Looking to get my fiancée either a 15” Air or a 14” Pro for Christmas, and can’t decide. I’ve never owned a Mac myself, so I don’t have a lot of experience to draw from. She’ll be doing a lot of typing for work, and she wants to be able to play a couple of games like the Sims and Stardew Valley. My main question is, how is the keyboard on the Air vs the Pro, and can it handle the graphics of the Sims? Thanks in advance everyone

  • ShadowXJ@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    If it’s primarily productivity and light gaming on the side and you really want Mac I’d suggest Pro since it has a fan.

  • Sufficient_Phone_242@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Played Stardew on M2 with ps5 controller and it was great , from GOG application. Also tried NMS which was surprisingly nice but did get hot since there are no fans. So gaming is pretty light weight. I have the pro model now and the keyboard feels like the m2 which are both amazing keyboards battery life for air was 10hour ish , pro is more like 5hr since i keep the brightness so high . I felt some lag sometimes running multiple applications on the air , none with the pro and have yet to hear the fans kick in

    • MokTwo@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Macs for Stardew are actually not bad. Macs for competitive gaming are not the move, but casual games like Stardew or Minecraft and it’s actually pretty solid. I’m an avid Bloons TD6 on Mac gamer myself.

      • TheTariffof19892@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        yeah it runs, but your options on games are pretty much stardew, minecraft and oddly enough Gmod, plus the thermals are so bad you’re risking damage in the long term if you do anything vaguely taxing.

        I havent used a macbook to game in years so my info might be outdated now tho

  • BlendlogicTECH@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Well if she’s a “Mac chick” sometimes MacBooks are the way. If she seems to not care about having a MacBook - then yea possibly gaming laptop or something .

  • chameleonmessiah@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    The only time my Pro really kicks its fans in is playing games. And it’s not even that they’re the most heavy games but if you’re playing for an hour, or so, it takes its toll.

    I don’t know how much gaming would suffer for the lack of fans but I can’t imagine it wouldn’t.

  • CanaryRight1908@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I would choose a Windows laptop in that case. Better specs for the same money that will perform better in games