Our guide helps to answer the question of how to decide which of these two popular laptops is best for you.MacBook Air MacBook Pro M2: 13.6-inch display M3: 13.6- or 15.3-inch display 14.2- or 16.2-inch display LCD Liquid Retina display Mini-LED Liquid Retina XDR display 60hz refresh rate ProMotion for refresh rates up to 120Hz Up to 500 nits brightness Up to 1,000 nits brightness and 1,600 nits peak HDR brightness Nano-texture display option 1080p FaceTime HD camera 12MP Center Stage camera with support for Desk View Apple M2 or M3 chip Apple M4, M4 Pro, or M4 Max chip M2: Enhanced 5nm node (N5P) based on A15 Bionic chip from iPhone 13 (2021) M3: 3nm node (N3B) based on A17 Pro chip from iPhone 15 Pro (2023) 3nm node (N3E) based on A18 chip from iPhone 16 (2024) M2: 3.49 GHz CPU clock speed M3: 4.05 GHz CPU clock speed M4: 4.4 GHz CPU clock speed M4 Pro and M4 Max: 4.5 GHz CPU clock speed 8-core CPU with 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores M4: 10 CPU cores with 4 performance and 6 efficiency cores M4 Pro: Up to 14 CPU cores with 10 performance and 4 efficiency cores M4 Max: Up to 16 CPU cores with 12 performance and 4 efficiency cores Up to 10-core GPU M4: 10-core GPU M4 Pro: Up to 20-core GPU M4 Max: Up to 40-core GPU Updated GPU architecture Updated GPU architecture with improved efficiency M2: 16-core Neural Engine, 15.8 trillion operations per second M3: 16-core Neural Engine, 18 trillion operations per second 16-core Neural Engine, 38 trillion operations per second 16GB or 24GB unified memory M4: 16GB, 24GB, or 32GB unified memory M4 Pro: 24GB or 48GB unified memory M4 Max: 36GB, 48GB, 64GB, or 128GB unified memory LPDDR5 memory LPDDR5X memory 100GB/s memory bandwidth M4: 120GB/s memory bandwidth M4 Pro: 273GB/s memory bandwidth M4 Max: 546GB/s memory bandwidth Passive cooling Active cooling High Power Mode on all M4 Pro and M4 Max models M3 models only: Dynamic Caching Hardware-accelerated ray tracing Hardware-accelerated mesh shading Support for AV1 decode Dynamic Caching Hardware-accelerated ray tracing Hardware-accelerated mesh shading Support for AV1 decode M2: Wi-Fi 6 M3: Wi-Fi 6E Wi-Fi 6E Two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports M4: Three Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports M4 Pro or M4 Max: Three Thunderbolt 5 (USB-C) ports HDMI 2.1 port with support for multichannel audio output SDXC card slot 13-Inch: Four-speaker sound system 15-Inch: Six-speaker sound system with force-canceling woofers High-fidelity six-speaker sound system with force-cancelling woofers Three-mic array with directional beamforming Studio-quality three-mic array with high signal-to-noise ratio and directional beamforming M2: Support for one external display M3: Support for up to two external displays when the lid is closed M4 or M4 Pro: Support for two external displays M4 Max: Support for up to four external displays Dedicated display engine 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB of storage M4: 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB storage M4 Pro or M4 Max: 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, or 8TB storage 13-Inch: 52.6-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery 15-Inch: 66.5-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery 14-Inch: 72.4-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery 16-Inch: 100-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery 18-hour battery life M4 14-Inch or M3 Pro 16-Inch: 24-hour battery life M4 Pro 14-Inch: 22-hour battery life M4 Max 14-Inch: 18-hour battery life M4 Max 16-Inch: 21-hour battery life 30W, 35W, or 67W USB-C Power Adapter 67W, 96W, or 140W USB-C Power Adapter Silver, Space Gray, Starlight, or Midnight color options Silver or Space Black color options M2 13-Inch: Starts at $999 M3 13-Inch: Starts at $1,099 M3 15-Inch: Starts at $1,299 M4 14-Inch: Starts at $1,599 M4 Pro 14-Inch: Starts at $1,999 M4 Pro 16-Inch: Starts at $2,499 Design Both the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro share the same basic design with a flat top and rounded edges on the bottom, but they do have several minor details that differ.
Display Size The smaller MacBook Air's display is 13.6 inches in size, which is a little smaller than the 14.2-inch MacBook Pro, and markedly smaller than the 16.2-inch MacBook Pro.13.6 inches is still bigger than the largest iPad Pro model, which comes in at 13 inches, and even all of the previous Intel-based MacBook Air and smaller MacBook Pro models, meaning that it should be adequate for most users.The 14.2-inch MacBook Pro simply offers a little bit more screen real estate to those who need high-end capabilities.The 15.3-inch MacBook Air and 16.2-inch MacBook Pro's displays will be better replacements for a desktop machine and provide much more screen space to arrange multiple windows and use professional applications that benefit from additional display area.
For just $300 more, the M4 MacBook Pro offers a considerably better Liquid Retina XDR display with ProMotion, a more powerful chip with active cooling, an extra Thunderbolt port, four extra hours of battery life, better speakers and microphones, an HDMI port and SDXC card slot, and more.
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