I bought a 16" Pro thinking I would need it and realized I never do anything other than simple photo/video editing, occasional VM usage and browsing the internet. Returned it and used the $1000~ savings to book a vacation to the Caribbean instead.
I had fallen for the future proof fallacy when even than, the savings could have been used to buy another new MacBook Air in 3-4 years which would be newer than whatever ‘future proofing’ I can do now. I would rather buy a new and updated MacBook Air every 4 years with the savings than budget for a Pro model every 7-9 years.
I noticed no difference between using the Pro and Air at all, at least not worth $1000. This sub convinced me that the Air is what 99% of the population would need and is very powerful as is!
This is what a realistic post by a regular average consumer looks like rather than redditors like us who can be out of touch with the general public. 99% of people with an M2 Air outside of Reddit love their laptop and leave glowing reviews about it and are satisfied with it.
Since you got the Air, have you done any video editing? Recently I was about to get a Pro as well but decided to go with the Air because the Pro was out of stock where I live and I didn’t wanna wait. Plus, I think can save a bit of money because I may not be able to fully use it.
i have a 16” m2 pro MBP as my work computer and a 15” m2 MBA as my personal computer. i do coding and related tasks on my work computer, and light video/photo editing and general personal computer usage on my personal computer. honestly, unless you’re really pushing your computer hard, the MBA is plenty powerful, although i do enjoy the ability to use two external monitors with my work computer
Your MBA is a $50-$60 adapter away from also using two monitors. It’s a stupid problem Apple is imposing but it’s also solved easily.
How’s the heat between the two?
you couldn’t have done better lol. the silicon Air models are just so good it’s not even worth getting the Pro model in most cases.
does nothing
confused why literally any laptop will do the job
This sub
The pro certainly has some features that the Air can simply not compete with.
Screen quality, multiple displays supported, better audio, has a built in cooling system that wont reduce your system to a crawl should you happen to run something intensive. I think those features are quite useful for more than 1% of the population.
I bought a new 16" M2 pro, 16/512 Gb a few days ago for the same price as a 15" M2 air 16/512 now. For the reasons you wrote above. It will replace a 13" pro retina from early 2013 and I expect to replace it not before 2030. And the old retina I hand down to my kids for homework. The last time I spent 2000 bucks on a windows laptop were totally gone in 5 years.
I’ve gone the other way compared to “future proofing” and started buying the minimum I think can get the job done and do it well. Best Buy had a deal on M2 MacBook Airs and I bought one of them with the base 8GB of RAM but upgraded the SSD.
I do some development work and was learning MAUI at work and my old 2012 MacBook Pro couldn’t upgrade to MacOS 11 required to run the development tools for that.
I figured if I hit something I couldn’t do with the MacBook Air within 30 days, I could take it back to Best Buy and upgrade. If I need to upgrade after the 30 days, I figured I can find a buyer and step up to a 14" Pro.
So far, this little M2 Air has taken everything I’ve thrown at it. I’m starting to tinker with building apps/games in Unity and am wanting to get into Mixed Reality on the Quest 3. I may need to upgrade sometime next year, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
I think the main thing is that you don’t need the RAM and the screen. Those MacBooks are for people who run serious video editing setups (as you admitted to realizing) and who would see a benefit from color correction on the display with HDR content. I assume you do none of this, so good on you for saving the money and enjoying it in a way that makes you feel better.
Apart from the grounding issue, my 16" Pro has done things alone that most of my peers use a laptop AND a desktop to get done. But yeah, if you’re not processing a ton of realtime video, or saturating thunderbolt with network traffic or something, then the Air could do any 2-3 of the 8 things I’m doing at once admirably. And I’d probably be less pulled in all directions. lol.
And the air will be much easier for you to carry on your vacation (if you’re planning on bringing it)
If my question is not absurd, can I ask how you guys return a opened sealed pack and get full refund?
Depends where u buy it from. Most retailers give u a certain amount of days to return full refund back even after opened. Like Best Buy, Amazon, etc. Ebay is a different story.
i totally agree with you… for basic usage base model 15 macbook air is fine without paying much more.
Aaugh! Here I thought I was whackadoodle for agonizing over MP16 vs MA15 for two days. In the end, I made the same decision as you. Cheers!!
You could get the base MBP model and still save close to 1000usd, but with additional ports that will help your life easier dongle-free. 😄