MacBook Air vs MacBook Pro (Base Variants- 2020)

After all we have got both the MacBooks updated, The MacBook Air as well as The MacBook Pro too. The MacBook Air is available for $999 for the base variant and The MacBook Pro is available for $1299 for the base variant. Let’s find out which MacBook comes out to be more value for money and which is the better option on the other.

Specs

For the preface, below are the specs of the base variants of both of these MacBooks.

The Air comes with 10th Gen i3 processor (Dual-Core), 8GB RAM (3733MHz LPDDR4X) and 256GB of the SSD storage.

The Pro comes with 8th Gen i5 processor (Quad-Core), 8GB RAM (2133 MHz LPDDR3) and 256 GB of the SSD storage.

Both of these MacBooks are quite similar. Both have the same Magic Keyboard now, have 2 Thunderbolt-3 ports and a headphone jack. Both have the displays with the same 16:10 aspect ratio. The Air carries its old but gold wedge-shaped design but the Pro is being of the same thickness throughout.

Display

But the differences between the displays of the both are that the Air can go up to 400 nits in brightness but the Pro can go up to 500 nits. The difference is noticeable if someone works outside or under direct lights. Moreover, the display of Pro supports P3 wide colors and is more colour-accurate whereas the Air display doesn’t support the P3 wide colors. Although the Air’s display is fine for most of the people but Its just that the Pro’s display shows 25% more colours and is more colour-accurate if doing photo-editing, video-editing and things like that.

Sound

The Sound quality of Pro is better than that of Air. The Pro has rich, deeper base but it seems to be a bit less louder. The Air sounded a little more louder but that could be the possibility because of the conditions or the machinery.

Storage Speeds

Both these MacBooks have 256GB of SSD but that doesn’t mean that both the SSDs will have the same read and write speeds. The Pro has a better read and write speeds as compared to the Air. Though it doesn’t matter that much if you are just going to do basic tasks but if you are going to do some heavy tasks, then you might notice a slight difference.

CPU Performance

The performance in the Air is at least 15% higher in single-core performance because of that 10th chips but The Pro is definitely a better performer in multicore because of the Quad-core processor comparing with a Dual-core processor. The Pro gets around 70% better performance in the multicore scores that might help you doing heavy tasks at a better speed than that of Air. If you are willing to spend $100 more, you will be getting an i5 Quad-Core processor in the Air that will perform really well as compared to its i3 Dual-Core counterpart but will be still a little less than the Pro.

Graphics Performance

The Air uses 10th Gen G4 graphics and the Pro uses 8th Gen Iris Plus 645 graphics. And we see that the Pro beats the Air in graphics by a very tiny margin but if you wish to upgrade by spending $100 more, You get 10th Gen G7 graphics and that outperforms the Pro by a great margin.

Thermal Performance

Though the Macbook Air seems to have an upper hand after spending $100 more but the Pro outperforms it at several occasions because of the Thermal performance. The MacBook Air has the Thermal problems and as soon as it has some heavy task, the Air’s temperature shoots up with the fans hitting the higher RPMs. Since, the Pro has a better thermal performance capabilities, it outperforms the Air. Even with the old processor, the Pro outperformed Air by 2.5% more performance than that of the Air on the Cinebench scores with a $300 difference in the base prices.

Verdict

If You want to have some performance in your MacBook, rather than upgrading the Air to any extent, Go for the Pro as It is the better buy in any case. If you just want to surf the internet, handle the mails and watch Netflix, you can probably go with the Air.