Use case: mostly a work tool, writing, email, browsing, light spreadsheets, mainly on the train. Also for taking on vacations and some couch use at home.
My setup at home is already “heavy”. Gaming PC (RTX 3090, 128GB RAM, 5TB NVMe), fully featured NAS and a 77" OLED with Apple TV. So I’ll probably never push the Pro’s performance, but I’m a tech nerd and the 120Hz display + extra ports (HDMI/SD) are very tempting. Portability matters though. The Air being thinner/lighter sounds nice for daily carry.
Given that I’m unlikely to need the extra compute but I do care about feel/portability/display/ports, which would you pick?
Both are completely overkill for your use case. Unless you’re planning on using them for gaming, crypto mining or heavy computing, 8GB RAM is all you’ll ever need. 16GB would be overkill but may help you feel safe if you’re not used to running less powerful machines for office computing.
I would make my choice based on price, size/quality of screen and overall dimensions/weight of the computer. The size of the SSD space might matter to you. I’d consider 1TB overkill and rely on cloud computing if I needed more storage space for non personal data like movies and such.
Any processor/chip would most likely do and you’re not likely to need a competent graphics card for your stated use cases.
Edit: I realize I’m basically stating what you had stated already. Choose based on feels and basic needs. Those are personal.
Lighter by 200g, but imo the larger screen is a ton better even if you do very little work on it.
Have you thought about joining the console crew? I had a NES and SNES, and then PC from ca 1998-today, but ever getting a PS4 I can’t bring myself to even look at gaming PCs, seems like an enormous waste and inconvenience. A line that stuck with me from reddit was “With a PS5 Pro, costing 500CHF I get the performance of a PC costing 3-4x that, and better performance than 70% of PCs out there”. I call myself converted to console gaming.
I would go for the smaller screen (13’‘). Assumption: you have access to a bigger screen, so working temporary on a 13’’ screen is doable.
Drive size: 1TB is for peace of heart. 500 GB is a minimum if you don’t have continuous internet access (i.e. need for offline copy of emails, large files, …). 256 GB if you enjoy continuous storage optimization of your drive
All other specs: go for the cheapest option.
If price is no issue, consider the convenience of the larger 14’’ screen. All other considerations remain the same.
Lover of RAM here too, it’s like ccs in a car, you can put turbos etc but cc are what give you the torque to move, and as the yanks say “there ain’t no substitute for cubic inches”.
Might be worth maxing out, if you think you might ever want to run models locally.
Also it’s integrated RAM (which is good for e.g. running LLM model), and there’s no upgrade path. If you think you’ll want to keep your devices for many years it’s likely a good investment.
My Surface from work is driving me nuts. It’s too small, the keyboard and mousepad are horseshit and battery life is like 90-120min lol. I think a Macbook Pro would be a huge upgrade.
Overspending on a hobby should not be confused with what is actually needed for a particular use case. Having 128 GB of RAM on a home PC is excessive (as in far away of ordinary use), as is running an LLM locally.
I would choose the MacBook Air because of its light weight and small size.
MacBook Pro since M1… just became too thick… too heavy… remembers me of my 2000’s laptops… completely different beast compared to previous Pro generation…
Updated my old 15” 2017 pro (intel) to a an m4 Air recently …. And it is just perfect! (For
My usage)
The only criticism would be one sided USB C connections (on the left side of the MacBook) vs 4 ports USB (2 on each side) for my old pro…
Both are great laptops. They have gotten a lot better in the past 5 years so if you’re used to a crappy surface you’ll be very happy with both of them. My personal M1 Air from 2020 is going strong and my M4 Pro work laptop is great.
If you’ll carry it around a lot and would prefer something lighter, go for the air.
If you will likely do beefy stuff, go for the pro.
If you can’t decide, I’d go for the air as it’s cheaper and is definitely a great laptop, and upgrade sooner in future if you notice there is some specific deficiency. (That’s what I did with mine but i never found anything i am unhappy with for my uses)
My 14 inch laptop is the weight of the air (1.2 kg) and I’m pretty happy with both size and weight. I wouldn’t like to go smaller and the weight is NICE. YMMV.
Specifics def are overkill for what you’re planning to do with it in my experience with the same usecase. Once you surpass a certain threshold, adding more soap won’t make your clothes cleaner, you’re just wasting soap.
Edited. Kb = keyboard, sorry.
I think they even sells the keyboard+screen combo. It should also have a battery, but that could be also improved using a power bank.
It really can be a cool way to work, considering how much life is already on a phone.
Recently, I was debating over Air vs Pro as well. If you want to work outside on sunny days then I would strongly recommend the Pro model. For me personally having 1000 nits in SDR is a huge game changer. This is now a must for me for any future laptop upgrades.
Mit dem Lesen und der Teilnahme an diesem Forum bestätigst du, dass du die Forum-Richtlinien gelesen hast und damit einverstanden bist sowie den Haftungsausschluss auf http://www.mustachianpost.com/de/ akzeptierst.