DON’T DO IT!!! M1 MacBook Pro Vs the Macbook Air!

Apple may have messed up big time this year. I can only think of three reasons why the average or even advanced user would consider the MacBook Pro over the MacBook Air, and the fan is not one of them. The good thing is that they released two extremely powerful laptops, but the bad thing is that they released two very similar laptops. What's up? Sagi here, and today we're going to look at the cheapest model of the MacBook Air. So the M1 chip with 8 gigs of RAM, 256 gigs of internal storage, which in the U.S. costs right under $1,000. On this side, we have the base model MacBook Pro, again, M1 chip, 8 gigs of RAM, 256 gigs of storage, and this thing set me back $1,300. I bought both of these with my own money, I've been using them for a while. So throughout this video, I'm going to tell you what I would do if I was just buying one of them and was planning on keeping it for the next four or five years. Normally, I would just lean towards the better device, but I just don't know that I can justify spending $300 more for the MacBook Pro when there are some things that I actually like better about the MacBook Air. The fact is that these are very similar laptops in terms of specs, performance, and form factor. But at the same time, there are some differences that I want you to be aware of before making a decision. I'm going to mostly give you my perspective as an everyday user, and I'll interject a few examples of some more demanding tasks like video and photo editing. One difference between these two laptops is the chip. So yes, they both have the M1 chip, but on the MacBook Air, because it's the cheapest configuration, we're getting an 8-core CPU and a 7-core GPU. On the base model MacBook Pro, we're getting an 8-core CPU and an 8-core GPU. For activities like browsing the web, streaming content, creating Word documents, using spreadsheets, PDFs, things like that, I've experienced no noticeable difference between the two. And even for more advanced tasks like photo and video editing, the difference in performance has not been as significant as with previous versions. There was a difference in terms of rendering times for video, but even when outputting 4K video, I was only finding about a 10 to 15% difference at best. And that's not enough of an advantage for me, because even if it does shorten my time from 10 minutes to 8 minutes, I'm either multitasking during that time or I've left the laptop and I'm doing something else. Either way, it's not a big enough difference. Now, in terms of editing and playback, they both worked great. If you're sitting there thinking, Siggy, I hear you, but I still want that 8-core. You can actually upgrade the MacBook Air to an 8-core GPU configuration and 512 gigs of storage for 250 bucks. Now, upgrading the storage alone would cost you 200 bucks, so Apple is charging you an additional 50 bucks for the extra GPU core. Now, to compare Apples to Apples, we'd have to upgrade the MacBook Pro to 500 gigs of storage too, which would bring the price to $1,500. So you're still looking at a $250 difference. But I intentionally went with the base model MacBook Air in order to create more separation. And still, I didn't notice a difference with things like wake from sleep, boot time, and the actual feel of opening, switching between, and closing apps. Pretty much no matter what I threw at these two, they both felt snappy and responsive. To this point, I don't see any reason why the majority of users would buy the MacBook Pro, and I would only tell you to get the 8-core GPU version of the MacBook Air if you are already planning on upgrading the internal storage. Now, before I move on to the next section, if you like what you've seen so far and have gotten value from this video, let me know by giving it a thumbs up. It helps the video and the channel, and it also lets me know what kind of content you like so that I can make more of it. And if it's your first time here, hit the subscribe and notification buttons so you can stay up to date on all the latest gear and tutorials. The one major feature that gives the MacBook Pro the edge is the revolutionary space-age adamantium-coated active cooling system that, no, it's just a fan. And the fan does remove the warm air from the chassis, which keeps the system cooler and allows the chip to work at higher capacity without needing to throttle back performance. When using both laptops for my normal workflow, either the fan never turned on or I simply didn't hear it. When running the system at 100% for benchmark tests, after several minutes, once the fan got over about 25 to 700 RPM, I could hear it if I was in a quiet room, but it was still very quiet. Now, once it ramped up to like 4,000, then I could definitely hear it. That's after stressing the system to 100% for a long time. The MacBook Air has no fan, so it was completely silent. And I do want to mention that both devices got warm to the touch, but never hot. I'll comment more about a few benchmark results and implications later on. And let me know in the comment section if you'd like to see a more technical comparison. As far as form factor, there's very little difference. And this is where I think Apple could have done something different, like going with a 14-inch screen on the MacBook Pro. I know we have new models of the MacBook Pro coming, but this would have at least created a concrete differentiator that would have driven more buyers to the MacBook Pro. On the left side of both laptops, you'll see two Thunderbolt or USB-C ports. Again, I would have liked to see four ports on the MacBook Pro. This device is targeting more advanced users who are more likely to use multiple accessories while powering the device. And four ports, even if one or two of them were USB Type-A, would have reduced the likelihood that a hub would be needed. There are plenty of hubs available for both devices, and I'm working on putting together a collection of some of my favorites. One aesthetic element that some people prefer about the MacBook Air is that, in addition to the silver and space grape, it also comes in gold. I guess they didn't want people showing up to business meetings with a decked-out gold MacBook Pro. I would. As far as portability, you're not really going to notice the difference when it's in a bag with some other items. The MacBook Air also has a tapered design to where the front is lower than the back. That actually provides a more comfortable typing experience. And I don't know if it's just mine, but the edge seems to be a little less harsh. The MacBook Pro has a more pronounced edge, and it feels a little less comfortable to type on when you're putting pressure on it with your wrist. And speaking of typing, both notebooks have the new Baclit Magic Keyboard, which is outstanding. This is my favorite laptop keyboard to date. It's very roomy. The keys are spaced