Apple MacBook Air is still the lightest best value laptop in the market right now. It is the most powerful ultrabook you can get for your money hands down, even after the release of the newest MacBook Pro.
“But, hey you stylish, well-spoken, knowledgeable, and indefatigable source of reliable tech information” -I hear you say-. “Doesn´t the new model offer a faster processor and a more streamlined experience for MacBook users?”
Indeed. The Macbook Pro looks incredibly good and the M1 processor does offer something no other laptop CPU has been able to achieve so far in terms of efficiency. These and other cool features exclusive to the Pro series have generated a ton of FOMO among Apple users. However, getting your hands on one of these comes at an incredibly high cost, and sometimes we need to consider how much bang we are getting for our buck before making such an important investment.
So, we need to delve a bit deeper into the details of buying a MacBook Pro so we know if it’s the best fit for us.
Many of the users who made the jump from the M1 powered Air to the Pro series reported various grades of performance improvement when running their favorite apps and games. The stakes were high and most of us were eager to discover how powerful this M1 chip was and how it compared to the “entry level” Air version. There was much speculation about the performance and how it would give the MacBook Air a run for its money.
In the end, it was nothing like that. Don´t get me wrong. There was a noticeable improvement in terms of performance and rendering speed when running resource-intensive apps. However, don´t think the difference was so stark that users immediately trashed their Apple MacBook Airs to go buy the latest Pro models.
In fact, the difference barely justified the expense. The only instance we could observe a game-changing improvement was when we upgraded the MacBook Pro to the M1 Max chip which takes you into a whole different price category.
However, for those of us who use our Apple MacBook Air laptops for regular day-to-day tasks, the Pro version felt either superfluous or a total overkill. Those looking for something in between would find nothing specifically designed for them in the MacBook Pro universe this year.
Of course, I can sympathize with those who guide their purchase decisions by looking at performance charts and noticing objective differences between the two versions. But I like to think about those of us who do enjoy the Apple experience but only use their laptops to write papers or play the occasional game on weekends.
You might think I’m dissing the newer and shinier equipment and trying to convince you that Apple is not living up to its incredibly high standards. But this is not the case at all.
The real reason, as many have demonstrated online, is that MacOs works so well in tandem with its own hardware, that everything loads instantly on anything with an M1 chip in it. Apps feel faster and smoother when you’re running them in any of the new M1 macs, including the Air versions.
Even when you are running a graphic-intensive app, like video editing or image rendering, the MacBook Air computers are still the most efficient in the market within their price range. I cannot overstate how good the M1 Macbook Air is for managing resource-intensive tasks and it gives you a whopping 18 hours of battery life, which is something almost no other computer can offer.
If you need to upgrade your laptop but are not sure what Mac you should get, I recommend getting an Apple MacBook Air from Mac of All Trades. They offer expertly refurbished Mac products at the best prices so you can take part in the Apple Experience without paying premium prices.
