Rogue Amoeba - Under the Microscope » Blog Archive » On The Much Improved State of Macintosh Hardware

In 2018, we couldn’t recommend buying a single current Macintosh model. Now? You almost can’t go wrong.

I would argue the only Apple Silicon Mac I can’t recommend is the 13” MacBook Pro. It’s several hundred dollars more than the Air and gets you the same performance in a larger body. It does have a Touch Bar, but I think it’s fair to say that’s a feature to a niche and a bug to the majority of users.

Of note, I use an M1 Air in my personal life and an M1 13” Pro at the office, so I have tons of experience with each, and while benchmarks may sometimes show a slight edge to the Pro, they do everything exactly the same in practice. Even long video renders are just as fast on the Air, so I’m not convinced the fans make any difference at all in practice.