If you are a professional or a tech geek, you might be interested in these two finest laptops from Apple. In the past, the difference between the top of the line and base variants was substantial. However, Apple has narrowed this difference across all of its devices.
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With the recent generation of MacBook, the difference is minimal. However, there’s a price difference, which begs the question whether you should spend $300 more on a Pro model? Let’s picture it all by comparing two productive machines side by side.
Design Comparison
MacBook Air has flawless, thin and super lightweight designs as compared to the MacBook Pro of the same screen size. It’s like comparing an ultra-portable laptop to a super-ultra portable laptop.
The design is almost identical, you get to use the same keyboard, touchpad, touch id, screen size and frame design. The touch bar on the Pro model is a special feature that’s always exclusive to the Pro models of Mac.
MacBook Air has thin bezels which feels nice. It’s even slimmer on the Pro models. The 14 and 16-inch Pro have top notch displays that look gorgeous. The notch itself is more wedge-shaped than a conventional rectangle shape.
Simply put, apart from the secondary touch display, there is no difference in the size, display and dimensions of the 13-inch MacBook Air and Pro. Oh! And the Pro model is also heavier, weighing around 1.4kg while the Air weighs at 1.29kg.
Display Comparison
Previous generations of MacBook Pro always had higher resolution. However, this year the MacBook Air and MAcBook Pro are using a similar 13.3-inch, 2560x1600p Retina display with True Tone. This feature was a deal breaker for MacBook Air buyers.
Though there is still a difference between the brightness of both laptops. According to Apple, MacBook Pro M1 2020 can peak at a max of 500 nits. While the Air models peak at 400 nits. Both displays support P3 wide color gamut.
Camera and Audio Quality Comparison
Both MacBook models are using the same face video camera with computational photography capabilities. It’s a 720p FaceTime HD Camera with advanced image signal processing. Attending video meetings is more enjoyable than the notoriously bad facetime camera on the previous generations of MacBook.
Both MacBook Pro and MacBook Air have a set of stereo speakers. These speakers are supported by dolby atmos playback, this means the sound quality is rich and vibrant. Pro models do get high dynamic range which is something missing in the Air models.
A 3.5mm headphone jack is present on both models along with three mic-arrays having directional beamforming. Mic quality is actually better on the Pro models due to advanced studio quality high signal to noise ratio. And that actually translates to the real life audio and video calls with the new MacBook Pro models.
Keyboard and Trackpad Comparison
A Backlit Magic keyboard is standard in both models. Pro models have 66 ISO keys along with the famous inverted T-shaped arrow keys. Air models get 12 extra function keys than the Pro model. This is because there is no Touch bar in Air so it gets conventional keys. Recently, Apple is not offering touch bars in the 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pro.
Both laptops offer precise touch-bar with pressure sensing capabilities. This is to reflect the 3D-touch effects from the iPhone. All standard features of this huge trackpad are common in both models including fore clicks, pressure-sensitive drawing, multi touch and more.
Both devices have an ambient light sensor enabling it to detect lighting and set the brightness accordingly.
Battery and Performance Comparison
Before the M1 chip, there was a huge gap in performance and battery life of Pro models. The incorporation of newer M1 chips for MacBook Air and MacBook Pro have upscaled the performance and battery life of these devices. On paper, below are the specs comparison of MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models.
| Specifications | MacBook Pro 13-inch | MacBook Air 13-inch |
| Processor | Apple M1 chip 16-core Neural Engine | Apple M1 chip 16-core Neural Engine |
| CPU | 4-performance cores + 4-efficiency cores | 4-performance cores + 4-efficiency cores |
| GPU | 8-core GPU | 8-core GPU |
| RAM | 8 and 16GB | 8 and 16GB |
| ROM | 256GB to 2TB SSD | 256GB to 2TB SSD |
| Battery life | 20 hours | 18 hours |
The difference in performance of MacBook Air and MacBook Pro was the main reason why many people went for the more expensive machine. With the incorporation of the M1 chip, the difference is minimal. The difference isn’t even noticeable for shorter spans of work. The difference in performance is more apparent in intensive tasks like video editing, rendering, transcoding, etc.
The absence of a cooling fan is more noticeable during such times. Battery life is actually fascinating. Infact these new M1 laptops have set the new benchmarks of battery life in a laptop. MacBook Air 13-inch lasts around 16 hour in actual usage while the Pro models can keep going for another hour or two.
Who Needs a MacBook Pro?
These Pro devices are for creators. If you aren’t one, you probably won’t need to have a MacBook Pro. For shorter spans of work, both have identical performance. Infact, the benchmark scores are very similar for the 13-inch MacBook Pro and Air. The difference is in longer duration where MacBook Air struggles due to being a fanless device.
You are more than fine with Air if you don’t run extremely demanding applications. Even if you do, it doesn’t struggle much. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense to spend an extra $300 on Pro.
Do you think MacBook Pro is worth spending $300 extra on? Which one do you prefer, MacBook Air or MacBook Pro and why? Let us know in the comments below.
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