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In 2020, both the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13 received updates—so which one should you choose? Although they all have Retina displays and even the prices are in a similar range, there are still some obvious differences in specifications and functions that make the two devices different. If you are looking for a larger high-end model, there is even a 16-inch MacBook Pro.
In this guide, we compare the MacBook Air with the 13-inch MacBook Pro to understand the best choice. Are you interested in buying these two MacBooks? Check out our guide on the latest MacBook deals on Apple flagship devices.
Design:
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| MacBook Air |
The 13-inch MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro have all-aluminum finishes. Both offer two color options, space gray and silver, while the MacBook Air adds a third gold option. Otherwise, the two devices look almost identical.
Both devices pack Retina displays with original 2560×1600 resolution or 227 pixels per inch. Although similar in this respect, there is no difference in brightness levels between the two laptops. Although the MacBook Air's display is good, it is not as bright or impressive as the MacBook Pro. Its total brightness is only 389 nits, which is better than the previous 291 nits but still far behind the 500 nits of the MacBook Pro. The color accuracy is high, but the MacBook Pro will be a better choice for photographers and graphic designers.
For the 2020 MacBook Air, after introducing keyboard switches in the 16-inch MacBook Pro, Apple abandoned its problematic butterfly keyboard and replaced it with a sporty traditional scissor-switch. The same change has taken place with the 13-inch refresh of the MacBook Pro. The large clickable trackpad shared by the two is great for selecting the text, dragging windows, or using multi-touch gestures. The production quality is still outstanding-this is a typical advantage of Apple.
Both Air and Pro provide Thunderbolt 3 compatible USB-C ports. These ports can complete a variety of tasks, including charging and high-speed data transmission. In the live broadcast, you will only see two on the left, asking you to buy a USB-C hub to increase connectivity. The 13-inch MacBook Pro offers two or four depending on the CPU, while the larger 16-inch MacBook Pro offers four in all configurations.
Both laptops have a 720p webcam, stereo speakers and a 3.5mm headphone jack. If the sound is particularly important, the high dynamic range of the Macbook Pro will provide better audio. On the other hand, MacBook Air comes with other microphones, so Siri can listen to your voice more easily.
Finally, MacBook Air still does not include the Touch Bar. After Touch Bar was welcomed by all parties, Apple apparently decided to focus on other features of Air, such as Touch ID security and a login button. Meanwhile, the entry-level 13-inch model got the Touch Bar in July 2019, which means it is now included with every Pro model by default.
Performance:
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| MacBook Air |
The specs under the hood and the price of the MacBook Air indicate a huge difference between it and the MacBook Pro. Although the MacBook Pro 13 has recently been upgraded to a tenth-generation Intel processor, only two high-end models actually use this updated chip. These two entry-level MacBook Pro 13 models still stay on the 8th generation Intel processors, with prices starting at $1,299. You have to spend $1,799 to buy a new processor-as we said in the MacBook Pro 13 review, this is only half the entry-level price of the MacBook Pro 13 and MacBook Pro 16, but the performance is not far off.
Apple’s high-end MacBook Air is priced at US$1,299 and uses Intel’s tenth-generation i5-1030NG7 quad-core chip, clocked at 1.1GHz (basic) and 3.5GHz (maximum). The key point here is the 10nm process technology used to make this new CPU, which is expected to bring better performance and energy efficiency compared to similar chips based on 14nm.
However, in our review of the MacBook Air, we found its quad-core i5 a bit disappointing. Although it provides twice the cores of the i3 CPU in the entry-level MacBook Air, it can only bring you 27% extra performance in multi-core tasks, and only 8% performance improvement in single-core workloads. This is due to the low power consumption of 9 watts of these chips causing performance limitations. If you need power, despite the older processor, the MacBook Pro is your best choice.
And, if you are willing to spend a little more money, then the high-end MacBook Pro 13 model will provide you with better performance. For example, we reviewed the MacBook Pro 13 priced at $1,799. In our test, it only took 3 minutes to encode Handbrake's 4K video to H.265, which is the fastest time we have seen on a 13-inch laptop. In benchmarking tools such as Cinebench R20 and Geekbench 5, the MacBook Pro 13 beats most of its competitors, although the Dell XPS 13 performs better here.
