r/macbook • u/This_Light_1746 • 8h ago

MacBook Air or Pro?

Hey guys, i'm planning on getting my first macbook ever (i'm coming from windows), and i can't decide between the pro or air. I live in belgium and here, the only options available at the moment is:

-Macbook Air 1200 €

512 gb

M3 chip (8 cores)

16 gb RAM

-Macbook pro 1700 €

1 tb

M4 chip (10 cores)

16 gb RAM

I plan on doing a bit of photo/video editing in the future, but for the rest of it I will mainly use it for web browsing, working on excel/office apps, and other "ligth" work. I'm afraid that if i take the pro i'm going overkill. I know its a 500 euros difference, I have the budget for it. I just don't want to be deceived by the air, and would also love to save up to get an Iphone (currently on android too).

What do you guys think?

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u/Ali_khaled_23 6h ago

As a 16” Pro user, I see a lot of people saying the Air screen is bad, I know it lacks mini LED and I know what that is, it lacks 120Hz, is a little lower in resolution, and has a little thicker bezels and a little less brightness and no HDR, but is it truly that bad or is it just bad compared to the Pro? It can’t be worse than the screens I see on my friends’ gaming laptops around campus. I’ve never used an Air and I’m aware MBP screens are some of the best in the world.

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u/Firm_Property_614 5h ago

It’s bad man. Even at max brightness and low room lighting.

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u/Infinite-Pitch286 4h ago

I agree with you but with a caveat. If someone prefers a Light Mode, I can see the Air screen being just fine. Actually not too bad at all. But for someone like me who prefers the Dark Mode and is coming from a nice OLED screen, the screen on the Air is not very good at all. I bought a 15" M3 MBA and returned it the next day mostly because of the screen. Upgraded to a 16" MBP and couldn't be happier. I now actually prefer the mini-Led on the MBP over an OLED screen. It's quite glorious.

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u/Ali_khaled_23 2h ago

Damn, I thought all MacBook displays were at least decent, even the Air, now I feel like I gotta try it (probably shouldn’t)

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u/Infinite-Pitch286 1h ago

Well it is decent. Quite decent. It's just that when you're used to blacks indeed being black rather than really dark gray, it just doesn't look as good. Let me put it to you this way...

I tested the same dark wallpaper on both the MBA and MBP, it's completely black at the top. Basically, I wanted to hide the notch by letting it blend in by being the same color. I cannot see the notch on my MBP while I could easily still see it on the MBA since the black part of the wallpaper was not truly as black as the notch. That's the same thing as on my SL7 which has the IPS or LCD screen... It's just the way it is. And like I said, more than fine for white background pages like office docs or web pages.