For the past month, I borrowed the 16" Macbook Pro (M1 Max) from a relative, because my 2015 13" was no longer usable for my workflow, and I didn't yet have the funds for a new machine. The experience was amazing, it truly is Apple's best laptop - save the M2 and now M3 Max, but after buying and using the 15" Macbook Air, I can comfortably say that this is the laptop for me.
The first decision I had to make when choosing the laptop to buy was lineup. For a while I leaned towards the Pro lineup, because of the extra power, screen, speakers, etc. Just about everything on the Pro is improved in some way. The big factors for me at first were ports and screen. There is obviously a wider selection of ports on the Pro, the only one I was really concerned with was the loss of the third Thunderbolt port. I plug my laptop into a studio setup, and had been using all three ports, but consolidated some cables, so I now only use two. The screen on the Pro is so good with the miniLED and Promotion. I have an iPhone 13 Pro, so I am used to 120hz on the smaller display, but I actually didn't notice the 120hz as much on the larger laptop display. Additionally, I tend to sit at my laptop for long periods of the day, and found that my eyes got really tired after just a few hours. I later found that this was because of PWM (Pulse-width-modulation) that is something only found on the pros. I ended up turning off Promotion, which helped, but this made me realize I didn't need the Pro's screen. A common misconception is that the brightness is better on the Pro. In any SDR content, which is just every time you are browsing the web, and not watching a movie or show, the brightness between the Air and the Pro is no different, 500 nits.
So after that realization, the Air was the better option for me. I still enjoyed the larger screen of the 15" Air, but am on the go a lot, so bounced back and forth between the 13" and the 15", but finally settled on the 15".
Now many people tout the Pro's benefits as worth the extra dollars, but the price difference definitely played a role. I bought this in the US, just for reference. If I would have purchased a Pro machine, it would have been the 14" Macbook Pro with M3 Pro, 18/512. From the education store, this model is $1850. With tax, this comes to just over $2000. In comparison, I was able to purchase the 15" Air off the refurbished website, 16/512 for $1440. With tax this came to $1560. That's $440 in savings, which is a lot of money. I understand future proofing, and was under its illusion for a while. That does not mean I don't need to value the dollar when buying a new machine though.
For aesthetics reasons, I also prefer the air. It looks so svelte with how thin it is, and I really enjoy not having speaker grilles. I live in a dusty area, and so there was always particles getting in the speaker grilles of the Pro. These are absent on the Air and lend to a cleaner look.
So now that I explained cost and the reasons behind my purchase, I'm going to throw some pros and cons down, for people who want a real-world comparison, from my experiences.
| M1 Max Macbook Pro 16" | M2 Macbook Air 15" |
|---|---|
| Fantastic speakers, great bass response. 10/10 | Good speakers, surprisingly good bass response. 8.5/10 |
| Promotion display, nice with HDR, but not a good experience for me. 8/10 | Great 60hz display, with excellent colors and brightness. 9/10 |
| Ports - Magsafe, 3 TB, SD, HDMI, Headphone. HDMI and SD unnecessary for me. 8/10 | Ports - Magsafe, 2 TB, Headphone. Very manageable with my current setup. 6/10 |
| Footprint, fits on a desk, but takes up a lot of space, chonky boi, 6/10 | Slightly smaller footprint, still takes up lots of space on the desk, super thin 7/10 |
| Very heavy laptop, either in the hand or a bag. (4.8lbs - 2.2kg) 4/10 | Incredibly light for the size (weight matters a lot for me) 9/10 |
| Excellent battery life - went 2 days without charging 10/10 | Excellent battery life - after full day of use was only at 40% 10/10 |
Performance is another category that matters, but not too much for me. My requirements was that this new laptop ran my studio setup (GarageBand while I learn the ropes), could play BOTW (dumped from WiiU), and could do light video editing. The performance differences for me were actually quite interesting. With music production, there is no difference, both laptops can supply power to my setup and have no playback issues (2015 13" couldn't), and video editing is about the same between them, except a small difference in export times. I don't care that much when it comes to export times, I just need the file at some point. It's a lot better though than my 13" which took about 50-60 minutes of jet-engine for a 10 minute video. For BOTW, I was really surprised. I got 30-32 fps on the M1 Max, and could bump the resolution up to 4k and see no difference in performance. However, the frame rate was basically locked (FPS++ set to 60) at 30. In comparison, I get consistent 40 on the M2, but can't bump the resolution up from 1080p. I don't play for long enough for thermal throttling to really start affecting performance.
So for my use case, the 15" Air is the better machine. Lightweight, portable, performant enough for me, and a really pretty laptop. The 16" Pro is objectively better, but I couldn't justify the cost of even the 14" for my use case.