now that it's been three months since apple launched the redesigned macbook
pros and the hype is settled down let's get real is the 14-inch macbook pro
really worth a thousand dollars more than the m1 macbook air or even more
than that since we constantly see it discounted even as low as 850 dollars
links are down below in the description by the way well today i'm going to
compare everything from a honest real world perspective and keep it short and
sweet and answer the question once and for all the m1 macbook air was my
favorite laptop before these new machines hit the market even though i
had access to every macbook out there this is the one that i kept wanting to
pick up and use there's just something special about it that was hard to
explain but after the redesign launched i have a much clearer picture the new
14-inch on the other hand is an absolute killer machine it looks modern but also
retro at the same time bringing back things that we've missed for a long time
while taking other things to levels that no windows laptop can compete with
almost like when tesla launched their new model s plaid which looks classic
but is also on another level compared to everything else but just like that tesla
do people really need to have all of that performance or does the model 3
macbook air make way more sense in the real world since i mentioned design
let's start out with that the pro looks bigger bulkier a bit meaner where the
air is thinner and sleeker in my opinion the wet shape is iconic and even though
i didn't love it before because the pro just looked more pro and i like that i
have to say that i prefer this wedge shape just like i prefer the model three
with that as far as comfort the wet shape does actually help with comfort as
a slim edge of the air doesn't cut into your wrist like the thicker pro can and
even though the keyboard is arguably better because it's an updated design
for most people it will make a difference and if you type a lot you'll
probably prefer the air the same thing goes as far as speakers the 14-inch pro
has the best speakers in any laptop of this size go ahead and take a listen
[Applause] [Music]
they are shockingly good with a huge difference in base thanks to dedicated
woofers and if you are somebody that will constantly be playing music at full
volume you will really enjoy them with that said if i'm honest i don't think
that there's ever been a time where i was sitting there wishing that the
speakers sounded better over louder with the air they sound great and better than
most of laptops that it will end up replacing of course the 14-inch brought
back the ports which your current laptop may or may not have i love that magsafe
is back and we have hdmi and a card reader and if yours has that now i would
kind of just track how often you use those ports now for me most of the time
i just use usb type c and even though dongle suck you just have to ask
yourself is it really worth spending twice as much money to have them built
in instead of buying a cheap multi-adapter
i've covered many of them in my top macbook accessories video which i will
link to after the end of this video so what is something that bugs me and that
is much better with the pro well that's the webcam the 720p webcam on the
macbook air was an improvement over the previous intel models thanks to better
processing but i was never really happy with it because it kind of looked flat
kind of gray and then in darker
environments you get all this noise so i always wanted it to be better that is
where the 14 inch macbook comes in with its 1080p webcam that is much better in
low light situations thanks to its faster aperture and then in the daytime
of course look sharper as well so definitely if you care about that the 14
inch is better and with the webcams let's talk about fans because previous
intel macbooks would spin up their fans when they are working with video
so that would get annoying it would get loud it'd be disruptive but the new
macbook air is fanless so you don't have any of those issues now the pro does
have a fan but because of its efficiency you never really hear it unless you're
pushing it to its limits so both of these are pretty much silent now some
people may wonder as far as the performance are you limited by not
having a fan i really push them to the limits and yes the air can slow down but
it's not significant and not really a big deal in the real world so what about
performance this might be the biggest reason that you're considering the pro
instead of the air well i want to challenge you a little bit and have you
take a second and ask yourself how much performance do you really need to be
honest in the real world the air has more than enough performance for almost
everybody because it smoked even the expensive high-end 16-inch macbooks in
the past there are only a few people who i would say that actually need the extra
oomph of the 14 inch and for a lot of those people i would say you need even
more power you should spend even more money than this base 2 000 model that
we're comparing to the air the extra cpu performance cores do result in about 27
more multi-core performance which sounds like a lot that it is but i have to be
honest and say that i have really never noticed that in regular day-to-day tasks
that is due to the super fast single core performance which is the same as
the 14-inch airs and that smokes pretty much any other older laptop now for
tougher cpu tasks like logic music production we see a similar difference
but for most people once you get to some level performance that does what you
need you don't really notice anything extra now for programming the difference
was about 32 and that can be significant if you're
constantly compiling code and that performance difference will add up but
