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.
this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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And the air will be much easier for you to carry on your vacation (if you’re planning on bringing it)
Impossible not noticing 120hz to 60hz and vice versa
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.
Super random, but where did you go?
How is that “super random” when he talks about the vacation in the post? Super random would be asking him about his dick size.
He’s going to the Caribbean, that’s a relevant question
I think about this a lot. And I'll still be thinking about it till I die.
There is a difference between future-proofing for 200 dollars and an upgrade creep for 1000 dollars (no judgment here).
I hope you’ll enjoy your vacation!
Good decision. If i have the budget, MBA M2 15 for work and iPad Pro for media consumption.
My exact setup! But i watch YouTube a whole lite more on my 13 Mini than the iPad. Go figure.
Yeah but that way you'll have 2 different mediocre (apple level mediocre:)) laptops vs 1 good one for the same duration.
I'd go with the 1 good one, with the dope screen & dope speakers, plus much better performance in the first 2 years.
This is an isolated decision of course, not including vacations and other factors. Just 1 laptop vs 2 laptops.
I think about this whenever I'm buying a new piece of tech--whether to spend more to future proof and have it last or to spend less and shorten the life span. I've generally opted for the latter.
Because most people conflate "buying a more powerful computer" with "future proofing", which is wrong.
I future proofed when I built my desktop in 2017. We knew am4 was going to be supported for several more cpu architectural generations, so I knew that I'd have an easy upgrade path ahead of me, for cheap. And I did. I went from a 1600x to a 5700x, and from an rx 480 to an rx 6700xt. I fully intend to get another couple years out of this pc, and it's looking like I'll be able to get possibly a full decade of useful life out of it. That's future proofing, and pretty cost effective.
On the other hand, had I bought the best available at the time, which was Intel 8th Gen coffee lake, it would feel so much more outdated and I'd already be in need of another upgrade.
In any case, I'm not sure there's any such thing as a future proofed MacBook. Aren't they pretty limited in terms of upgrade options?
They last a long time because the build quality has been excellent, historically, and also because 99% of the user base never runs an application heavier than a web browser. But then, my decade old windows laptop is also fine for web browsing.
Like someone said in an exactly same post two weeks ago, why dont u return the macbook too and buy a window laptop and book another flight? 😂
😂😂😂
Could’ve gotten a windows laptop and booked 4 vacations 😭
Could have bought a Chromebook and booked 8 vacations.
Could have used their previous laptop and booked 9 vacations
could have used pencil and paper, stayed home & watched Netflix
Dang it, now you’ve got me seriously reconsidering my 16-inch MBP purchase. It arrives on Wednesday. I’ll be deliberating this until then.
Nahh the 16-inch MacBook Pro is an amazing machine, the Air is a thermal throttling mess and the Pro is just way better in every single way.
Thanks… I feel a bit better now. 😊
99% of my use on my Air is browser based so no thermal throttling there lol
Yeah fr lol, I guess I’m just comparing the Air with my use and extreme tasks like photo/video editing and music production lol😂😂
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.
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.
How’s the heat between the two?
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.
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. 😄
What specs did you go with on the MacBook Air 15”? I was considering 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD (just for the faster speed itself over the 256GB).
Base M2 Air is more computer than most people need. I have an M1 Pro for work and an M2 Air asa couch/personal computer and they subjectively feel the same. I know benchmarks can tell them apart but literally nothing that I do in my normal day feels different.
The only thing keeping your laptop running good for years is viable RAM.
Good for you, it’s funny the number of people thinking they need high-end machines for tasks a basic M1 would piss on from a great height. Smart move IMHO.
I have Pro M2, M3 16 and I mostly use Air 15, makes sense to me. It is the perfect laptop. Most powerful? No..but generally better than everything else under Mac Pro 16.
I just did the opposite. The air just didn’t quite do it for me. The main reason is the Air only supports one external monitor…. Carrying the Air was fantastic though!
Out of curiosity, since I have a final year Intel MBP, I’m thinking of switching to an Air soon, does the 1 monitor limit include using sidecar? One thing I like doing right now is using my iPad as a display as well as my desktop monitor.
The only thing I use it for now is for IDE stuff since I’ve moved over all my heavy lifting stuff to my home PC.
Could have bought a good enough PC and taken two vacations.
For your use you made a good choice. I would have even looked for a used or apple direct refurb to save even more. Unfortunately for me i'm going to need a high end one and i'm going to spend a lot of money :(
Issue is people over exaggerating the Mac's life span. MacBooks last an easy decade and that has been the case for years. Most people use them as a browsing tool and for those it will last a life time being honest.
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