7 ms·

Outside of pricing, why would one buy Air vs Pro these days? I've had OG Air back in the day and tapered form factor was great. I recently was in an Apple store

Outside of pricing, why would one buy Air vs Pro these days? I've had OG Air back in the day and tapered form factor was great. I recently was in an Apple store and looked at pro and airs.. they felt same, and also air seemed heavy (compared to ye olde tapered one). Now with Pro at 14" and Air pushing to 15".. why?

earthwalker99 3y ago
For photo/video editors, the Pro screen alone is worth more than the entire laptop. To be clear, the Pro screen is equal to a professional HDR reference monitor, and the entire laptop costs less than a professional HDR reference monitor.
silverlake 3y ago
The weight of the 13" Air vs 15" Air vs 14" Pro is 2.7 > 3.3 > 3.4 lbs. For developers who do development on remote machines, weight and form factor are more important. I would pay top dollar for a 12" Macbook with M processor because I do my focused editing on a big screen. Other people use their laptop for everything so a 15" screen is preferred. Also, different strokes for different folks.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  The 14 inch is already so light imo its probably worth it to splurge just to get things like the non gimped screen
  - dml2135 3y ago
    I have an M2 13" air for a personal computer and a 14" pro for work. The Air is noticeably lighter and much easier to throw in a bag without thinking about managing weight. The Pro is a fine weight for commuting, but for traveling longer distances, the weight definitely makes a difference. To the point where I'm seriously considering setting up a work partition on my personal machine so I don't need to lug the pro around on an upcoming trip.
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      If a seventh of a pound is the straw that breaks the camels back there are larger problems than the macbooks weight
      - dml2135 3y ago
        Well, a macbook is not the only thing in my bag. If you want to keep down the weight of your pack, you shave off the ounces where you can.
    - kirso 3y ago
      Probably depends how big and muscular are you. I don't feel 14' PRO in my backpack at all, 16 PRO barely. Its not a flex but it definitely matters if you are a 5'1 female or 6'2 male.
  - dividedbyzero 3y ago
    To me the 14" Pro feels like a brick, the 16" is a veritable paving slab. I want something I can toss in a backpack and not feel it's there, which the Air is still just about light enough for. That may be because I live in a very walkable and bike-able area in Europe, and I do lots of both, I'm sure the trade-offs are different if you drive everywhere. As for the screen, I think "gimped" is not doing it justice. I regularly use both, the Air's is a very nice screen in its own right and while there is a difference, it feels more like a relatively small increment on something already very solid, at least to me (I don't do any pro photo/video work). Same for the other differences, the Air's speakers are already pretty good, connectivity is fine (for me), I like not having a fan, it's way powerful enough for what I do.
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      Well if you had a fan you could always turn it off too. On the other hand once it is throttling its over. I used an air in the old case without the notch but with the black bezel and I gave it to the parents. Couldn’t stand throttling and how it affects the performance of my use cases. Like every five seconds a stutter like a scratched up CD. Two fan macbook pro for me. Even going all out its quieter than the 2012 era mac fans I am used to, but thats only when I push the cpu. Most of the time the fan is off entirely not even by my own doing.
- fritzo 3y ago
  > For developers who do development on remote machines Gosh having started program on 286s in the 1980s, my M1 air feels blazingly opulently fast. What sort of local development are people doing that requires heavier compute than an M1 air, but doesn't require a full on cluster?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
sys_64738 3y ago
Air has no fan which means no moving parts and no noise.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  The only time I have heard the fans on my pro was when running games on ultra. If you hear the fans chances are if you had the air instead it would be throttling. Up to you if that is tolerable. I can’t stand throttling so I got the macbook pro with two fans.
- Teever 3y ago
  IIRC they have a fan it just moved air internally and is for all intents and purpose completely silent from the end user's perspective.
  - 93po 3y ago
    I have owned probably 7 laptops over the past 20 years and every single one with a fan turned into a rattling jet engine mess. Do modern laptops not do this anymore? It was at least half the reason I got the Macbook Air
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      Macs fans are good, by the time my 2012 kicked the bucket a few months ago the fan still sounded the exact same as it always did. Different story with every other electronic fan I’ve owned of course but I guess thankfully apple doesn’t buy the cheapest fan possible.
    - Teever 3y ago
      AIUI, because the macbook air's fan is contained inside the machine that has no external ventilation ports that means the fan is mostly moving clean air with no particulate in it that will eventually build up on the fan whihc make it perform poorly. I imaagine that the lubricant in the fan will still age, but that is also going to be less of an issue because of less dust contamination.
lozenge 3y ago
The new Air supports two external displays.. if the laptop is closed (ie internal display is off). That's a pretty big caveat.
samatman 3y ago
Better monitor, better speakers (much better in both cases), HDMI, SD. Fan, meaning less throttling on heavy workloads. Support for high-resolution and multimonitor setups. If any of these are attractive, you get the Pro. Apple's "Pro" branding has become increasingly meaningless but in the MacBook category, which I believe is where it originated, it's meant to suggest "media professional", a demographic which has reason to care about all of these things. There are even shades of this in the iPhone and iPads Pro, which have a few features which are mainly of interest to professional media types. For AirPods it just means "the expensive ones", and for Vision Pro it means "this is expensive". That's the main signal for phones and tablets as well, realistically.
- dataworm 3y ago
  I think the parent meant the opposite: why buy an Air and not Pro?
  - samatman 3y ago
    They're cheaper for the same internal specs, so you save money if the extras you get with the Pro aren't compelling.
  - Keyframe 3y ago
    exactly, outside of pricing. I see people say Air is noticably lighter, but I may then have a heavy hand because 13 air and 14 feel almost the same in weight to me, unlike OG Air which was light and thin. Hence, why buy Air? it's not even smaller.
  - wiseowise 3y ago
    No noise, no dust inside, lighter.
- wiseowise 3y ago
  > Fan, meaning less throttling on heavy workloads. Surely you mean “more noise”.
gnicholas 3y ago
MBAs are much smaller/lighter. The MBA with its lid closed is just a little bit taller than the MBP with the lid open. I love my 13" MBA!
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  Its a 0.75lb and 0.17”difference though, you’d have to be a calibrated scale to notice that outside of side by side testing.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    Framed differently: it's 37% taller and 25% heavier. In the context of laptops, this is pretty hard not to notice. I have an MBA and my wife has an MBP — the difference is very easy to see/feel.
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      Its not like killing you lifting a little bit more, its already so light. Its certainly appreciably much lighter than the 15 inch 2012 mac still kicking around my house. It feels easy to hold one handed even.
      - gnicholas 3y ago
        I wouldn't mind that much, but my petite wife sure wishes that she could swap her MBP for an MBA! She takes her laptop in purses and other bags, so it's both about size and weight.
  - turnsout 3y ago
    Yeah I mean if you don't notice an extra 3/4 pound on a 3 pound laptop, then more power to you—get the bigger one
  - kstrauser 3y ago
    I just lugged my work-issued MBP through a couple of airports today, and wow, I wish I had my own MBA with me instead. That weight doesn't make a huge difference on your lap. It sure makes a difference in a carryon bag.
nicbou 3y ago
For me: price and weight. I frequently travel with my laptop, often with a single backpack or on a bike. The Air is also way overkill. I had a 12" MacBook before that. It ran the software that I wrote. I write markdown in Sublime Text and run python scripts. There just isn't a reason to get something beefier.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  I could have probably gotten away with the air but there are times when it would be throttling with my uses. The extra io and other hardware upgrades are worth it imo. Especially the screen, its just bright enough on the pro to use the computer outside in full sunlight. I had a 2022 air at one point and that screen was just a bit too dim to use outside without finding shade.

