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Now all Apple laptops feature magic keyboards. Butterfly switches are no more! I’m not convinced by the value of the thirteen inch pro versus the air. Same scr

Now all Apple laptops feature magic keyboards. Butterfly switches are no more! I’m not convinced by the value of the thirteen inch pro versus the air. Same screen size, keyboard, and ports. Similar upgrade path. I know that not all i5/i7 etc are created equal, and the 13 inch pro uses chips that draw more power, but could someone explain the more concrete difference in performance that a user would see day to day?

freeone3000 6y ago
The 13 inch pro will get hotter faster. The idea is that the additional room in the boost clock should allow you to open new chrome tabs and load GMail slightly faster, but if you're doing any sort of sustained performance task, you're going to hit thermal limits within a minute or two.
- raihansaputra 6y ago
  That's only considering the boost clock though. The thermal package on the MacBook Air is __horrid__. The MBP can sustain longer periods of boost, albeit with fans spinning up. The new MBA will literally throttle in minutes on medium/high loads due to the dysfunctional semi-passive cooling design.
bluedino 6y ago
Even the last Pro will destroy the Air when it comes to something like video encoding, 3D rendering, etc. Anything that will run full-tilt for longer than 20 seconds. It is faster in things like Geekbench or browser benchmarks, and if you're buying the Air you're probably not using it to do heavy lifting.
- danieldk 6y ago
  Even the last Pro will destroy the Air when it comes to something like video encoding, 3D rendering, etc. Anything that will run full-tilt for longer than 20 seconds. The new Pro 13 (except for the most expensive configuration) have 8th generation CPUs, whereas the Air has 10th generation GPUs. Usually newer Intel generations have more extensive support for hardware encoding/decoding. The Air 2020 CPUs support AVX-512. The 2020 Airs have a faster GPU. Finally, the Airs have 3733 MHz LPDDR4X RAM and the Pros 2133 MHz LPDDR3. It's not always a given that these 8th generation Pros will be faster on a given task. Compiling on multiple cores, most probably. Video encoding, decoding, etc. Not necessarily. It is faster in things like Geekbench or browser benchmarks, Single core, the Air 2020's CPU is a tad faster than the 8th generation that they put in these MacBook Pros. Multicore the Pros win, but by not that wide a margin. For most people, the MacBook Pro 13" 2020 in the first two configurations (1499 and 1799) will be nearly equally fast for most practical purposes. So, it's mostly about whether you prefer the extra storage of the Air at the same price point or the Touch Bar. If you want something faster than ballpark Air, you should get the most expensive configuration or the Pro 16".
  - bluedino 6y ago
    I'm just going by Final Cut and Handbrake benchmarks, which the 2019 Pro clearly beats the 2020 Air.
thathndude 6y ago
Unpopular Opinion: I prefer the butterfly. I got the new 16 and promptly returned it. I missed the crispness of the butterfly.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  This issue with the prev switches is reliability. They also rapidly lose their crispness.

freeone3000 6y ago

The 13 inch pro will get hotter faster. The idea is that the additional room in the boost clock should allow you to open new chrome tabs and load GMail slightly faster, but if you're doing any sort of sustained performance task, you're going to hit thermal limits within a minute or two.

raihansaputra 6y ago
That's only considering the boost clock though. The thermal package on the MacBook Air is __horrid__. The MBP can sustain longer periods of boost, albeit with fans spinning up. The new MBA will literally throttle in minutes on medium/high loads due to the dysfunctional semi-passive cooling design.

bluedino 6y ago

Even the last Pro will destroy the Air when it comes to something like video encoding, 3D rendering, etc. Anything that will run full-tilt for longer than 20 seconds. It is faster in things like Geekbench or browser benchmarks, and if you're buying the Air you're probably not using it to do heavy lifting.

danieldk 6y ago
Even the last Pro will destroy the Air when it comes to something like video encoding, 3D rendering, etc. Anything that will run full-tilt for longer than 20 seconds. The new Pro 13 (except for the most expensive configuration) have 8th generation CPUs, whereas the Air has 10th generation GPUs. Usually newer Intel generations have more extensive support for hardware encoding/decoding. The Air 2020 CPUs support AVX-512. The 2020 Airs have a faster GPU. Finally, the Airs have 3733 MHz LPDDR4X RAM and the Pros 2133 MHz LPDDR3. It's not always a given that these 8th generation Pros will be faster on a given task. Compiling on multiple cores, most probably. Video encoding, decoding, etc. Not necessarily. It is faster in things like Geekbench or browser benchmarks, Single core, the Air 2020's CPU is a tad faster than the 8th generation that they put in these MacBook Pros. Multicore the Pros win, but by not that wide a margin. For most people, the MacBook Pro 13" 2020 in the first two configurations (1499 and 1799) will be nearly equally fast for most practical purposes. So, it's mostly about whether you prefer the extra storage of the Air at the same price point or the Touch Bar. If you want something faster than ballpark Air, you should get the most expensive configuration or the Pro 16".
- bluedino 6y ago
  I'm just going by Final Cut and Handbrake benchmarks, which the 2019 Pro clearly beats the 2020 Air.

thathndude 6y ago

Unpopular Opinion: I prefer the butterfly. I got the new 16 and promptly returned it. I missed the crispness of the butterfly.

hombre_fatal 6y ago
This issue with the prev switches is reliability. They also rapidly lose their crispness.