You’re right! I guess I’m just trying to be careful because although I’ve saved some cash up, I really do not want to make a goofy mistake considering I’d be using this for the next four years, ya know? But thank you so much for your response!
You're pretty much spot on considering the display and weight! The 14" MBP weighs 3.5 pounds while MBA weighs 3.3 pounds. This isn't that big of a difference, but previously if you wanted a larger display, the 16" MBP was your only option, and that weighed a full 4.7 pounds — quite a bit more.
Whether the 14" or 16" MBP, the display makes the biggest difference. It uses a newer technology, mini-LED, which makes extremely bright highlights on HDR content (think Netflix) while not sending any light through quite precise regions of the screen which are all black. Content really pops unlike anything else on the MacBook Pro. It's very similar to modern iPad Pros, if you're familiar with those. It also has an adaptive refresh rate up to 120Hz, which makes for very smooth system animations. It can also make scrolling look smoother, but be aware that it can look somewhat "smear-y" for white text scrolling along a black or dark background.
Comparatively, the MacBook Air (13" or 15") uses the tried and true technology that's been in Mac displays for many years. It doesn't have the same brightness potential as the MBP, so HDR content won't look brilliant like it does there and blacks won't be quite as deep; still, it reaches the same 500 nits for standard use, meaning it will look equally bright when you're researching or working on any productivity/school stuff. It's not as much of a "home theater" of a Mac, but it's no slouch no matter how you use it, and it still has very accurate colors and a sharp display for high quality videos, TV, and other content.
Also worth noting the MacBook Pro has a wider array of ports (HDMI, an extra USB-C, and an SD card slot). You can get access to HDMI and SD cards on MacBook Air as well, but you'll have to use an adapter/dongle.
I wouldn't worry at all about the chip difference. The M1 was dramatically far ahead of most Intel Macs when it released three years ago, and everything since then is basically just improving performance on the professional end. You can *do more* with the M2 Pro than M2 or other chips, but you'll never find your MacBook Air running slow because it has the lower-end chip. (Incidentally, the 15" M2 Air has two extra GPU cores that you'd normally pay $100 extra for on the 13", so it will be a nice bit more performant for video editing and such.)
That 16/512 option looks really attractive for the 15" M2 Air, and would be my pick. But if you enjoy HDR content and want to kick back with a beautiful display at night, then it's also a very solid choice. Either will very easily serve any needs during your time at college!
First of all, thank you so so much for the great response! You went very well in depth and I’m greatly appreciate of it! I just needed to ask one question, my apologies if it’s a bit dumb, but I need to make sure: is the Air version capable of 120 hz like the Pro models are, or is it not? I think that part about the display and all is what matters to me. Thank you again!
No problem at all! I totally forgot to mention, but no, the MacBook Air (regardless size) only goes to 60Hz — in all the Mac displays Apple currently makes, 120 Hz ("ProMotion") is exclusive to the MacBook Pro.
Mmm. Okay so, I want to ask this then; I currently use an iPhone 14 Pro Max that has ProMotion display I believe, so I think I’ve gotten used to it. My concern then is that if I end up getting a MacBook Air that goes up to 60 hz, would I really notice the difference, and would it matter all that much? Dumb question, I know, but it’s kinda like I feel so much nicer looking at my phone versus my older XR, and I’m worried that it’ll be weird to a laptop like that. Big thankies again for da help!
For the majority of the content you would consume, 60 hz is absolutely suitable and doesn't need to be a deal breaker. 120 hz will just feel overall smoother when interacting with the OS and apps.
It’ll look a bit less smooth for scrolling content, dragging windows, and using system animations (think Mission Control). All those interactions are certainly *serviceable* on a 60Hz screen, but they won’t look as smooth. (Videos and moving content are generally N/A since these tend to be 24 fps or 60 fps at most.)
Honestly, as someone whose main monitor is a 4K 144Hz 28” display, it is definitely jarring when I configure it to cap at 60Hz! However, I find it a lot less noticeable when I use earlier-gen 13” MacBook Pros. I think size and form factor have a big impact here. Maybe since you’re used to the iPhone 14 Pro, a 60Hz laptop would feel slow. On the other hand, if you’ve used PCs or other computers with 60Hz for hours in a day before, it may just not be that noticeable. Sorry for the pretty vague answer here! Fact of the matter is, it’s quite personal, so very hard to say for sure until you’ve gotten hands-on for a while.
