The weight of the 13" Air vs 15" Air vs 14" Pro is 2.7 > 3.3 > 3.4 lbs. For developers who do development on remote machines, weight and form factor are more important. I would pay top dollar for a 12" Macbook with M processor because I do my focused editing on a big screen. Other people use their laptop for everything so a 15" screen is preferred. Also, different strokes for different folks.

The 14 inch is already so light imo its probably worth it to splurge just to get things like the non gimped screen

To me the 14" Pro feels like a brick, the 16" is a veritable paving slab. I want something I can toss in a backpack and not feel it's there, which the Air is still just about light enough for. That may be because I live in a very walkable and bike-able area in Europe, and I do lots of both, I'm sure the trade-offs are different if you drive everywhere.

As for the screen, I think "gimped" is not doing it justice. I regularly use both, the Air's is a very nice screen in its own right and while there is a difference, it feels more like a relatively small increment on something already very solid, at least to me (I don't do any pro photo/video work). Same for the other differences, the Air's speakers are already pretty good, connectivity is fine (for me), I like not having a fan, it's way powerful enough for what I do.

Well if you had a fan you could always turn it off too. On the other hand once it is throttling its over. I used an air in the old case without the notch but with the black bezel and I gave it to the parents. Couldn’t stand throttling and how it affects the performance of my use cases. Like every five seconds a stutter like a scratched up CD. Two fan macbook pro for me. Even going all out its quieter than the 2012 era mac fans I am used to, but thats only when I push the cpu. Most of the time the fan is off entirely not even by my own doing.

I have an M2 13" air for a personal computer and a 14" pro for work.

The Air is noticeably lighter and much easier to throw in a bag without thinking about managing weight. The Pro is a fine weight for commuting, but for traveling longer distances, the weight definitely makes a difference. To the point where I'm seriously considering setting up a work partition on my personal machine so I don't need to lug the pro around on an upcoming trip.

Probably depends how big and muscular are you. I don't feel 14' PRO in my backpack at all, 16 PRO barely. Its not a flex but it definitely matters if you are a 5'1 female or 6'2 male.

If a seventh of a pound is the straw that breaks the camels back there are larger problems than the macbooks weight

Well, a macbook is not the only thing in my bag. If you want to keep down the weight of your pack, you shave off the ounces where you can.

> For developers who do development on remote machines

Gosh having started program on 286s in the 1980s, my M1 air feels blazingly opulently fast. What sort of local development are people doing that requires heavier compute than an M1 air, but doesn't require a full on cluster?

Air has no fan which means no moving parts and no noise.

The only time I have heard the fans on my pro was when running games on ultra. If you hear the fans chances are if you had the air instead it would be throttling. Up to you if that is tolerable. I can’t stand throttling so I got the macbook pro with two fans.

IIRC they have a fan it just moved air internally and is for all intents and purpose completely silent from the end user's perspective.

I have owned probably 7 laptops over the past 20 years and every single one with a fan turned into a rattling jet engine mess. Do modern laptops not do this anymore? It was at least half the reason I got the Macbook Air

AIUI, because the macbook air's fan is contained inside the machine that has no external ventilation ports that means the fan is mostly moving clean air with no particulate in it that will eventually build up on the fan whihc make it perform poorly.

I imaagine that the lubricant in the fan will still age, but that is also going to be less of an issue because of less dust contamination.

Where are you getting the idea that the Mx Airs have a fan? They don't.

Macs fans are good, by the time my 2012 kicked the bucket a few months ago the fan still sounded the exact same as it always did. Different story with every other electronic fan I’ve owned of course but I guess thankfully apple doesn’t buy the cheapest fan possible.

I have an M1 Pro that apparently has a fan - I've never seen or heard any evidence that it does actually exist

Better monitor, better speakers (much better in both cases), HDMI, SD. Fan, meaning less throttling on heavy workloads. Support for high-resolution and multimonitor setups. If any of these are attractive, you get the Pro.

Apple's "Pro" branding has become increasingly meaningless but in the MacBook category, which I believe is where it originated, it's meant to suggest "media professional", a demographic which has reason to care about all of these things.

There are even shades of this in the iPhone and iPads Pro, which have a few features which are mainly of interest to professional media types. For AirPods it just means "the expensive ones", and for Vision Pro it means "this is expensive". That's the main signal for phones and tablets as well, realistically.

I think the parent meant the opposite: why buy an Air and not Pro?

They're cheaper for the same internal specs, so you save money if the extras you get with the Pro aren't compelling.

exactly, outside of pricing. I see people say Air is noticably lighter, but I may then have a heavy hand because 13 air and 14 feel almost the same in weight to me, unlike OG Air which was light and thin. Hence, why buy Air? it's not even smaller.

No noise, no dust inside, lighter.

> Fan, meaning less throttling on heavy workloads.

Surely you mean “more noise”.

MBAs are much smaller/lighter. The MBA with its lid closed is just a little bit taller than the MBP with the lid open. I love my 13" MBA!

Its a 0.75lb and 0.17”difference though, you’d have to be a calibrated scale to notice that outside of side by side testing.

Framed differently: it's 37% taller and 25% heavier. In the context of laptops, this is pretty hard not to notice. I have an MBA and my wife has an MBP — the difference is very easy to see/feel.

Its not like killing you lifting a little bit more, its already so light. Its certainly appreciably much lighter than the 15 inch 2012 mac still kicking around my house. It feels easy to hold one handed even.

I wouldn't mind that much, but my petite wife sure wishes that she could swap her MBP for an MBA! She takes her laptop in purses and other bags, so it's both about size and weight.

Yeah I mean if you don't notice an extra 3/4 pound on a 3 pound laptop, then more power to you—get the bigger one

I just lugged my work-issued MBP through a couple of airports today, and wow, I wish I had my own MBA with me instead. That weight doesn't make a huge difference on your lap. It sure makes a difference in a carryon bag.

Maybe consider deadlifts to strengthen your trunk if that fatigues you

For me: price and weight. I frequently travel with my laptop, often with a single backpack or on a bike.

The Air is also way overkill. I had a 12" MacBook before that. It ran the software that I wrote. I write markdown in Sublime Text and run python scripts.

There just isn't a reason to get something beefier.

I could have probably gotten away with the air but there are times when it would be throttling with my uses. The extra io and other hardware upgrades are worth it imo. Especially the screen, its just bright enough on the pro to use the computer outside in full sunlight. I had a 2022 air at one point and that screen was just a bit too dim to use outside without finding shade.

The new Air supports two external displays.. if the laptop is closed (ie internal display is off). That's a pretty big caveat.

For photo/video editors, the Pro screen alone is worth more than the entire laptop. To be clear, the Pro screen is equal to a professional HDR reference monitor, and the entire laptop costs less than a professional HDR reference monitor.