is it worth spending an extra 500 bucks and getting the 16 gigabyte m1 macbook pro or is the 8 gig macbook air a better value i spend five months with these two laptops and i’m going to share my experience with you tell you how each performed for various tasks talk about the differences and then we can talk about which one is the best option and i have to admit i do have a new perspective to share when i compare the 8 gig models of both laptops the 7 core gpu macbook air to the 8 core gpu macbook pro i didn’t find in the macbook pro gave enough of a performance boost for me to actually feel comfortable recommending it to people considering the extra cash in case you want some context i’ll link to my original video at the end of this one but that was the reason why i ended up getting the 16 gigabyte macbook pro i wanted to see if doubling the ram and taking advantage of the active cooling system aka the fan was enough of an improvement to justify the cost it’s not all about performance though there are other differentiators between these two the macbook pro has a brighter display at 500 nits versus 400 on the
macbook air and in practice in real life that is a noticeable difference when i’m working or gaming or watching content in a brighter room or outside i do prefer the brighter display on the macbook pro now next we have the touch bar in the macbook pro versus the function keys on the macbook air i happen to really like the touch bar i know some people can’t stand it and some are completely indifferent but regardless of which camp you’re in the macbook pro only comes with a touch bar at this point so if that’s a binary feature for you if you either love it or hate it then the decision is already made now both laptops have the same keyboard which is one of the best boards i’ve used on any laptop and both definitely have the best track pads that i’ve ever used the one with the macbook pro is a little bit bigger than the one with the macbook air but not to the point where i’ve ever used this one and said you know i really wish that was a little bit bigger when surfing the web working with documents or doing photo and video editing again i never felt like i really needed a larger track pad now the next differences have to do with battery life and charging adapter so starting with the charger the macbook air comes with a 30 watt charger while the macbook pro comes
with a more powerful 60 watt charger now i end up using an even more powerful usb charging hub so that i can charge multiple devices at a time so this isn’t a super important difference to me but if you plan on using the included adapter keep that in mind now apple reports about 18 hours of battery life for the macbook air with a 49.9 watt hour battery and 20 hours for the macbook pro with a 58.2 watt hour battery now i can do a detailed battery comparison if that’s something that you’re interested in but keep in mind that these reported hours from apple are for video playback and they already drop by about 16 to 17 for wireless web browsing now if you do things like compiling code or rendering video or gaming you’re not going to get anywhere near that type of battery and that’s not just specific to these m1 macbooks that’s true for every computer so if you regularly perform those types of tasks make sure that you bring a charging adapter or a power bank with you now let’s get to my results starting with web browsing and using web-based applications so i use chrome for the majority of my web browsing and as you probably know chrome is kind of like a resource hog and to make things worse tabs for me are like a one-way street there’s just opening more and more there’s never any closing so with that in mind i experienced no
noticeable difference between using the macbook air versus the macbook pro now both quickly opened closed and switched between apps both were easily able to handle endless chrome tabs with resource grabbing website and the actual user experience was virtually indistinguishable now when i used web-based applications for email or used google docs for managing my youtube channel again i didn’t experience any noticeable difference so if your primary use for either of these laptops is web browsing or using web-based applications you can use both with no problem if you’ve gotten value from this video give it a thumbs up it lets me know what kind of content you like so that i can make more of it and i still see that over ninety percent of you are new viewers so hit that subscribe button next i want to talk about video editing now in this case i used final cut pro which was optimized for silicon and the m1 chip from the start premiere pro which was running using rosetta 2 and the beta version of premiere pro which again is optimized for the m1 chip and with all three i had no issues editing and rendering with either laptop and that’s to say that they both worked very well now the 16 gigabyte eight core gpu macbook pro did have better
performance when i was rendering larger higher resolution files with a lot of effects and i did notice the fan turning on to keep the system running more efficiently and cool and this is where i think you’ll need to make a choice because we’re talking about approximately 500 bucks so if you’re primarily going to use this laptop for video editing and you’re planning on capturing the highest resolution possible with the highest bit depth then i can see choosing the macbook pro with 16 gigabytes of ram footage is going to continue to get bigger and require more resources to render and preview your new mac should last you for a very long time and i don’t want you having to replace a perfectly good laptop because it can’t handle this higher workload but maybe there’s a better option so hang on for photo editing i use lightroom and photoshop both of which run natively on the m1 chip the performance with both laptops was absolutely spectacular switching between photos and making edits was extremely smooth and responsive so there wasn’t anything there that would make me choose the macbook pro there was a slight advantage to the macbook pro when exporting a lot of very high resolution raw files
but we’re talking about a 20 difference on a task that i perform maybe once a day and while it would save me a couple of minutes just like with video rendering i’m usually just hitting the button and then going to get coffee and coming back when it’s done it’s not like i’m sitting there staring at the screen waiting for it to be finished the macbook air would work just fine for the casual to moderate to even a higher end lightroom and photoshop user but if you’re an extremely demanding user get yourself the macbook pro with 16 gigs of ram and you won’t regret it when it comes to gaming which i know is not traditionally the primary use for a macbook i still wanted to give you a little bit of insight probably the game that i got the most questions about was minecraft which i can tell you ran perfectly on both laptops i was able to play using the java edition of course and get about 60 frames per second so the gaming experience was actually quite smooth and definitely playable with both machines i also downloaded some of my favorite games from the app store and again i was able to play them with no problem i don’t want to spend too much time on gaming because i know that’s not the primary use for a mac but if you plan to play more resource intensive games then go ahead and get the macbook pro with the active cooling system you’re not likely
to see a performance difference when you start playing but as the system heats up and you need that prolonged performance you will see the air throttling back performance and the macbook pro with its fan running smoothly the fan on the macbook pro isn’t quite as effective as the larger one on the mac mini but there will be a noticeable difference over the macbook air using both laptops for watching youtube streaming netflix or amazon prime or streaming music as you probably can guess there’s absolutely no noticeable difference between the two if that’s your primary use definitely save your money and go with the macbook air all right so after five months of using the seven core gpu eight gigs of ram macbook air and the eight core gpu 16 gigs of ram macbook pro what are my thoughts if you’re a casual user the cheapest macbook air will work perfectly for you it has more power than you need it will work in absolute silence and it will end up being a fantastic laptops for many years if you can bring yourself to spend the extra 200 bucks go ahead
and upgrade the ram to 16 gigs while you may not need it now you might want to keep this laptop for the next seven years and it would be a shame to have to upgrade only because you don’t have enough ram now remember that the m1 chip architecture doesn’t allow you to upgrade the ram or the internal storage once you make your purchase you can always add external ssd storage if you really need it and i do have a comparison of some of the most popular options so make sure to check out that video it will be a lot cheaper than upgrading the internal storage on either macbooks but you will be giving up some of the convenience by having to bring along and attach another device if you’re a pro is going to push this laptop to the limit you want to squeeze every last bit of performance out of it you want better battery life a brighter screen you either like or don’t care about the touch bar then the 16 gigabyte macbook pro is an awesome option but wait till you hear my next option
if you’re the type of user who needs a laptop now and you want some great performance but you don’t feel like the macbook pro offers enough of an upgrade and at the same time you’re looking for a stop gap ask yourself if you can get by with the base model macbook air for now and then upgrade to the next macbook pro which should be around the corner you could take that extra cache and get something like an external display for a dual display workstation remember that i have links in the description to all the products i talked about hopefully this video was helpful click on my face to subscribe and then watch one of these videos you know what i always say buy it nice or buy twice good luck and see you soon
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