very well. They have a good amount of travel for a laptop keyboard, and there's plenty of feedback. While the keyboards are the same, I like the slight incline on the MacBook Air, which offers a bit of a more comfortable typing experience. Now, both keyboards have Touch ID sensor on the top right, which works great for unlocking the device and accessing secure documents or system settings, all without having to enter a password. And Touch ID worked the same on both laptops. A major difference with the keyboard is that the MacBook Air has dedicated function keys, and the MacBook Pro has a touch bar. This is a little bit of a divisive feature. Some people like it, and some people are not huge fans of it. Personally, I think it's great. I love the visual representation of the functions, and I think that it creates a very user-friendly interface. The ergonomics of using sliders and buttons, plus the flexibility of having the interface change depending on what app you're using, is a significant advantage in my opinion. Finally, let's get to the trackpad. This trackpad is the best trackpad that I've used on any laptop, period. It's accurate, it's responsive, and it offers haptic feedback. The one on the MacBook Pro is a little bigger, but both are bigger than the trackpads that I've been using on other laptops, so it's only a slight advantage to the MacBook Pro. Next, let's talk about the display, which was another opportunity for Apple to differentiate. We're getting the same dimension and resolution screen, 13.3 inches, and 2560 by 1600. It's a super sharp retina display, and both are DCI-P3 displays, which is a wider color gamut for more accurate color reproduction. So when you're editing photos or video, you can trust that what you see on the screen is accurate. We're not really seeing a difference between the two, with one exception. The MacBook Air has a maximum brightness of 400 nits, whereas the MacBook Pro can go up to 500 nits. This is a noticeable difference when you have them side by side. If I'm working in normal lighting conditions, both are plenty bright. But if you're dealing with windows or like to work outside, I think that you would appreciate the additional brightness of the MacBook Pro. Another difference that you'll notice in the specs has to do with battery life and the charging adapter. So Apple claims about 18 hours of battery life for the MacBook Air with a 49.9 watt hour battery, and then 20 hours for the MacBook Pro with a 58.2 watt hour battery. On top of that, the MacBook Air comes with a 30 watt charging adapter, and the MacBook Pro comes with a 60 watt adapter, and both are USB-C. Here's the thing. The difference between 18 and 20 hours isn't really that major to me. Both are plenty long, and it's not like I can picture myself being on the 17th hour and thinking, oh, I can't believe that it doesn't have three more hours of battery life. And I also didn't find the charging speed to be a significant difference. Sure, I'd always rather have the faster charger, but for the most part, I charge both of these so infrequently, and they're always fully charged when I come back to them. Now I want to talk about the camera, speakers, and microphone. Now starting with the camera, both the Air and the Pro have a 720p, not super great camera. It will work better than the previous models because of the upgraded M1 image signal processor, which cleans up the image pretty well. But it's still 720p released in 2020. It'll definitely work for video calls, and better lighting is always a solution for better video quality. Now moving on to speakers, Apple calls the MacBook Air speakers stereo speakers, and the MacBook Pro speakers, stereo speakers with high dynamic range. If I didn't know which was which, I wouldn't really be able to tell the difference. They both sound very good for laptop speakers. The speaker grilles are identical in size. They're pointed upwards. And again, I don't have anything negative to say about these speakers. As far as microphones, the Air has a three microarray with directional beam forming, and the Pro has a studio quality three microarray with high signal to noise ratio and directional beam forming. I'm not super clear on what makes it studio quality, but I'll give you a sound test here and let me know in the comments if you can tell the difference. This is a test of the microphone on the M1 MacBook Pro and the M1 MacBook Air. I'm sitting about a foot and a half from both laptops. And let me know if you can tell the difference between what the microphone sound like and which one you like better. Moving on, I won't bore you with 10 minutes of on-screen benchmarks and test results. So let me just summarize what I feel the relevant results are. For single core performance, both laptops performed at about the same level. When it came to multi-core performance, the Pro performed about 10 to 15% better, but mostly in longer tests that pushed the CPU harder for longer. This is where the fan kicked in and was able to keep the system running cooler and more efficiently. When using Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and Final Cut, there wasn't a time where I could really tell the difference with the exception of rendering video, where again, the MacBook Pro was slightly faster. When it came to gaming, which of course is not the strength of either laptop, the MacBook Pro did outperform the MacBook Air, especially after about 10 or 15% at higher quality settings. And while it wasn't always meaningful, I will give it the edge in that respect. When it comes down to it, here's my takeaway. The MacBook Pro is more powerful when it comes to sustained performance. And by that, I mean pushing it as hard as it can go for long periods of time. If this is something that you plan to do on a regular basis, you should consider getting the Pro. If you don't plan on pushing it that hard, here are three reasons why I would still consider it over the Air. First and the least important is the slightly larger trackpad. The second reason is the touch bar, which I really like. Finally, and most important to me, the brighter screen. This may not be an advantage for every user, but I would always rather have a display that's brighter than I need because I can tone it down when I'm indoors. But when I need that extra punch, I know that I have it in reserve. I have links in the description to where you can buy both laptops, as well as some of my favorite accessories. If you feel like this was a good comparison of the M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, please let me know by giving this video a thumbs up, tweet it, share it, and if you haven't yet, join the community by hitting the subscribe and notification buttons. You can always find me on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at Techier Talk. Know what I always say, buy it nice or buy it twice. Good luck, and see you soon.