earthwalker99 3y ago

For photo/video editors, the Pro screen alone is worth more than the entire laptop. To be clear, the Pro screen is equal to a professional HDR reference monitor, and the entire laptop costs less than a professional HDR reference monitor.

silverlake 3y ago

The weight of the 13" Air vs 15" Air vs 14" Pro is 2.7 > 3.3 > 3.4 lbs. For developers who do development on remote machines, weight and form factor are more important. I would pay top dollar for a 12" Macbook with M processor because I do my focused editing on a big screen. Other people use their laptop for everything so a 15" screen is preferred. Also, different strokes for different folks.

kjkjadksj 3y ago
The 14 inch is already so light imo its probably worth it to splurge just to get things like the non gimped screen
- dml2135 3y ago
  I have an M2 13" air for a personal computer and a 14" pro for work. The Air is noticeably lighter and much easier to throw in a bag without thinking about managing weight. The Pro is a fine weight for commuting, but for traveling longer distances, the weight definitely makes a difference. To the point where I'm seriously considering setting up a work partition on my personal machine so I don't need to lug the pro around on an upcoming trip.
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    If a seventh of a pound is the straw that breaks the camels back there are larger problems than the macbooks weight
    - dml2135 3y ago
      Well, a macbook is not the only thing in my bag. If you want to keep down the weight of your pack, you shave off the ounces where you can.
  - kirso 3y ago
    Probably depends how big and muscular are you. I don't feel 14' PRO in my backpack at all, 16 PRO barely. Its not a flex but it definitely matters if you are a 5'1 female or 6'2 male.
- dividedbyzero 3y ago
  To me the 14" Pro feels like a brick, the 16" is a veritable paving slab. I want something I can toss in a backpack and not feel it's there, which the Air is still just about light enough for. That may be because I live in a very walkable and bike-able area in Europe, and I do lots of both, I'm sure the trade-offs are different if you drive everywhere. As for the screen, I think "gimped" is not doing it justice. I regularly use both, the Air's is a very nice screen in its own right and while there is a difference, it feels more like a relatively small increment on something already very solid, at least to me (I don't do any pro photo/video work). Same for the other differences, the Air's speakers are already pretty good, connectivity is fine (for me), I like not having a fan, it's way powerful enough for what I do.
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    Well if you had a fan you could always turn it off too. On the other hand once it is throttling its over. I used an air in the old case without the notch but with the black bezel and I gave it to the parents. Couldn’t stand throttling and how it affects the performance of my use cases. Like every five seconds a stutter like a scratched up CD. Two fan macbook pro for me. Even going all out its quieter than the 2012 era mac fans I am used to, but thats only when I push the cpu. Most of the time the fan is off entirely not even by my own doing.
fritzo 3y ago
> For developers who do development on remote machines Gosh having started program on 286s in the 1980s, my M1 air feels blazingly opulently fast. What sort of local development are people doing that requires heavier compute than an M1 air, but doesn't require a full on cluster?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

sys_64738 3y ago

Air has no fan which means no moving parts and no noise.

