Hello!
I’m about to get an M1 MacBook. I’ve got the choice between a $€£ 650 M1 Air and a $€£ 750 M1 Pro. My research concluded: they’re the same but the Pro has a little bit more beef when it comes to exporting videos.
So far I’m thinking to get the Pro, because I might need 2 external monitors someday, but I make this post because I think that people here have been using the devices for longer than reviewers.
What’s your opinion to those devices?
Edit:
Okay, they’re about the same, so I’d‘ve gone for the MacBook Air M1. BUT: since I scoured the internet ever since I’ve found a MacBook Air M1 with 16 GB of RAM for 800. And Papa knows that this is more good.
If it’s a 14" MacBook Pro, then it’s faster, has a better screen, better speakers, etc. Worth the money.
If it’s a 13" MacBook Pro, then it’s exactly the same as the MacBook Air but with a larger battery and a fan. Don’t buy that one - for almost everyone it’s a worse computer. The thinner/lighter/cheaper MacBook Air is just as fast. The fan on the MacBook Pro will almost never actually turn on anyway so that’s not a useful feature.
The larger battery is the only actual upgrade. But the MacBook Air battery probably already lasts longer than you need (as in multiple days) and the MacBook Pro is even longer than you need. To the point where it’s not really an upgrade at all it’s a detriment - makes the computer heavier than it needs to be and takes up more space in your backpack.
Does it have 8GB of RAM, or 16GB of RAM? You should get 16GB if you can afford it. Both of the computers you listed are sold with either 8GB or 16GB.
The Pro has significantly better speakers, mics, additional GPU core and brighter screen and a touchbar.
Whether these make it a better buy is arguable, but it’s not exactly the same machine.
They’re both exactly the same, one‘s Pro and the one‘s air
i have the 14 inch Pro and it does not have a better battery than the air. It lasts maybe 8 hours at most.
I wouldnt say that the fan is useless on Pro model. I play Path of Exile, American truck simulator so a fan is much needed. Also sometimes i download entire playlists from Youtube, then convert them to mp3. So converting 6 videos at once also requires a fan
I have an M1 Macbook air and use an M1 Pro MacBook Pro for work. For everyday usage I can’t tell a difference in performance. I don’t use them for any video editing or encoding so can’t comment on that. There has been a decrease in performance after upgrading to Sonoma though
The air has genuinely impressed me. The amount of performance you get from a passively cooled, low power device is crazy
If the difference is only 100 euros and you have a need for the additional power, I don’t see a reason not to (that is assuming you’re not financially tight on money). The Pro has better ventilation but it’s slightly heavier.
The 13" model doesn’t have any extra power. It just has a useless fan which never turns on (with normal use).
CPU temp on my M1 MacBook Air is currently a few degrees warmer than the ambient air temperature and I’ve got several moderately high load developer tools running right now (including two Linux virtual machines and two IDEs).