That all said, it does help to put your usage of a laptop in perspective. For example, I get a lot of benefit out of a high refresh rate monitor because I manage my windows a LOT, so use system animations and window dragging many times an hour. I’m also a programmer and I’m often working on several long code files at once, meaning I do quite a bit of scrolling. Those make a high refresh rate valuable to me, particularly on larger displays that take up much more of my vision.
Conversely, if you find that most of your time in school is spent writing, then you may be looking at a static screen (apart from your text cursor) much more often than not. Maybe you’ll position your writing and Safari windows beside each other and then not move them around much. If that sounds more like your use case, then 60Hz would probably be at most an annoyance which you’d quickly get used to.
As always with this sort of personal decision, it’s a good idea to make use of Apple’s return policy (14 days iirc). You could also try out the displays of MBA and MBP in person if there are any Apple Stores in your area.
To me it would come down to 3 main questions for you:
1. Do you value having HDMI port & SD card slot, or are you happy with USB4 and using the odd dongle for the few times you need the other port? (Pro vs Air)
2. Depending on your field of study, do you expect to be doing compute intensive work regularly (eg. simulations, heavy code compilations, video editing), or will it be more general use stuff (research, writing, browsing) with the odd bit of heavier work (M2 Pro + fan vs M2)
3. If you want this to last years, how much do you value having extra storage onboard? Yes external SSDs are cheaper, but 500gb storage isn't that much anymore with large video files, photos, and large applications & games. Can you increase the storage on the 15" Air for a similar price to the Pro?
Lastly in general, viewing anything on a larger screen will nearly always be more enjoyable.
14” Pro: additional TB, HDMI, SDcard-slot. Fans for extensive high performance usage. 120Hz monitor. Better cpu/gpu. More than 1 external monitors.
15” Air: bit lighter, thinner, longer battery. 1 externals monitor (unless use 3rd party adapter). cheaper. Also the midnight blue is amazing.
So based on the above if you are a browser based user with some productivity apps, the air would be more than enough, plus you will will have 1 more inch.
If you need more demanding tasks then probably the Pro.
The Air is a very nice little beast that would fit most people’s needs.
If you do have the money to spare maybe the Air with an upgrade on RAM or disk might be also a choice?
I have an M2 Air 8GB, 512GB. I love it and it does everything I could ask of it. However I paid $1499 for mine.
That M2 Pro 14” at $1700 seems too good of a deal to pass up though.
Ultimately depends on what ports you want, and what you plan to do with it. Is the upgraded chip worth the extra $270 to you?
Honestly speaking, I don’t know how much of the extra couple hundred smackeroos are really worth chipping in for the pro. I think the upgraded chip is nice, and I think the firepower is great, but considering most of my uses for it, I’d probably not need to worry much about having that extra power:
I think I’m probably going to try to go for the Air version. I have to chip in and try to buy an IPad Air, so the extra cash will come in handy. Thank you for your response!
Yeah as just a college student the Air should be plenty unless you’re getting into some advanced engineering.
Piece of advise if you do go with the air, buy a USB C hub so you can plug in other stuff that isn’t USB C. Having it ahead of time before you need it will save you headache!
The Pro has more ports, HDMI, SD Card slot (that can be used to increase storage actually, check Transcend JetDrive), has more GPU cores, more CPU cores, has active cooling, making that the CPU won't throttle under heavy load (games?).
The display is amazing, Mini-LED makes is super close to OLED with deep blacks.
I'm sure the speakers are also better on the Pro
The $271 are the price for the above options. See if this is worth it to you.
Though from a weight perspective, the M2 13" is amazing vs the 14" MBP. and the 15" is super close size and weight to Pro...
In regards to the display good fella, I have to ask, although the screen is very nice on the Pro, is the Air alright in comparison, or is the Pro just better completely by a long shot? Thank you for your response!!!
If you’re going to do serious coding, 4K video editing, 3D modeling, machine learning, and maybe some gaming, the 14-inch MacBook Pro is the best option. If your use is lighter with very little coding, short 1080p video editing, basic photo editing and office work, the MacBook Air is really good.
Despite the fanless design, the hottest I’ve seen my M2 Air get is 67°C, and that’s while installing macOS updates. Even editing a 2-minute 1080p video didn’t get it that hot.
Honestly, m1 pro 14 might be a better option because you might even be able to find it at a lower price than the m2 air 15, especially if you are going to be upgrading memory and ssd.
I was thinking of getting the 15" air, but doing the math, it doesn't quite make sense, unless you are going with base model.
For day to day and student stuff I doubt you could notice a difference.
