M2 Air vs M2 Pro MacBook Pro: Which Should You Buy?

35 Comments on M2 Air vs M2 Pro MacBook Pro: Which Should You Buy?

1. My opinion: because of our smartphone cameras getting higher resolutions like 35Mp as an example you SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST A 1TB INTERNATIONAL SSD

   • Or learn what CHEAPER USB C drive is

   • My iPhone 13 has 128GB but I use just 29GB

   • No. Use a cloud service like iCloud or Google Photos. Welcome to 2023

   • @alliejr Your data and content is not better on removable drives. I did what you said and I regret it daily, having to pull my laptop out of my bag AND a cable AND a drive that has to be mounted and dismounted when I finish every time I wanna get some work done is a pain. Next time I’ll get enough storage where I can keep one or ideally 2-3 decent sized projects on my internal drive at a time, and so I’ll only need external storage to access like a media library or to move old projects into cold storage.

   • @IrlzinzTT the workflow is annoying and the prices are crazy, atleast if you actually generate enough content to warrant using cloud storage rather than just buying the upper storage spec.

2. You should buy Mac Mini M2 +Apple Trackpad and Keyboard + preferred OLED TV – 90% people never use portability of laptops (go outside home)

3. This is a clip for content creators, and not normals. Normals can get by with the Apple MacBook Air M1 SOC with a maximum floating point (FP32) performance of 2.6 TFLOPs with a retina 13.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit display with IPS technology; 2560-by-1600 native resolution at 227 pixels per inch with support for millions of colors.

   The Cray X-MP sold by Cray Research was announced in 1982 as the “cleaned up” successor to the 1975 Cray-1, and was the world’s fastest computer from 1983 to 1985 with a quad-processor system performance of 800 megaflops. 1984 X-MP/48 cost about US$15 million plus the cost of disks.

   So how much power do you need for a normal?

   • I have yet to see a review from another perspective. for example someone in data science…

4. 9:50 I thought the 512 GB M2 Pro also had only one NAND chip not two which is why it’s slower than the 512 GB M1 Pro?

   • The M1 512GB MacBook Pro had four 128GB NAND chips. Two were on the front side of the board, two were on the back side. This time, they seem to have switch to 256GB nand chips, with one on the front side of the board and one on the back. It’s still significantly slower than the last generation.
     https://9to5mac.com/2023/01/24/macbook-pro-ssd-performance-drop/

     Some people have kept saying there’s one but that’s not the case.

   • https://www.ifixit.com/News/71442/tearing-down-the-14-macbook-pro-with-apples-help

5. MacBook Pro 14″ : Better Screen (120Hz, Deeper Blacks), Better Speakers, Full Size SD card Slot but it’s soooo much more expensive. I wanted to get the Air M2 but after using the ProMotion Display and listening to the speakers.. it’s hard to go down a lower spec’d machine.

   • Air + buy bigger better screen coz 13in is small anywat. + buy headphones or speakers because laptop audio is pathetic no matter what

   • @solidfuel86 the audio on these 14 inch macbook pro’s are quite good actually

   • I think the only thing that I don’t like about my M2 Pro 14” is the space gray. It has not even been a month and I am already seeing discoloration around the thunderbolt ports. Other that that, I agree with you about the M2 pro. It would be hard using any model under this after using this machine.

   • I do buy the mac air m2 all day if it was at least 14 inch. 13,3 (actually 13,6 but thats the notch part which u cant use for a lot) is just too small. Hoping for a 15 inch mac air but will probably be too expensive

6. Man, don’t use those thermal pads. you risk damaging your battery due to high temperatures generated.

   • How? The temps are even higher without them, with the thermal pad, more of the heat goes through the pad and to the outside of the case, or so I’d imagine. And do the pads have to touch the batteries?

7. IMO, the M2 Air is for the casual user. The average user. The machine is perfect for someone who fits into that category.
   The $800 difference between the two base models is a lot of money but you get what you pay for. Also, all heavy users would agree that the M2 Air would not be for them.
   It is similar to entering a marathon and one person is walking & the other is driving the course.

8. I never understood how the iPhone 7’s touch ID was haptic and doesn’t click when the phone is off but when the MacBook is off the trackpad pad clicks

   • when the macbook is fully off the track pad stops clicking aswell. You must have checked it in some low power state where it’s not actually off.

9. IMHO, if you have the M2 air and you don’t feel like the computer is holding you back, then there is not really a compelling reason to upgrade right now. It’s still a very capably little machine and the extra lightness and thinness compared to the 14″ Pro is not nothing. If something in your workflow is impacted by the lack of active cooling, lack of extra GPU cores, lack of extra CPU cores, etc, then you already know that the computer is not quite adequate for your needs. I’ve been using the M1 pro MacBook pro as my work computer for the past year and it is the first MacBook I’ve owned that I can easily recommend as a business laptop. The extra ports, better battery life, and performance on battery just make it exceptional at everything I do.

   • and what do you do

10. I think the MacBook Pro is the way to go here. Unless you want the sleek design of the Air. Just think last year’s MacBook Pro was a little better. Faster SSD speeds on that than on the new one.

11. Been thinking of grabbing one of these to start my journey into the Apple world. Thanks for the great info, keep up the great job you all.

12. I just received my new 14″ MacBook Pro. Three Thunderbolt Ports, better screen, MagSafe charging, SDXC card slot means massively more capable then MB Air and worth every penny

13. After watching this, I decided to go to with MacBook Pro! Most reviews compare between the basic models of both but what I really wanted to see was a comparison between the basic model of Pro vs. Air with 16GB RAM/516GB SSD, worth extra $300 or not. If I’m going to buy one later this year regardless, it’s better to sell what I have before the value goes down, right??

    • Apple doesn’t go down much in value tbh. Even 10 year old macbook pros are still being sold for insane prices lol.

      The older macbook pro is perfect beside the screen size. I want something with a fan at atleast 14 inch. Even that is low-key too small but it could be just enough.

      I do buy a 15 inch mbp all day if it had half the power and a decent price. I dont use my laptops for much more than youtube, reading etc but would love to have a macbook for that with a decent size screen

14. hi, nice demo, this specification is the same to macbook pro 13′ and 14′ right?

15. definitely interesting that they gave the air the m2 first, and then gave the pro it just now. Guessing when summer fall rolls around, they will release m3 which will be the one I will get. as a post grad, regular computer user just for casual use I dont ever see the need to own a pro computer again

16. Definitely the MacBook Pro. Your review was very helpful. Thanks!

17. Issues:
    •Since the base model has a single NAND, the SSD is very slow.
    •It does not have a fan which might be the reason for a bad battery life. Maybe if the system stays cool, it will have a better battery life
    •Lack of ports
    •speakers facing away from the user, what’s that about? It does not require impeccable engineering to understand that speakers need to be facing the user
    So, if you go for a 512 GB Storage, 16 GB Memory and 10 Core GPU, the price becomes $1699 compared to $1999 for the and its a little confusing cuz I’m not sure if I should spend $2000 on this machine.
    For the $300
    •You get M2 Pro
    •Better speakers
    •Better camera and microphone
    •better performance and battery life
    •a cooling system which will increase performance and life of that device
    •more ports
    A very cunning business stretgy played by Apple. I have been trying to figure out which MacBook I should buy and I don’t even have the money, my mom’s gonna buy it for me and I wanna keep the price as low as possible but at the same time, make sure I get the best bang for the buck.
    Can someone please help me?

18. I have a m1 MacBook Pro base. Should I upgrade to a m2 pro?

19. will either of them work as a pcvr computer with steam vr?