So I’ve been thinking of buying a used M1 MacBook to bring around for work.
I mainly do research with 10+ tabs open, use Word and Excel, give presentations, and very rarely do some light Photoshop.
I’ve been seeing deals where the MacBook Pro with M1 and 16gb is about $100 cheaper than the Air version with the same spec, with one less GPU core, of course.
In this case, what would you guys suggest? Would love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks!
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If portability is your main concern, then definitely get the Pro. It’s already slim and portable enough, but the performance difference is significant
The biggest benefit of the air at this point is that it’s fanless and silent. If that isn’t important to you, get the pro
I’ve heard many say that their fans don’t even turn on unless they’re doing heavy tasks so noise is not much of a problem for me.
I do wonder, though, if the added portability is worth another 100 bucks.
Save the $100. The difference in “portability” is insignificant, and for $100 LESS you get a better, brighter screen and a bigger trackpad, both of which are more meaningful than 0.2 pounds.
You’ve made a very good point here. Does the brighter screen affect battery life or is it enough given the increased battery size?
Pro is Very portable too espresso if you’re talking about 13” models
Pro 14” m1 is lighter that Air 15” (that I can lift with my pinky finger without effort)
Fans can be very useful. I bought an Air in order to save 800€ on the pro 14” m2
This might be a weird question, but how much more would you pay if you were to go for the Pro?
I personally wouldn’t buy a pro 13” because it hasn’t anything pro (at least the one it’s sold RN)
I’d go for the pro 14” M2 which supports more external displays, has hdmi, sd ports and thunderbolt port, Big Miniled display and starts with 16gb memory and 512ssd (1,41Kilos) for 2500€(tax included) my country like 2,642$ I won’t buy a 16” because it starts at over 3100€ Which is way to much
I spent 1650€(1743$) on my air 15” 8gb 512gb 10 cores (by default) (On Amazon sales, that sadly doesn’t sold higher Ram models, whose only Apple sells at 2000€ )
It weighs 1,51kg and even adding a case and a “bag” I can easily lift it with my pinky finger. But if until I can use 2,3 or more fingers it would still be very light for me.
But since M3 is probably going to be announced in Hours(5pm in the us 2am tomorrow here) I’d wait a little before choosing. Anything Mac related.
All Macbook with M chips are all very light
I hope i got the question.
For MS Word it’s okay. For MS Excel, i wouldn’t recommend using Macbook esp if you’re a heavy user utilizing keyboard shortcuts/hotkeys.
For research and everything else, it is more than adequate.
I have an M1 Pro 13" with 8gb. Runs great and is super portable. Originally when the M1 came out I bought the Air and the pro with the intention of trying them out and returning one. The Air battery dropped to 97% in a few minutes while the Pro keep at 100% for a while. Also the screen seemed slightly better on the pro, can’t explain why. Now Im Looking to get a bigger screen since my last job was work on one screen at a time and my current job usually has me with a email and a spreadsheet sharing the screen.