Shootouts

MacBook Air vs. MacBook Pro: The battle of Apple’s 13-inch notebooks

By Kenny Yeo - 1 May 2015

Conclusion

Still one of the best

Apple’s latest notebooks are a testament to the company’s commitment towards creating well thought-out devices. Even though the designs of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are getting stale and out-of-date, it is hard to argue against their high build quality and usability. The chassis feels ultra sturdy and the keyboard and trackpad are still amongst the very best in the business. While many brands are catching up in this area, Apple is still the yardstick by which all other brands are judged, and the latest MacBook Air and MacBook Pro remain to be finely crafted notebooks built to the highest standard.

Aging design aside, the new 13-inch MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are fantastic notebooks from Apple.

On the performance front, the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are amongst the most competitive notebooks around. Apple’s choice of processors is astute and it gave the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro a significant advantage when it came to graphics performance, where the two notebooks comfortably outpaced the competition. What’s more, all of this has come at little or no cost to battery life and power efficiency, which is really impressive. Furthermore, the fact that both machines are equipped with fast and power-efficient LPDDR memory and have ultra-fast PCIe-based SSDs that utilize four PCIe lanes instead of the more common two found in other notebooks is just icing on the cake.

Taken as a whole, it is hard to fault Apple’s latest MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. Our harshest criticism against them would probably be for their aging design, and the MacBook Air’s outdated display resolution, otherwise, the two notebooks are excellent. Apple offers a couple of different variants of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro and we have summarized their key differences and pricing in the table below.

MacBook Air and MacBook Pro configurations compared
MacBook Air
Processor Memory Storage Price
Core i5-5250U (1.6GHz, 3MB L3 cache) 4GB 1600MHz LPDDR3 128GB S$1328
Core i5-5250U (1.6GHz, 3MB L3 cache) 4GB 1600MHz LPDDR3 256GB S$1618
MacBook Pro
 Processor Memory Storage Price
Core i5-5257U (2.7GHz, 3MB L3 cache) 8GB 1866MHz LPDDR3  128GB S$1688
Core i5-5257U (2.7GHz, 3MB L3 cache) 8GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 256GB S$1988
Core i5-5287U (2.9GHz, 3MB L3 cache) 8GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 512GB S$2388

With prices beginning at S$1328 for the MacBook Air and S$1688 for the MacBook Pro, the two notebooks are even quite attractively priced. For example, Dell’s entry-level XPS 13 comes in at S$1699, but uses a less powerful processor, has lesser memory and a lower resolution display than the equivalently-priced entry-level MacBook Pro. And if you opt for the top-of-the-line off-the-shelf models, the MacBook Air tops out at S$1618 whereas the MacBook Pro maxes out at S$2388, which is still very reasonable in the grand scheme of things.

 

Pro > Air

The 13-inch MacBook Pro is hands down one of the best 13-inch notebooks around, combining great performance and long battery life in a well-built chassis.

Moving on, if you are in the market for a new 13-inch notebook from Apple, our pick would be the MacBook Pro. Though the MacBook Air does about everything the MacBook Pro can, but at a lower cost, we feel that the MacBook Pro offers a lot more in terms of performance and features and with little drawbacks.

To begin, the MacBook Pro is clearly the better performing notebook, though it may be hard to tell from just normal usage as the MacBook Air handles most applications just as well as the MacBook Pro did. However, the results from our testing showed that the MacBook Pro is a considerably more powerful machine, thanks to its more able processor and integrated GPU. It also benefits from having not just more, but also faster memory. And performance aside, the MacBook Pro has a superior display. The Retina display is a thing of beauty, and the difference in quality between it and the MacBook Air’s display is more than just day and night. Display aside, the MacBook Pro also has better connectivity options - an extra Thunderbolt port, HDMI port, faster wireless performance - and the new and very cool Force Touch trackpad. And yet despite all of this, the MacBook Pro still offers battery life that rivals the MacBook Air. The only trade-off is the MacBook Pro’s added heft, but honestly, it is only just a tad thicker and heavier - 1mm thicker and 230g. We think most people would not mind sacrificing this for all of the MacBook Pro’s advantages.

Still think that the MacBook Air is much thinner than the MacBook Pro?

Extreme portability used to the be the unique selling point of the MacBook Air, but the MacBook Pro has quickly caught up in the area. The MacBook Air is still lighter, yes, but the difference is no longer as significant as you may think. The display is our biggest gripe with the MacBook Air and we have been clamoring for a higher resolution display for quite some time now. Furthermore, we are also hesitant to recommend any notebook that only has 4GB of RAM as it is really the bare minimum these days. As a result of all these considerations, we have no problems recommending the MacBook Pro over the MacBook Air as it is simply one of the top 13-inch notebooks in the market today. It might be thicker and heavier than comparable notebooks, but we think the added heft is more than justified if users were to considers its performance and features.

The MacBook Air has long been the recommended notebook to get if you are just a casual user looking to browse the web, run some productivity applications and watch some videos, but as it is, it would be quite foolish if one was to overlook the MacBook Pro as a viable alternative. It might cost more, but we think the experience that it offers is more than worth it. And if portability is your key priority, there's the new ultra light and slim MacBook to keep your eyes peeled for. That notebook is just 13.1mm thick and weighs an unbelievable 920g. If you are interested in the MacBook, stay tuned as we have a review of that coming up soon.

Final Ratings
13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display (Early 2015)

Click here for detailed results break-down

13-inch MacBook Air (Early 2015)

Click here for detailed results break-down

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