even the air was noticeably faster than the previous errors that even cost more
money and were upgraded and of course when you're actually writing code you're
not going to notice a difference and somewhat the same thing happens for
photo editing where i didn't really notice any difference at any of the
times that i edited photos all but one time when i was working on a project of
over a thousand high-resolution photos and really the limit was the eight
gigabytes of ram for that one and then also when you were exporting those
photos it did take a while and i was wishing that it was a little bit faster
so in that case if you're somebody that's going to edit high amounts of
images make sure you at least upgrade to 16 gigs of ram and then see what else
might be worth it as far as the extras with the 14 inch because then you might
want to upgrade but for most people even doing photo editing the base model will
not be a limitation but where we start to see a big difference is graphics
performance for gaming the pro gets about double the frame rate as it should
having twice as many cores but nobody really buys a mac for games at least you
definitely shouldn't when it comes to using those graphics to speed up
productivity we have an overall improvement of about 80
which is huge but once again a lot of that is used for regular tasks and this
thing is just still very snappy it's really only when you get to things like
3d rendering where everything will be faster loading up your project
running shaders and then of course rendering your project and you might
think that that is also the case for video editing but this is where it can
be a little bit tricky if you're using good software like final cut or resolve
and you're even working with 4k files with minor effects you literally might
not notice any difference as long as the graphics is powerful enough to handle
the workload even exporting will be almost identical because of the same
rendering engines it's really only where you hit this mac
with a lot of stuff like raw or heavy effects or for example prores where you
start seeing a big difference because of the dedicated pro res hardware and once
again that is where i would say you should actually not get the base model
at least upgrade to the unbid version or maybe even the m1 max because that will
make a much bigger difference the issue is though that most people don't need
that amount of performance and people really get stuck in the kind of thinking
where it's like what if i will need that what if i'll need that a couple of years
from now and i would just say don't do that that is marketing and that's how
you get stuck into spending double the amount of money for a machine where
you're not going to use even half of what it can offer and as far as future
proofing i think you're better off buying a base model like this and then
if you need a performance you could sell it and the resale is amazing on these
base lower price max and then at that point you could buy whatever is the
latest and greatest and get a better machine than what this 14-inch offers
today i think that is the better financial decision and better overall
now the last things we have to cover are battery life and the displays even
though the air has a smaller battery it gets significantly better battery life
because of its more efficient processor and graphics without having a fan and
because its display uses a lot less power a huge part of the extra price tag
comes from the new mini led xdr display that is capable of hitting up to 1600
nits instead of 400. now this was the most attracting exciting thing for me
with these new macbooks other than the performance but after three months of
use i have to say that for most regular people it should not be as big of a deal
as apple would want you to think it is yeah it is better especially if you
watch hdr movies in dark rooms and if you are editing hdr photos or video you
do absolutely need that kind of a display but the truth is that i mostly
use my mac with sdr content regular websites in regular lighting and in
those scenarios it is very hard to tell the difference side by side yes the 14
inch screen with that notch is noticeably bigger and i do enjoy it but
unless you're gonna make the most out of its capabilities it won't be as big of a
deal as apple made it seem at their event and that actually paints a good
overall picture for the 14 inch macbook pro how much of it will you make use of
and if you're only attracted to one or two things say the ports and maybe the
better webcam i don't think that's enough to justify the extra price point
if you see yourself looking at a macbook air and saying i'm gonna upgrade the ram
and i also want that webcam i want better speakers i will use the ports
consistently i need some of that extra performance and all those extra benefits
start stacking up that's where i would say you know what make the extra jump
and then spend the extra money but for most people even though the pro is a
powerful class-leading machine the air gets a job done and it does so
very very well
and it actually gets my topic in this comparison for at least 90 to 95 of you
out there this is my recommendation while it might seem a little bit
outdated it's not the latest and greatest it is a phenomenal laptop and
for the price point it is the closest thing to a perfect laptop that has ever
existed yes that is not good i'll go ahead and link it down below you guys
don't have to buy through there but there are some great deals on amazon and
also this one as well if you guys want to pick it up and whichever one you
choose for uh choose to get check out that video right over there i have the
best macbook accessories and you guys can click above to help us reach our
goal of 1 million subscribers we definitely appreciate it that's been max
and i will see you in the next video [Music]