Apple has recently made some huge changes to their MacBook lineup, and a lot of you
may be wondering what exactly is different between each MacBook and which one is the
right fit for you.
So today, we’ve got Apple’s complete lineup of 2019 MacBooks right here in the office,
which should mostly stay the same into 2020.
We’ve got the MacBook Air for $1100, the base 13” MacBook Pro for $1300, the higher-end
13” Pro for $1800, and the 15” MacBook Pro for $2400.
And if you’re watching this video a couple of months after I made it, chances are there
may also be a 16” MacBook Pro available, but as of today, July 27th, 2019, it’s still
only a rumor,
and it’s going to be very high-end, like over $3,000 at the base price, so it’ll
be in a league of its own, but if you’re curious about that model, check out our channel
for videos on that.
Now let’s get started with comparing literally everything we can between all of these MacBooks,
starting with portability.
In terms of weight, the Air is the lightest at just 2.75 pounds, but it’s hardly noticeable
compared to the 3 pound 13” Pro.
From above, the Air is basically just as large as the 13” Pro, so portability should be
pretty similar, and much more portable than the 15”.
The MacBook Pros also have more of a flat slate shape compared to the MacBook Air, which
has a wedge design that gets thinner near the front end.
Each of these MacBooks has a high-quality Retina resolution display, but the Air’s
display isn’t as nice.
It’s quite a bit dimmer than the Pros, that each have an incredible 500 nits of brightness,
and it’s definitely not as color accurate, since every MacBook Pro has P3 wide-color
gamut, which has about 25% more colors than 100% sRGB, which is a must-have for photo
editors.
As far as display sharpness, they all have the same Retina-quality 227 pixels per inch,
and this year, every MacBook in the lineup finally comes with True Tone technology, which
adjusts the white balance of the display to match the environment around you.
Speaker quality and volume is a huge deal for some people, especially to me, so here’s
a sound comparison so you can hear the difference for yourself.
We noticed that the Air has slightly worse speakers than the base 13” Pro, but volume,
sound quality and bass go way up with the $1800 13” Pro as well as the 15” model,
so if speaker quality matters to you, you should consider the higher-end models.
However, even the Air sounds better and louder than almost every Windows laptop we’ve tested.
Now onto the keyboards, they’re all packing Apple’s latest 4th generation butterfly
keys that have new key switch materials which should be more reliable than before, and we’ve
yet to hear of any issues with the 4th gen keyboard, but even if you do,
all of these MacBooks come with a 4-year free keyboard replacement warranty if you have
any issues with the keys.
Apart from that, the MacBook Air’s keyboard slopes downward towards the front edge so
it’s actually a bit more comfortable to type on compared to the Pros.
And this year, every single MacBook in the lineup comes with a Touch ID sensor built
into the power button which makes it really convenient to log in, use Apple Pay online
and install apps off the web without having to enter your password.
However, every MacBook Pro this year comes with the Touch Bar, an OLED display that replaces
the top row of keys and is fully customizable.
However, not many people like it because it’s more difficult to do things like adjust display
brightness, volume, and use the escape key.
I personally don’t really like the Touch Bar, but it’s not a big deal at all.
And this year, every MacBook also comes with the T2 chip, which helps with security and
provides hardware transcoding of HEVC video footage.
Now let’s talk about the ports.
Every port on every MacBook this year supports Thunderbolt 3, but both the 13” MacBook
Air and lower-end MacBook Pro come with only two of these ports, compared to four ports
on the more expensive Pros.
If you’re a basic user that doesn’t connect to external displays or connect external devices
very often, you’ll probably be fine with one of the two-port models,
and you also have the choice of buying a Thunderbolt 3 hub just in case you do need more ports,
but having four ports from the get-go is definitely more convenient, especially for those who
use their ports often.
Now if you love large trackpads, the 15” Pro has the biggest one of them all, followed
by the 13” Pro and then the Air has a slightly smaller trackpad, but it’s still larger
than most windows laptops.
For battery life, the new MacBook Air is rated at 12 hours compared to 10 hours on the MacBook
Pros, so if battery life is what you’re after, the Air is the best option.
And if you love maxing out the brightness on your display, you could see an even bigger
difference since the Air has a dimmer display.
And if you love using FaceTime, they’re all packing 720p HD webcams, so here’s a
recorded webcam clip on each MacBook.