kjkjadksj 3y ago
The only time I have heard the fans on my pro was when running games on ultra. If you hear the fans chances are if you had the air instead it would be throttling. Up to you if that is tolerable. I can’t stand throttling so I got the macbook pro with two fans.
Teever 3y ago
IIRC they have a fan it just moved air internally and is for all intents and purpose completely silent from the end user's perspective.
- 93po 3y ago
  I have owned probably 7 laptops over the past 20 years and every single one with a fan turned into a rattling jet engine mess. Do modern laptops not do this anymore? It was at least half the reason I got the Macbook Air
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    Macs fans are good, by the time my 2012 kicked the bucket a few months ago the fan still sounded the exact same as it always did. Different story with every other electronic fan I’ve owned of course but I guess thankfully apple doesn’t buy the cheapest fan possible.
  - Teever 3y ago
    AIUI, because the macbook air's fan is contained inside the machine that has no external ventilation ports that means the fan is mostly moving clean air with no particulate in it that will eventually build up on the fan whihc make it perform poorly. I imaagine that the lubricant in the fan will still age, but that is also going to be less of an issue because of less dust contamination.

lozenge 3y ago

The new Air supports two external displays.. if the laptop is closed (ie internal display is off). That's a pretty big caveat.

samatman 3y ago

Better monitor, better speakers (much better in both cases), HDMI, SD. Fan, meaning less throttling on heavy workloads. Support for high-resolution and multimonitor setups. If any of these are attractive, you get the Pro. Apple's "Pro" branding has become increasingly meaningless but in the MacBook category, which I believe is where it originated, it's meant to suggest "media professional", a demographic which has reason to care about all of these things. There are even shades of this in the iPhone and iPads Pro, which have a few features which are mainly of interest to professional media types. For AirPods it just means "the expensive ones", and for Vision Pro it means "this is expensive". That's the main signal for phones and tablets as well, realistically.

dataworm 3y ago
I think the parent meant the opposite: why buy an Air and not Pro?
- samatman 3y ago
  They're cheaper for the same internal specs, so you save money if the extras you get with the Pro aren't compelling.
- Keyframe 3y ago
  exactly, outside of pricing. I see people say Air is noticably lighter, but I may then have a heavy hand because 13 air and 14 feel almost the same in weight to me, unlike OG Air which was light and thin. Hence, why buy Air? it's not even smaller.
- wiseowise 3y ago
  No noise, no dust inside, lighter.
wiseowise 3y ago
> Fan, meaning less throttling on heavy workloads. Surely you mean “more noise”.

gnicholas 3y ago

MBAs are much smaller/lighter. The MBA with its lid closed is just a little bit taller than the MBP with the lid open. I love my 13" MBA!

kjkjadksj 3y ago
Its a 0.75lb and 0.17”difference though, you’d have to be a calibrated scale to notice that outside of side by side testing.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  Framed differently: it's 37% taller and 25% heavier. In the context of laptops, this is pretty hard not to notice. I have an MBA and my wife has an MBP — the difference is very easy to see/feel.
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    Its not like killing you lifting a little bit more, its already so light. Its certainly appreciably much lighter than the 15 inch 2012 mac still kicking around my house. It feels easy to hold one handed even.
    - gnicholas 3y ago
      I wouldn't mind that much, but my petite wife sure wishes that she could swap her MBP for an MBA! She takes her laptop in purses and other bags, so it's both about size and weight.
- turnsout 3y ago
  Yeah I mean if you don't notice an extra 3/4 pound on a 3 pound laptop, then more power to you—get the bigger one
- kstrauser 3y ago
  I just lugged my work-issued MBP through a couple of airports today, and wow, I wish I had my own MBA with me instead. That weight doesn't make a huge difference on your lap. It sure makes a difference in a carryon bag.

nicbou 3y ago

For me: price and weight. I frequently travel with my laptop, often with a single backpack or on a bike. The Air is also way overkill. I had a 12" MacBook before that. It ran the software that I wrote. I write markdown in Sublime Text and run python scripts. There just isn't a reason to get something beefier.

kjkjadksj 3y ago
I could have probably gotten away with the air but there are times when it would be throttling with my uses. The extra io and other hardware upgrades are worth it imo. Especially the screen, its just bright enough on the pro to use the computer outside in full sunlight. I had a 2022 air at one point and that screen was just a bit too dim to use outside without finding shade.