB. Not sure if running these apps plus driving the ASD is pushing it…? At any rate it’s getting hot so the new machine I want to be able to handle all of this stuff without issue!

Is an M2 MBA the right fit, or for my usage should I consider the 14” MBP? Or should I snag an older M1 MBA…? What level specs should I be looking at…base or upgrades, and in which areas?

Assume I can afford all of these options, but budget is still a concern and I don’t want to buy the baddest machine out there if I don’t really need it.

Very curious to hear opinions, and appreciate any advice!

 

[tstafford]

If it's a 2023 purchase I'd wait and see what's available then vs. deciding now. Apple market changes fairly fast. What looks good today may not in six months.

 

[guitarguy19]

If it's a 2023 purchase I'd wait and see what's available then vs. deciding now. Apple market changes fairly fast. What looks good today may not in six months.

Yeah…I thought of that. But let’s say I’m making the purchase today. My main question is how much power do I need?

My MBA with the fan kicking on and getting kinda warm has me wondering if I really need the Pro, or if a newer M1 or M2 will do the trick?

I would guess that for a ton of Chrome tabs and other multitasking like I mentioned above an Air would be fine…maybe even base M2. But driving the ASD…does that take up significant computer power that I should be considering more? Should I be concerned with fanless?

Also - though I likely won’t purchase until 2023 - it would def be early 2023. I don’t see waiting anywhere near summer/fall when they drop new products.

 

[tstafford]

Got it.

The Apple Silicon MBA are fan free so that wouldn't be an issue for you. I ran my MBP14 base driving two ASD for several months and never heard the fan. I do similar stuff with the machine as you reference - email/web/streaming/office and no content production.

If you are confident you will never want to run two external displays, I'd buy an Air. 16gb ram and at least 512gb SSD. I'd choose the M1 if I wanted to save money and the M2 if I like the new form factor.

Can't go wrong with the MBP14 at the current discount prices. Of course that could all change by Q1 after the M2 Pro/Max are out.

 

[guitarguy19]

Got it.

The Apple Silicon MBA are fan free so that wouldn't be an issue for you. I ran my MBP14 base driving two ASD for several months and never heard the fan. I do similar stuff with the machine as you reference - email/web/streaming/office and no content production.

If you are confident you will never want to run two external displays, I'd buy an Air. 16gb ram and at least 512gb SSD. I'd choose the M1 if I wanted to save money and the M2 if I like the new form factor.

Can't go wrong with the MBP14 at the current discount prices. Of course that could all change by Q1 after the M2 Pro/Max are out.

Awesome, thanks for the advice! As I continue to over-analyze and research because it’s fun and why not…

I was thinking the MBP would be more (costly) horsepower than I actually need and was thinking MBA too for the slight advantage in portability. I’m pretty certain I won’t ever need to add a second display so no concerns there. I just was hoping for some validation to my thought that the M1/M2 MBA would be sufficient to handle my use case (in situations where my i5 would get hot and blast the fan) without causing overheating or throttling performance since now there’s no fan. Or…if my thinking was wrong and my usage was enough to push for the MBP I was hoping y’all would tell me that too!

In looking at M1 vs M2 MBA…it doesn’t seem like there’s a huge performance difference between the two (aside from a slight bump in speed for the M2) and that either would blow away the i5. Ideally I’d like to have the latest and greatest chip that fits the bill to future proof - but - many of the other upgrades like the 1080p cam, speakers, Liquid Retina screen, etc, aren’t hugely valuable for me since much/most of the time I’m running the ASD. The notch look I’m not a huge fan of but I’m sure I’d get used to it. The new dark color is cool. The new body shape is fine…I’m kind of indifferent on the wedge vs flat design though. And of course…the full size function keys. Haha.

So if I were buying today, I’d be looking at

$1399 for M1 MBA, 16GB, 512
$1599 for M2 MBA, 16GB, 512
or bump up to
$1999 for M1 Pro MBP, 16GB, 512

Assuming that driving the ASD combined with all that stuff aren’t such activities that would put me in the “power user” category, the MBP I still think is probably more computer than I need.

In looking back at the MBAs, $200 more for the M2…for upgrades that don’t matter a ton to me really…hmm. That may lean me towards finding a great discounted deal on an M1……

Then there’s the caveat of the 512 vs 256…I do most of my work on 1TB of OneDrive space, of which I’m only using about 100GB. Maybe just a base model with the RAM upgrade is the way to go.

Gotta love the over-analyzing…but new gear purchases are fun!!!!

 

[GCC]

If I was buying today as you mentioned. Would go for the 14 M1 Pro. Great deals going on.

 

[Toutou]

Please note that "driving the ASD", or any other high resolution display, is not really a factor for M1/M2 machines, as long as you don't render 3D graphics (3D modeling, games) on it.

ASD is a 5K monitor. I have my office monitor set up so the machine has to push 6K resolution to it, and my M1 Air doesn't care (T < 30 °C/86 °F).

Both M1 Air and M2 Air with 16 GB RAM should work nicely for your usage. Personally if I was getting a new Air today, I'd go with the M2, mostly because it's newer ( => longer support), it's a bit more powerful and has smaller display bezels, but honestly I have zero reasons to upgrade from my M1 Air. The thing is THAT good.

So maybe look around for a nice deal on either of them, or go play with them in a store and see if you fall in love..?

edit: I just noticed you aren't going to purchase until 2023. At that point the M1 will be over 2 years old, with a four year old design.

 

[guitarguy19]

Please note that "driving the ASD", or any other high resolution display, is not really a factor for M1/M2 machines, as long as you don't render 3D graphics (3D modeling, games) on it.

ASD is a 5K monitor. I have my office monitor set up so the machine has to push 6K resolution to it, and my M1 Air doesn't care (T < 30 °C/86 °F).

Both M1 Air and M2 Air with 16 GB RAM should work nicely for your usage. Personally if I was getting a new Air today, I'd go with the M2, mostly because it's newer ( => longer support), it's a bit more powerful and has smaller display bezels, but honestly I have zero reasons to upgrade from my M1 Air. The thing is THAT good.

So maybe look around for a nice deal on either of them, or go play with them in a store and see if you fall in love..?

edit: I just noticed you aren't going to purchase until 2023. At that point the M1 will be over 2 years old, with a four year old design.

Thanks for the comments!

Honestly...I wasn't sure about the ASD connection and whether it requires more computer resources...so thanks for clearing that up. It's totally possible that my workload on the i5 MBA that caused the fan to kick on and the machine to appear to run hot would've occurred the exact same way regardless of the ASD's presence or not. Prior to the ASD, I would hold virtual meetings on my iPad next to the MBA because I didn't have the screen real estate to do both on the same device. Since adding the ASD I can have the virtual meeting window and my other tasks I've got going during the meeting (notes, spreadsheets, etc) all open at the same time so I've switched my workflow to doing it all on one device.

I'm also leaning at this point towards the M2 Air...you're right about the purchase not coming for a few months yet...and as good as the M1 seems it'll probably be the best approach to get the most current chip available. 16 GB seems to be a hands-down recommendation/requirement so I will definitely add that upgrade. As far as the 256/512 HD...I lean towards 512 just to be safe...but as I look at my current HD usage I'm sitting at 350GB available out of 499. I have a TB of OneDrive usage that I do most of my work on. Wondering if the extra $200 for the 512 is a good spend or not.

Maybe there will be some deals on the M2 by the time I'm ready to buy! haha.

 

[tstafford]

OP: I think the ASD actually requires fewer resources than a 4K scaled monitor because it is operating natively (and the way Apple wants it to). My base machines are driving two or three of them without any issues.