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Question

Macbook Air vs Macbook Pro – which one should I buy

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
April 9, 2024
4 replies
15326 views

Dear Crowd,

I need a new Macbook and am a bit lost at the choices, trying to figure out what will do the job without spending money for something I don't really need.

This is my use-case:

- running audition for editing (occasional multitrack but mainly just the single track edit)

- running premiere parallel to that, but only using it to transcript audio-files (a feature audition oddly doesnt provide) , so a list of 4-5 audiofiles will be opened in premiere

- Apart from that I sometimes use photoshop or lightroom (still haven't developed a preference) for editing pictures (basic edits so far but trying to advance on that)

- usually I don't run these photo editing programs at the same time as audition/premiere, but it can happen that I leave the latter open for convenience because I don't want to load in the files again, but just keep them open to work on later.

At the same time I like to keep the browser open with up to 10 tabs, a writing program (libre office) with up to 6 windows open and possibly listen to music via youtube and possibly some pdfs on acrobat are open as well.

Currently I work on a Macbook Pro 2,3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5, 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 where photoshop and lightroom can get quite slow, when I have all the above open parallel to it.

Now I'm trying to chose between these models:

- Macbook Air 13'', M2 8C CPU, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD

- Macbook Air 13'', M2 8C CPU, 24 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, 67 W

- Macbook Pro 14'', M3 Pro 11-Core CPU, 512 GB SSD, 18 GB RAM

Of course there is quite a price difference, so I'm wondering what model will be enough for my use.

Many thanks for your advise.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

My vote would go to the M3 Pro, if you can afford it. I use an M1 Pro with 32GB Unified Memory and after three years, it’s still great with Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, and modest use of Premiere Pro. I did use Speech to Text transcription heavily on my last Premiere Pro project.

18GB of Unified Memory is OK, but based on my experience with the M1 Pro with 32GB, if you can afford the 36GB option go for it. (Yes, Macs are usually 8/16/32GB and up, but some recent Macs are 18/36GB and up because of some changes to how they’re setting up the memory chips at 6GB increments.)

One reason more than 18GB is a good idea is to be able to take full advantage of graphics acceleration with multiple apps open, which it sounds like you do. Unified Memory means one memory pool is shared between macOS, apps, and the graphics hardware. For example if you would have bought a PC with 16GB RAM and an 8GB graphics card, a rough Mac equivalent might be 24GB of unified memory for the system, apps, and graphics. But a reason to bump up to 36GB is that many Adobe apps recommend 16GB just to run that one app, and you tend to keep several apps open.

Speech to Text transcription in Premiere Pro is now GPU-accelerated. It can now finish transcribing each clip a lot faster than it did on my recent project. This leads to another point in favor of the M3 Pro over the Air: The M3 Pro has 14 GPU cores, which should make GPU-accelerated features, such as anything that involves AI in your photo and video apps (including transcription), run faster than the 8 or 10 GPU cores on the M2 Air.

On a budget, the M2 Air performs well, especially with 24GB of unified memory. But…the Air line doesn’t have a cooling fan. That is OK for short bursts of high performance, like photo editing. But if you expect to have the Mac do extended audio/video rendering or previewing without breaks, that might keep the system busy for long enough that it doesn’t have time to cool down. If that happens, the only way it can cool off is to slow down considerably, so long renders will take longer. The cooling fans in the MacBook Pro let it maintain maximum performance indefinitely.

A

amdoshimoAuthor

Participant

Thanks all for the advise.

The usecase I described may sound like I do a lot parallel, but actually I really have to do things parallel only on a few occasions a year. The rest is mainly audio editing in single track on audition and saving short snippets of audio (preparing raw snippets for radio documentaries, the "real" production happens in a proper studio) , while premiere is open only for the transcript to check the timeline)

I don't do a lot with photos (yet)

leaving all those other programms/windows open is more a matter of convenience (not to say lazyness) so maybe it's time to check myself a bit on that.

So if I understand all you guys said correctly, RAM is more important than newer chip or more cores, which then would favor the Macbook Air 13'', M2 8C CPU, 24 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD I guess?

Another thing to consider is that I occasionally travel to very hot (sometimes humid) countries. I don't really do much editing work while there, but still not sure if having fan would be needed.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

The usecase I described may sound like I do a lot parallel, but actually I really have to do things parallel only on a few occasions a year. The rest is mainly audio editing in single track on audition and saving short snippets of audio (preparing raw snippets for radio documentaries, the "real" production happens in a proper studio) , while premiere is open only for the transcript to check the timeline)

I don't do a lot with photos (yet)

leaving all those other programms/windows open is more a matter of convenience (not to say lazyness) so maybe it's time to check myself a bit on that.
By @amdoshimo

Given that clarification, if you need to save the money it is probably OK for you to get a MacBook Air. Most of the time, it will probably work as well as you want it to. I imagine that if you mostly do light single track audio editing, the Air should be able to do that easily, with power to spare and without getting hot.

If you need to do some intensive work occasionally, it will just take a little longer, and if that's worth saving several hundred dollars then that sounds fine. With the release of the M3 Air lowering the price of the M2 Air, many have pointed out that the M2 Air is now a great value.

So if I understand all you guys said correctly, RAM is more important than newer chip or more cores, which then would favor the Macbook Air 13'', M2 8C CPU, 24 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD I guess?
By @amdoshimo

Generally yes, that configuration sounds OK. For primarily light audio editing you won’t need that many CPU cores, and although the M3 is better than the M2 it is not by that much.

To answer the question of how much unified memory your next Mac should have, here is what you should do: On your current 16GB Mac, open Activity Monitor, click the Memory tab, and after an hour or two of doing your normal workload, look at the bottom of the Memory display at the Memory Pressure graph. If Memory Pressure is usually green, 16GB is OK. If Memory Pressure spends a lot of time orange or red, then 16GB is not enough and you should definitely get 24GB next time.

Warren Heaton

Community Expert

MacBook Air would be for occastional/light use. MacBook Pro for regular/heavy use.

For the models you're looking at, I'd go with the Macbook Pro 14'', M3 Pro 11-Core CPU, 512 GB SSD, 18 GB RAM; however, I'd make every effort to upgrade to the M3 Pro version (or M2 Pro) with twice as much RAM and twice as much internal storage.

Jeff Greenberg just updated his The Updated Professional’s Guide to Buying an M Series Mac – Updated March 2024 article. You'll probably find that helpful.

Peru Bob

Community Expert

With all that multitasking, you want as much RAM as possible.

kglad

Community Expert

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post (like this one has already been moved) if it helps you get responses.

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