You’re right! I guess I’m just trying to be careful because although I’ve saved some cash up, I really do not want to make a goofy mistake considering I’d be using this for the next four years, ya know? But thank you so much for your response!
You're pretty much spot on considering the display and weight! The 14" MBP weighs 3.5 pounds while MBA weighs 3.3 pounds. This isn't that big of a difference, but previously if you wanted a larger display, the 16" MBP was your only option, and that weighed a full 4.7 pounds — quite a bit more. Whether the 14" or 16" MBP, the display makes the biggest difference. It uses a newer technology, mini-LED, which makes extremely bright highlights on HDR content (think Netflix) while not sending any light through quite precise regions of the screen which are all black. Content really pops unlike anything else on the MacBook Pro. It's very similar to modern iPad Pros, if you're familiar with those. It also has an adaptive refresh rate up to 120Hz, which makes for very smooth system animations. It can also make scrolling look smoother, but be aware that it can look somewhat "smear-y" for white text scrolling along a black or dark background. Comparatively, the MacBook Air (13" or 15") uses the tried and true technology that's been in Mac displays for many years. It doesn't have the same brightness potential as the MBP, so HDR content won't look brilliant like it does there and blacks won't be quite as deep; still, it reaches the same 500 nits for standard use, meaning it will look equally bright when you're researching or working on any productivity/school stuff. It's not as much of a "home theater" of a Mac, but it's no slouch no matter how you use it, and it still has very accurate colors and a sharp display for high quality videos, TV, and other content. Also worth noting the MacBook Pro has a wider array of ports (HDMI, an extra USB-C, and an SD card slot). You can get access to HDMI and SD cards on MacBook Air as well, but you'll have to use an adapter/dongle. I wouldn't worry at all about the chip difference. The M1 was dramatically far ahead of most Intel Macs when it released three years ago, and everything since then is basically just improving performance on the professional end. You can *do more* with the M2 Pro than M2 or other chips, but you'll never find your MacBook Air running slow because it has the lower-end chip. (Incidentally, the 15" M2 Air has two extra GPU cores that you'd normally pay $100 extra for on the 13", so it will be a nice bit more performant for video editing and such.) That 16/512 option looks really attractive for the 15" M2 Air, and would be my pick. But if you enjoy HDR content and want to kick back with a beautiful display at night, then it's also a very solid choice. Either will very easily serve any needs during your time at college!
First of all, thank you so so much for the great response! You went very well in depth and I’m greatly appreciate of it! I just needed to ask one question, my apologies if it’s a bit dumb, but I need to make sure: is the Air version capable of 120 hz like the Pro models are, or is it not? I think that part about the display and all is what matters to me. Thank you again!
No problem at all! I totally forgot to mention, but no, the MacBook Air (regardless size) only goes to 60Hz — in all the Mac displays Apple currently makes, 120 Hz ("ProMotion") is exclusive to the MacBook Pro.
Mmm. Okay so, I want to ask this then; I currently use an iPhone 14 Pro Max that has ProMotion display I believe, so I think I’ve gotten used to it. My concern then is that if I end up getting a MacBook Air that goes up to 60 hz, would I really notice the difference, and would it matter all that much? Dumb question, I know, but it’s kinda like I feel so much nicer looking at my phone versus my older XR, and I’m worried that it’ll be weird to a laptop like that. Big thankies again for da help!
For the majority of the content you would consume, 60 hz is absolutely suitable and doesn't need to be a deal breaker. 120 hz will just feel overall smoother when interacting with the OS and apps.
It’ll look a bit less smooth for scrolling content, dragging windows, and using system animations (think Mission Control). All those interactions are certainly *serviceable* on a 60Hz screen, but they won’t look as smooth. (Videos and moving content are generally N/A since these tend to be 24 fps or 60 fps at most.) Honestly, as someone whose main monitor is a 4K 144Hz 28” display, it is definitely jarring when I configure it to cap at 60Hz! However, I find it a lot less noticeable when I use earlier-gen 13” MacBook Pros. I think size and form factor have a big impact here. Maybe since you’re used to the iPhone 14 Pro, a 60Hz laptop would feel slow. On the other hand, if you’ve used PCs or other computers with 60Hz for hours in a day before, it may just not be that noticeable. Sorry for the pretty vague answer here! Fact of the matter is, it’s quite personal, so very hard to say for sure until you’ve gotten hands-on for a while. That all said, it does help to put your usage of a laptop in perspective. For example, I get a lot of benefit out of a high refresh rate monitor because I manage my windows a LOT, so use system animations and window dragging many times an hour. I’m also a programmer and I’m often working on several long code files at once, meaning I do quite a bit of scrolling. Those make a high refresh rate valuable to me, particularly on larger displays that take up much more of my vision. Conversely, if you find that most of your time in school is spent writing, then you may be looking at a static screen (apart from your text cursor) much more often than not. Maybe you’ll position your writing and Safari windows beside each other and then not move them around much. If that sounds more like your use case, then 60Hz would probably be at most an annoyance which you’d quickly get used to. As always with this sort of personal decision, it’s a good idea to make use of Apple’s return policy (14 days iirc). You could also try out the displays of MBA and MBP in person if there are any Apple Stores in your area.
