I'm still banging away on my 13" 2013 macbook pro which has been a tank for over 10 years but she's starting to show her age in terms of slower processing and short battery life. Still, 10+ years of travel, spills, and abuse, the I've been blown away at its resilience.
That said, Prime Day deals include new MacBooks but I'm at analysis paralysis when trying to figure out what to get.
I know I want to stick with the 14" screen, but not sure which M chip to get. (M2, M3, M3 PRo, M3 Max, etc) or even MacBook Air. Most of the use is browsing, MS office, teams, zoom, occasional iMovie projects, some Netflix, maybe some light garage band and music editing.
Ideally I'd like to keep the whole package under $2K.
Any thoughts or advice?
i upgraded the ram to 24gb just to be safe coming from the pro (which was 32gb). within the M line i wouldnt go back farther than m2 (or to any model without magsafe charger).
prior i was like you running a 2013 intel mac, which was still working pretty well in year 8. the apple sillicon just seemed like a worthy leap (and imo it absolutely is). my intel mac battery was probably down to 2-3 hours max unplugged, maybe less, and i can still remember the sound of the fan kicking on. haven't heard it once since.
I would be doing some video editing of family videos and such. Nothing really on the "professional" level or anything like that.
it's technically 13.6 vs 14.2, having had both i personally think the portability is worth the minor difference but that's just personal preference. the air easily fits into any smaller backpack or travel sleeve, pro fits most everything too but it had more of a full size feel. if you have an extended monitor situation i think the portability is a no brainer (and the price diff can go to a good monitor to extend to).
the only reason id go for the pro is if i had real heavy duty processing needs.
i think the prior gens that was true especially in base models but the apple silicon changed the game. my wife had airs before but this is my first and performance vs pro (both Ms) has been indistinguishable.
i am mostly in microsoft and adobe suites, dont do a ton of video stuff but a decent amount of photoshop. id trust air to handle anything other than really heavy duty professional photo/video editing tasks. and im not even sure it wouldnt be able to handle that. it looks like you can max out the ram in the M2 air same as M3 air or pro with same cpu/gpu. im guessing the m3 pro gets the extra battery life with a bigger battery since it can fit in the bigger form?
Initially the air battery got close to the same as the pro, but over time, it stops lasting that long. And the time until it starts degrading is shorter (meaning first year maybe it would last 12+ hours possibly 18, now (my air - a 2020 13-inch 1.4 GHz quad core i5 with 8 GB RAM) lasts about 6 hours before it's in low battery mode and 6.5 hours before it shuts down.
My 14 inch M1 pro with 16GB RAM (actually a 2021) for work still lasts all day without being plugged in.
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than I’d go with MacBook Air, otherwise, no, save a few bucks. Unless you’re editing video or playing video games, I wouldn’t worry about the chip. Any newer MacBook is going to be plenty fast.
I would be doing some video editing of family videos and such. Nothing really on the "professional" level or anything like that.
Then I wouldn’t sweat too much over the difference between the M2 and M3, you’re unlikely to notice it much. I think the bigger difference would be Air v. Pro, if you’re lugging it around a lot, I would go with Air.
Initially the air battery got close to the same as the pro, but over time, it stops lasting that long. And the time until it starts degrading is shorter (meaning first year maybe it would last 12+ hours possibly 18, now (my air - a 2020 13-inch 1.4 GHz quad core i5 with 8 GB RAM) lasts about 6 hours before it's in low battery mode and 6.5 hours before it shuts down.
My 14 inch M1 pro with 16GB RAM (actually a 2021) for work still lasts all day without being plugged in.
the 2020 i5 is an intel chip? that's apples/oranges vs apple chips especially with battery life. a 2020 intel probably performs closer to a 2013 machine than a 2021 m chip.
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IMO between air and pro I have the same year (or close) model air for home and pro for work and the biggest difference I noticed is battery.
Initially the air battery got close to the same as the pro, but over time, it stops lasting that long. And the time until it starts degrading is shorter (meaning first year maybe it would last 12+ hours possibly 18, now (my air - a 2020 13-inch 1.4 GHz quad core i5 with 8 GB RAM) lasts about 6 hours before it's in low battery mode and 6.5 hours before it shuts down.
My 14 inch M1 pro with 16GB RAM (actually a 2021) for work still lasts all day without being plugged in.
the 2020 i5 is an intel chip? that's apples/oranges vs apple chips especially with battery life. a 2020 intel probably performs closer to a 2013 machine than a 2021 m chip.
Yes, good point. My air runs on an Intel chip - that's how they sold the airs in 2020 they didn't switch to the apple processor in an air until 2022.
yeah it looks like the prices for m2/m3 are basically negligible and the bigger price determiner is ram.
amazon has a 16gb 2024 m3 for $200 off which ends up at 1299, that seems like a good deal. looks like it's only $50 more than m2's with 16gb ram.
my air has 1tb and it looks like you can still max that out as an option but i've only used like 250 so i think 500 is probably enough unless someone is working with really big files.
Not only are they all an order faster than the Intels, they NEVER heat up. The mini and the pro both have fans, but they've never been used in normal work, I wouldn't even know they were there if I hadn't run diagnostics to check the fans.
As to which one to buy I couldn't tell you in terms of performance. I'd say as far as specs go, get 16Gb or RAM and a 512Mb SSD.