M5 MacBook Pro vs M4 MacBook Air: Which should you buy this holiday season? – 9 to 5 Mac

Apple offers two entry-level MacBook models: the MacBook Air and the entry-level MacBook Pro. The difference between the two is several hundred dollars, which begs the question – is the MacBook Pro worth the premium, or should you save your money and stick with the MacBook Air?

M5 vs M4 chip

The biggest debate will revolve around the chipset. Need an M5 chip for your workflow?

I won’t go into all the details, if you want you can read our M5 summary here. But in a nutshell, here’s what’s new with the M5:

• 15% faster multi-threaded CPU performance compared to M4
• 45% faster GPU performance than M4
• 30% increase in unified memory bandwidth
• 4x peak GPU computing power for AI

Overall, the M5 is a big leap in GPU performance, and with Apple betting so heavily on local models for AI, this could be important in the future. However, the M4 is still plenty fast and I wouldn’t make any purchasing decisions based on what Apple might do in AI in the future.

It’s also worth noting that Apple still does most of its silicon comparisons with the M1 rather than newer chips like the M2 or M3. I’ll let that speak for itself.

Air vs Pro: Worth the premium?

With the 14-inch MacBook Pro, you’re paying for some nice features. These features are more ports, a proper active cooling system and a nice mini LED display with HDR support, better colors and more. Plus you get a bigger display. The MacBook Pro is 14.2 inches compared to the MacBook Air’s 13.6 inches.

The MacBook Air only comes with MagSafe and two Thunderbolt/USB-C ports, both of which are located on the left side. The MacBook Pro comes with MagSafe, three Thunderbolt/USB-C ports (two left, one right) as well as an HDMI port and an SD card slot.

Temperatures are also a big difference for the MacBook Pro. Simply put, the MacBook Air has no fan and relies entirely on passive cooling. If your workflow is CPU/GPU intensive, you’ll likely run into thermal limitations on the MacBook Air if you push it for a while.

Plus, to be completely honest: macOS Tahoe isn’t fully optimized yet, and I’ve heard from a number of MacBook Air users that their Macs run hot all the time.

Finally, the MacBook Pro has a fantastic display. If you don’t work with color all the time, it probably doesn’t matter that much. It’s not that the MacBook Air’s display is bad. This means that thanks to the miniLED panel, the MacBook Pro supports HDR content, while the Air simply does not. The MacBook Pro also has 1,000 nits of standard brightness versus 500 nits in air, making it much more pleasant in outdoor conditions.

Wrap

Typically, there is around a $400 price difference between a MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro after an equivalent upgrade. The MacBook Air comes standard with 256GB of storage, while the 14-inch MacBook Pro comes with 512GB. But once you get them on par, the MacBook Air costs $1,199, versus $1,599 for the MacBook Pro — at least direct from Apple.

$400 is nothing to scoff at. This is certainly an adequate amount of money to think about saving.

With this week’s Black Friday deals, you can get the 512GB M4 MacBook Air for $949, ​​compared to $1,399 for the 512GB M5 MacBook Pro. If you’re okay with less storage, then the M4 MacBook Air is down to $749 on Amazon.

The choice is ultimately yours. I like the 14-inch MacBook Pro a lot and have spent a lot of time using both the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro. The main thing I want you to get here is that you probably shouldn’t buy a 14-inch MacBook Pro just because it has a newer chip. Get it because you think you need thermal imaging, a display, or ports.

For most users, especially given the price advantage, I would recommend the M4 MacBook Air. It’s an excellent machine and with this week’s discounts it’s hard to pass it up.

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