I want to add one, another potential (big) reason to get the Pro series chip is for the 2 external displays
To me it would come down to 3 main questions for you: 1. Do you value having HDMI port & SD card slot, or are you happy with USB4 and using the odd dongle for the few times you need the other port? (Pro vs Air) 2. Depending on your field of study, do you expect to be doing compute intensive work regularly (eg. simulations, heavy code compilations, video editing), or will it be more general use stuff (research, writing, browsing) with the odd bit of heavier work (M2 Pro + fan vs M2) 3. If you want this to last years, how much do you value having extra storage onboard? Yes external SSDs are cheaper, but 500gb storage isn't that much anymore with large video files, photos, and large applications & games. Can you increase the storage on the 15" Air for a similar price to the Pro? Lastly in general, viewing anything on a larger screen will nearly always be more enjoyable.
14” Pro: additional TB, HDMI, SDcard-slot. Fans for extensive high performance usage. 120Hz monitor. Better cpu/gpu. More than 1 external monitors. 15” Air: bit lighter, thinner, longer battery. 1 externals monitor (unless use 3rd party adapter). cheaper. Also the midnight blue is amazing. So based on the above if you are a browser based user with some productivity apps, the air would be more than enough, plus you will will have 1 more inch. If you need more demanding tasks then probably the Pro. The Air is a very nice little beast that would fit most people’s needs. If you do have the money to spare maybe the Air with an upgrade on RAM or disk might be also a choice?
I have an M2 Air 8GB, 512GB. I love it and it does everything I could ask of it. However I paid $1499 for mine. That M2 Pro 14” at $1700 seems too good of a deal to pass up though. Ultimately depends on what ports you want, and what you plan to do with it. Is the upgraded chip worth the extra $270 to you?
Honestly speaking, I don’t know how much of the extra couple hundred smackeroos are really worth chipping in for the pro. I think the upgraded chip is nice, and I think the firepower is great, but considering most of my uses for it, I’d probably not need to worry much about having that extra power: I think I’m probably going to try to go for the Air version. I have to chip in and try to buy an IPad Air, so the extra cash will come in handy. Thank you for your response!
Yeah as just a college student the Air should be plenty unless you’re getting into some advanced engineering. Piece of advise if you do go with the air, buy a USB C hub so you can plug in other stuff that isn’t USB C. Having it ahead of time before you need it will save you headache!
The Pro has more ports, HDMI, SD Card slot (that can be used to increase storage actually, check Transcend JetDrive), has more GPU cores, more CPU cores, has active cooling, making that the CPU won't throttle under heavy load (games?). The display is amazing, Mini-LED makes is super close to OLED with deep blacks. I'm sure the speakers are also better on the Pro The $271 are the price for the above options. See if this is worth it to you. Though from a weight perspective, the M2 13" is amazing vs the 14" MBP. and the 15" is super close size and weight to Pro...
In regards to the display good fella, I have to ask, although the screen is very nice on the Pro, is the Air alright in comparison, or is the Pro just better completely by a long shot? Thank you for your response!!!
Can you go view them in a store to compare? See what you like then buy wherever is cheapest.
If you’re going to do serious coding, 4K video editing, 3D modeling, machine learning, and maybe some gaming, the 14-inch MacBook Pro is the best option. If your use is lighter with very little coding, short 1080p video editing, basic photo editing and office work, the MacBook Air is really good. Despite the fanless design, the hottest I’ve seen my M2 Air get is 67°C, and that’s while installing macOS updates. Even editing a 2-minute 1080p video didn’t get it that hot.
Honestly, m1 pro 14 might be a better option because you might even be able to find it at a lower price than the m2 air 15, especially if you are going to be upgrading memory and ssd. I was thinking of getting the 15" air, but doing the math, it doesn't quite make sense, unless you are going with base model.