Finally, let’s talk about performance, starting with the processors.
This year, the base $1300 MacBook Pro finally gets a quad-core processor, so the MacBook
Air is now the only one in the lineup with a dual-core CPU.
The $1800 Pro has a quad-core and the 15” Pro has a six-core that can actually be upgraded
to an 8-core if you’re willing to spend $2800.
Looking at raw processing power using Geekbench 4’s multi-core test, we can see that the
MacBook Air with its dual-core CPU is way behind the MacBook Pros, and surprisingly,
the $1300 Pro performs almost the same as the $1800 model, and the 15” gives you a
pretty good jump in performance as well.
So we decided to look at performance per dollar using the full retail price of each MacBook,
and the new $1300 base MacBook Pro comes out way ahead, with incredible amounts of raw
power for the cash, with the Air being a very bad value, performance-wise.
One thing that you won’t find on the spec sheet is that the $1300 base MacBook Pro has
only one fan, just like on the MacBook Air, while the more expensive $1800 and $2400 Pros
have dual fans.
Something like this could definitely limit performance for longer workloads, so we also
ran Cinebench R20, a more realistic benchmark which is long enough to heat the systems up
and see how well the cooling systems work.
And surprisingly, the single fan on the $1300 Pro didn’t really limit performance like
we thought it would, so we’re really impressed with it.
However, we noticed that while the dual fans on the higher-end models were louder at first,
they eventually slowed down a little bit as the system stabilized, but the single fan
models kept running at full blast until the end of the test.
We also tested SSD speeds, and here, we see a pretty big difference when going to the
more expensive MacBook Pros, but even the less expensive models are still fast enough
for most people, especially basic users.
So if you’re still confused on which MacBook you should buy, let me break it down for you.
The $1300 base 13” MacBook Pro is by far the best value you can get in terms of performance
and overall MacBook experience, but if you don’t really need a great display or high
performance, and you’d rather save a couple hundred bucks, you can go for the MacBook
Air instead.
The Air is great if you’re a writer, a student, or someone who just wants a premium reliable
laptop for doing basic computer tasks like web browsing, working with documents and sometimes
watching some netflix,
as well as getting some extra battery life out of it.
For basic use, then the MacBook Air will be the best option for you.
Now if you’re doing any kind of professional task like photo editing, video editing, 3d
animation or anything like that, and you love having the best display you can get with better
speakers than the Air, then I would highly recommend going for the $1300 MacBook Pro
instead.
It’s the best value MacBook we’ve ever seen.
Now the $1800 13” MacBook Pro is for those people who have a bit more cash left in their
budget, and are willing to spend it to get a few more luxury improvements,
like an extra two Thunderbolt 3 ports, better speakers, faster storage speeds, slightly
faster performance, and two cooling fans which should lead to an overall quieter laptop during
heavy workloads.
All of those things aren’t really dealbreakers, but if they matter to you, you should consider
that model.
It already comes with 256 gigs of storage, so in reality, it’s $300 more than the base
model with a matching SSD.
And finally, the 15” MacBook Pro is for those who know that they need the extra performance
from the six-core CPU, or even upgrading to the 8-core.
And If you’re a serious 4K or RAW video editor, this is the one to get since it has
dedicated graphics.
And it’s also the only model that can come with 32GB of RAM, so it’s great for high-end
photo editors or programmers.
It’s for people who want the absolute best, with the biggest trackpad, best speakers,
the biggest display, and the highest performance you can get.
And to finish it all off, here are some general purchasing recommendations.
If you’re anything more than a basic user, we’d recommend getting at least 256GB of
storage.
And if you’re working with professional tasks almost every day, we’d also recommend
getting 16GB of RAM, especially if you’re a photo editor.
We also recommend that you never upgrade the processor, unless you’re getting extra cores
out of the deal, which is only available on the 15” model.
Upgrading from an i5 to an i7 doesn’t change anything other than a slight performance boost,
which almost always isn’t worth the price.
And if you’re a very serious video editor, get the best graphics you can afford, especially
the Vega 20 graphics, and for photo editors, graphics will do basically nothing for you,
so focus on RAM first, and then the processor.
And if the 16” MacBook Pro is out already, check out one of those two videos to see us
compare it to the 15” model.
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Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one.