Forget The New MacBook Pro, Apple Has Something Much Better

Apple’s decision to continue with its entry-level MacBook Pro remains curious, sitting as it does in a no man’s land between the popular MacBook Air and the capable 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops. It’s hard to justify recommending this laptop. Not only that but there are compelling reasons to ignore the MacBook Pro and consider Apple’s MacBook Air.

First up is the power. Tim Cook and his team are rightly proud of Apple Silicon and the impact this has had on the Mac product line. Consumers are conscious of an increase in battery life, the ability to run at cooler temperatures, and no loud fans or active cooling… big ticket items. Moving to ARM made these relatively easy to achieve… something that felt just out of reach for the Intel x86-based MacBook Airs.

Much is made of Apple Silicon’s increased performance and power, but that’s further down the list of demands a MacBook Air user will likely need. By that, I mean if your work is going to consistently require using the upper end of the MacBook Air’s capability… then perhaps the MacBook Air is not for you, and the M1 Pro and M1 Max equipped MacBook Pros are much more sensible options in the long run for the power user.

Then there’s the design goal. The sweet spot of the MacBook Air is in day-to-day use, the grind of living in a web browser to deal with online documents, cloud-based services, video conference calls, writing documents, and the rest of the mundane things we use our computers for. You don’t need ultimate performance for this; you just need something that will always be there.

The MacBook Air is not alone in its ability to be a good general-purpose computer; there are countless of them on retail shelves around the world, but only of manufacturer offers support for macOS and macOS targeted software. If you are going to stay in Apple’s garden, that’s when the Air stands alone.

Strictly speaking, it’s not entirely alone. Apple may have introduced the M2-powered MacBook Air, which offers the new design language, improved screen, and a small bump up in processing power, but it also retained the original M1 MacBook Air at the perceptively high entry-level price of $999. The latter sticks with a near six-year-old design, but does come with those ARM-based advantages.

Throw in another $200, and you’ll be able to get the M2 MacBook Air. This offers the updated chipset (around twenty per cent more performance when needed), the latest design language, and a feeling that Apple has finally updated the inside and the outside of its laptop range.

The MacBook Air offers an all-around experience with advantages over previous Air laptops, and with the performance floor lifted up by Apple Silicon, it rarely struggles with normal tasks. Unless you need a laptop that offers significant amounts of performance on a consistent basis, then Apple’s MacBook Air is more than enough macOS laptop for those happy to stay with Cupertino.

Now read the latest macOS, iPhone, and iPad headlines in Forbes’ weekly Apple Loop column…