Okay, so, I think we need to talk
about the 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro,
and why it makes absolutely no sense
at the moment.
As you already know,
the M2 MacBook Pro was announced at WWDC,
and it's almost completely unchanged
from the 2020 model.
So, first of all,
let's rewind the clock a little bit
to when Apple Silicon was first announced.
There were actually some compelling reasons
to get the Pro over the Air,
despite the $300 US dollar price difference.
You, of course, got a fan,
which kept the M1 chip a little bit cooler
and gave you a slight performance boost.
It has a brighter screen,
a better battery life by a few hours,
and, of course, love it or hate it,
the Touch Bar.
But apart from that,
it was essentially exactly the same as the M1 Air,
in terms of screen resolution,
webcam, ports, keyboard,
and everything else.
And fast forward to 2022,
it's a lot different.
Now, for an extra $100 US dollars,
over the base model M2 MacBook Air,
you get the same minor differences as before,
but pretty much everything else is worse.
Take a look at what you get on the M2 MacBook Air
that you don't get on the M2 MacBook Pro,
larger screen,
Liquid Retina technology,
more color options,
1080p camera,
instead of 720p on the Pro,
four-speaker sound system with spatial audio,
and a completely new updated chassis.
And don't forget,
the Air is also thinner and lighter.
Okay, so, let's talk about the biggest difference first,
and that is the fan.
Now, I've seen some comments from people
saying that if you live in a hot environment,
you basically need the Pro,
because the Air will somehow just thermal throttle
and overheat easily.
Guys, if you couldn't already tell by the accent,
I'm Australian,
and I do, of course, live in Australia,
one of the hottest parts of the country actually,
and all throughout last summer,
I was using the M1 MacBook Air,
didn't have any issues,
I didn't overheat it,
didn't thermal throttle anymore
than it usually would.
And let's be honest,
are you going to be sitting outside in the sun,
rendering 8K footage?
Only an idiot would do that.
(arrow pops)
(presenter sighs)
But seriously,
if you are going to be doing any demanding work,
it's probably going to be inside,
where there's air conditioning,
or, at least, the ambient temperature
is going to be cooler than what it is outside,
for example.
And don't forget that because it is a fan,
that is a moving part,
and that's an additional point of failure
that the MacBook Air simply does not have.
And you'll also have to open up your Pro
and give it a clean,
every once in a while,
especially in dusty environments,
otherwise, you'll end up
with something like this absolutely filthy MacBook Pro
that was thermal throttling due to dust buildup.
You can see how the fans become clogged with dust,
hair, and debris,
and this also gets sucked into the rest of the chassis,
covering all of the components.
By the way, if you want to see
that overheating MacBook cleaned,
and new thermal paste put on,
I'll link that video.
Now, there is a chance that the fan
on this new generation of MacBook Pro
will make more of a difference
compared to the Air,
than the previous generation from 2020,
because if you noticed,
the M2 actually requires a higher wattage
to perform at its peak
when compared to the M1.
And higher wattage usually equals higher temperatures.
Now, personally, I'm pretty skeptical
as to what effect the fan on the Pro
will have on the performance of the M2 chip.
We will just have to wait and see,
I am going to be buying,
basically, all the new MacBooks to test them,
and benchmark them, and compare them,
so, stay tuned for that.
But I expect, for short bursts,
there's not going to be any difference between the two,
we're only really going to see a difference
in the sustained stuff,
so, rendering a long timeline,
or compiling a large code base,
for example.
So, realistically,
the fan could end up being the only selling point
of the M2 MacBook Pro.
And don't forget that if you want 80%
of the performance of the M2 chip,
you can just get an M1 MacBook Air,
that's going to cost you $300 less,
at a $1,000 US dollars,
probably even cheaper, to be honest,
because we have seen them on sale
for around 850,
$900 in the last six months.
Now, speaking of MacBook Airs,
I am actually giving one away on this channel,
once we hit 200,000 subscribers.
So, make sure you subscribe down below,
and stay tuned.
Okay, moving on to the battery,
you get 15 hours on the M2 MacBook Air
versus 17 hours on the M2 MacBook Pro.
So, sure,
I mean, you get an extra two hours
on the MacBook Pro over the Air,
but the battery on the Air is already 15 hours,
that's really, really impressive already,
I don't really see anyone
needing more than that, to be honest,
like if you look at a standard work or school date,
it's generally about 8-10 hours,
maximum, and then your home,
where you can charge.
If the difference was more like 10-15 hours,
and there was a five-hour difference,
maybe, I guess that could be a selling point,
but at the moment,
two hours equates to about 13% difference in battery life,
which, to me, is fairly insignificant.
So, this begs the question,
why?
Why did Apple simply reuse the same chassis,
and just slap a different chip into it?
Well, there are a couple of reasons.
Firstly, they've been manufacturing this chassis
since 2016.
It takes a massive amount of effort
to reconfigure the supply chain
to account for this change.
And Apple is really struggling
with their supply chain right now,
due to the pandemic and chip shortages.
Plus they've just changed the chassis
for almost every other Mac product.
So, I wouldn't be surprised
that they just don't have the capacity right now
to do the same for the 13-inch MacBook Pro,
which likely sells nowhere near as much as the Air.
Also, by keeping that $1,300 outdated Pro on the website,
it just makes the M2 Air look so much better by comparison,
which is just standard marketing practice,
it gives consumers the illusion of choice,
when, in reality,
Apple knows that you're almost always
just going to pick the M2 Air.
Now, I'm sure there are other reasons,
but I'm just a dude who makes YouTube videos
in a dark room,
so, what would I know?
Also, I don't want to sound
like I'm bashing the M2 MacBook Pro,
for all intents and purposes,
at the end of the day,
it's still a really solid laptop.
It's just when you compare it to the other 13-inch models
from Apple that are cheaper,
it just doesn't really make a lot of sense.
How can you call a device Pro
when it's technically outdated
and has less features and capabilities
than a cheaper model?
So, let me know down in the comment section
what you guys think.
There have been a lot of conflicting opinions
on some of the polls
and some of the other videos I've done on this topic,
so, do let me know down below,
but apart from that,
thanks for watching this video,
and I'll catch you in the next one.