Another significant difference between MacBook Air and MacBook Pro is memory. The 16-inch MacBook Pro is clocked at DDR4 instead of the low-power version, which is clocked at 2667MHz. The MacBook Air updated in early 2020 uses LPDDR4X memory with a clock frequency of 3,733MHz. The goal of these latter chips is low power consumption without sacrificing extremely high bandwidth. Like the processor, the entry-level MacBook Pro got an original deal with LPDDR3 memory with an original clock frequency of 2133MHz, while the high-end MacBook Pro 13 version got 3733MHz faster LPDDR4X RAM. If you prefer MacBook Pro, please pay attention to this difference, and don’t forget to provide faster memory if needed.
If you want a great MacBook without spending a lot of money, then the $999 entry-level MacBook Air is a good machine. It is the only model that offers Intel's tenth-generation i3-1000NG4 dual-core CPU, although you should consider buying an i5 quad-core CPU for $100.
If you need more storage space, you can choose a 16-inch MacBook Pro equipped with Intel's 9th-generation six-core processor, but you have to pay for it because it starts at $2399. Ouch.
Portability:
MacBook Pro is 0.61 inches thick and 11.97 inches wide, while MacBook Air is only 0.16-0.63 inches thick and 11.97 inches wide. This makes the MacBook Air (very) slightly thicker than the MacBook Pro, but weighs less than 2.8 pounds, while the MacBook Pro is only 3.1 pounds. To be honest, unless you break the tape measure or scale, you won't know the difference between the two. If anything, the only obvious visual difference between the two is the lack of extra gold and a touch bar.
As for the battery life of the two models, the 2020 MacBook Air's competitors are slightly inferior, but still good. The MacBook Pro saves 6.5 hours of battery life in our web browsing workflow, an hour and a half longer than the previous version of our review. It is crushed by 1080p laptops such as XPS 13 or Spectre x360, the former can provide you with about 4 hours of extra juice. However, after comparing the MacBook Pro 13 with a 4K laptop, things are closer. Apple’s laptop lasts about 45 minutes longer than the 4K XPS 13.
In contrast, the management time of the MacBook Air is light web browsing is about 9 hours and 30 minutes, the management time in video playback is 10 hours, and the management time in performing more intensive tasks is 3 hours. On average, the battery can be used for about 6 hours per day (including a large number of Chrome browser tabs, web applications, Slack, and Spotify). Overall, it is roughly the same as the MacBook Pro. Neither of these laptops is battery champions, but unless you are performing a very heavy task, they should be fine.
Apple claims that the 16-inch MacBook Pro can last up to 11 hours of web browsing or video streaming. However, our standard workload (including Slack, Spotify, and many browser tabs) only cost us about five and a half hours.
MacBook Air is your best choice:
After updating the 13-inch MacBook Pro and updating the MacBook Air in early 2020, given the similar prices, it is difficult to one by one.
However, there are two notable areas that separate the two. The excellent display and performance of the MacBook Pro make it more suitable for professional-level tasks, such as video production and photo editing, where a color-accurate screen and low rendering time are crucial. If you think this is a workload you are familiar with, then the MacBook Pro should be your Apple laptop of choice.
For everyone else, MacBook Air may be your best choice. Although the 2020 MacBook Pro update has increased the competitive environment in some ways-bringing the Magic Keyboard, doubling storage, and introducing a newer processor and faster RAM, not every MacBook Pro 13 has These improvements. Although you can get a MacBook Air with all these features for a low price of $999, if you want to use all four features on the MacBook Pro 13, you need to pay at least $1,799.
If you need something bigger and the price is not a problem, then the 16-inch MacBook Pro is your motivation. You can equip it with an eight-core ninth-generation Intel i9 processor and a powerful Radeon Pro discrete graphics card but be prepared for a high starting price.
If you want to save money, even if we are not satisfied with the dual-core chip of the base model, consider the entry-level MacBook Air for $999.
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