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Written by Phil on 2024-09-01 at 15:38

If I’m getting a new laptop for work, do I get a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro? My 2019 MBP is wheezing badly. Fine to boost for exposure.

My work is mostly in Office docs with a little light coding/data analysis. Relatively intensive tasks that are not obvious from the above include enormous PDFs/CSVs/spreadsheets and occasional very large file downloads/uploads.

(For bizdev reasons, only Macs are in-scope.)

[#]AskFedi #AskMastodon

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Written by Eric Eggert on 2024-09-01 at 22:48

@neuralgraffiti @jeridansky An Air should be totally fine for you. Limiting factor might be external monitors. I guess RAM/SSD upgrades are more worth it for you.

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Written by Phil on 2024-09-01 at 23:16

@yatil @jeridansky Thanks! I definitely think more RAM and storage is needed.

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Written by John (he/him) :vbike: on 2024-09-01 at 23:39

@neuralgraffiti My general take is that the modern MacBook Airs are way more than most people need. It, ofc, depends on personal intensity, but modern memory compression makes each GB go way further.

As some other folks have mentioned, I think the big difference is:

1. Monitors;

2. Perceived heat (I.E. how hot is it in your lap)

The MBAs can get pretty beefy (24GB ram, up to 2 TB of disk) if you're willing to pay for it, so I don't know if those are really concerns for the use cases you've described.

Practically, anything your 2019 MacBook can wheeze over the mid range MBAs can do with a whisper.

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Written by Phil on 2024-09-01 at 23:45

@cd24 Oh, and what’s the heat issue? MBA hotter because fanless?

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Written by John (he/him) :vbike: on 2024-09-02 at 00:30

@neuralgraffiti exactly. The body radiates the heat so it gets a bit warmer on the bottom than the MBP for the same workload.

It's not super hot, but I've got one and a heavy game workload keeps it warm.

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Written by Phil on 2024-09-02 at 00:40

@cd24 👍 90% of the time, it's on my desk or a table.

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Written by John (he/him) :vbike: on 2024-09-02 at 00:42

@neuralgraffiti Ah, well. Then it's NBD 👍

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Written by Enia Titova on 2024-09-02 at 00:49

@cd24 @neuralgraffiti I hate to wade into this conversation late but my vote is MBP. That’s my personal machine and I have a MBA for work. They’re the same size but the quality of the build on the MBP is miles ahead of MBA: keyboard, camera (I’ve done side by sides), screen quality, the fast charger, USB-Cs on both sides. Highly recommend going for the upgrade. I’m trying to scheme how to get work to upgrade my machine too.

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Written by Phil on 2024-09-02 at 16:05

@eniatitova Which MBA do you have for work? I mostly use an external monitor and keyboard, so I don’t know how much that’ll matter for me. My monitor is huge, but honesty not that sharp, it’s a 9 year old ultra-wide.

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Written by Jeri Dansky on 2024-09-02 at 20:17

@neuralgraffiti Side note: I had a very old external monitor and upgraded to the Apple studio display (with the anti-glare screen) a couple years ago — and wow, what a difference. I know it's expensive, but worth considering if it fits into your budget.

(I had a get a new MacBook because the display wouldn't work with my old one. I went with an Air, but my needs are pretty minimal.)

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Written by moggie on 2024-09-02 at 20:22

You can now get some very nice monitors for really reasonable prices, if you wanted to replace that too.

@neuralgraffiti @eniatitova

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Written by Phil on 2024-09-02 at 23:01

@EverydayMoggie @eniatitova I am kind of addicted to the real estate of my current monitor (a curved 34” ultrawide).

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Written by Denis 🌏 on 2024-09-02 at 00:54

@neuralgraffiti I had the same decision last year, I went with 15" M2 Macbook Air, 24GB memory, 500G SSD.

I do software development.

I use an external dongle for the external monitor.

I am completely happy with my choice. It's way more than adequate in terms of CPU, memory, and disk, for me.

I love the light weight much more than my day job Macbook Pro, which now feels like an anchor. I'm very happy I went with the Air.

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Written by Denis 🌏 on 2024-09-02 at 00:55

@neuralgraffiti It does sound like you might need to opt for a bigger disk than I did.

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