3/23/20
9:00 am

iPad Pro Vs MacBook Air – Which One Is Right For You?

The new iPad Pro with the Magic Keyboard could finally be a legitimate laptop computer for some people. There will be a lot of people deciding between the new MacBook Air and iPad Pro. They both have similar abilities, but also some distinct differences. Here are some factors that will help you decide which one is right for you.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's compare Apple's new MacBook Air with the new iPad Pro.
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So Apple's recent announcement included two products that really compete with each other. There's the new MacBook Air, the lowest end MacBook and sure to be their biggest seller of all the Macs in the next few months. Also the new iPad Pro which is soon going to have a companion magic keyboard that brings not just a full keyboard but also a trackpad to the iPad. So that makes the new iPad Pro with the magic keyboard basically a laptop. Which means that the MacBook Air and the iPad Pro now compete directly with each other. If you want a new Apple laptop at about the $1000 range you need to decide between the MacBook Air and the iPad Pro.
Since the iPad came out people have been asking whether you can use it as a laptop replacement. Now that the iPad Pro is relatively powerful, has a keyboard and a trackpad, and a great set of Apple and third party apps that you can get for it the comparison is more legitimate than ever. Whether you can use an iPad as a laptop is very subjective. It really depended upon what you need to do with your laptop. But now there are going to me more people than ever that can go with an iPad Pro over a MacBook Air. The question is should you.
So let's start by taking a look at the basic specs. If you try to compare the two as pieces of computer hardware they actually come pretty close to each other. So I'm going to compare the base model MacBook Air at $999 with the base model iPad Pro at $799. Of course you can get better versions of both of them but I needed something, some basic level to compare them at. So it looks like the iPad Pro is cheaper but you're going to have to spend another $300 to get the magic keyboard with it to make it a real laptop. So in fact the iPad Pro option is $100 more.
Tech specs are very similar if you look at them. Similar screens. The processors are pretty comparable. The RAM is pretty comparable but you do get twice the amount of storage on the MacBook Air than you do on iPad Pro. You're going to have to spend a little more to get the same amount of storage in your iPad Pro. Battery life is kind of important for a laptop and these have similar battery life although the MacBook Air might have an edge here. That 11 hours is including of course the keyboard and trackpad. The ten hours is without it. So you may have a little less. Of course it's pretty impressive considering the battery takes up a lot of the weight of either one of these. You can get better battery life with the weight with half the thickness on an iPad Pro.  Now I don't know what the exact final weight or thickness of an iPad Pro is because we don't know that for the magic keyboard yet. But we can guess that you're still going to end up with about half the weight and about half the thickness if you go with the iPad.
For a lot of people this is like the most important aspect of a laptop. The weight. I know there are people in two camps, right. People that think that weight really doesn't matter. Who cares about that. What's the power, what's the specs and all of that. Other people think that weight is the most important thing because they have to carry this thing around all day at school or at their job or whatever. So if weight is important you the iPad Pro has a huge advantage.
Now when you look at the AV accessories with each one there's something really interesting here. The iPad Pro, of course, is a camera. I mean it comes with a 12MP regular wide angle lens, a 10MP ultra wide lens, and it also has a camera on the front facing you that's a 7MP one. You can do 4K video with the cameras on the back and 1080 video with the camera on the front. The MacBook Air really doesn't have anything. I mean its got a 720p FaceTime camera. It's really just for FaceTime. You're not going to take pictures with it. You're not going to record video with it. The iPad Pro can be used as a camera. It can be used to record video. For a lot of people that's a huge plus and the MacBook Air really has nothing on its side to compare.
Also when you look at Speakers and microphones the iPad Pro has an advantage there too. The MacBook Air has the Touch ID button on it so you do have the ability to quickly login and use passwords with that. On the iPad Pro you'll be using Face ID. So you have two comparable security technologies there. The MacBook Air has 2 USB-C ports whereas the iPad Pro only has one. Of course you can do more with the MacBook Air ports because they're Thunderbolt ports. So compatible with a lot more devices and there's also a headphone jack on it too.
So here's some miscellaneous features. The MacBook Air really can be used as a portable machine that then you dock with external GPU. These run from $400 to a $1000. Then you can have a whole bunch of screens plugged in and get a whole bunch of extra power through the eGPU. You can't do that with the iPad. 
There's some little features of the iPad Pro. There's the new LiDAR scanner which is, you know, for 3D objects and augmented reality. There's also the Accelerometer and Gyro's in it. That's the same stuff we have on our iPhone and all so you can play games and do things. It knows how you're holding the phone and how you're moving it. But really the big extra is the multi touch display. If this is something you want the MacBook Air has nothing. Whereas the iPad Pro, of course, even if you're going to use the keyboard and the trackpad you still have the touchscreen display to be able to do other things with it. You can take the keyboard off and still use the touchscreen display like a regular iPad. You can go further than that if you buy an Apple pencil. Now you have a precision tool for graphic artists.
So far this sounds like the iPad Pro is the better deal for just about everything. But here's where the MacBook Air shines. You've got two different operating systems. macOS for the MacBook Air and iPad OS for the iPad Pro. If you try to compare in the App Store it looks like the iPad Pro wins too because there are like 2 million plus apps in the iOS App Store. Whereas you're only have 30,000/40,000 apps for MacOS. But this is really kind of misleading. First of all how many apps do you really need, right. Ten, twenty, thirty different apps to get all your work done. If you have all those who cares how many millions of app there are in the store you don't need. A lot of the apps for iOS are games, duplicates of existing apps, and things like that.
Back to the operating systems. The thing that really makes the MacBook Air shine is macOS. It's still just very superior to iOS especially when you're thinking in terms of using a laptop. First, there's better multitasking. There's no way around it. iPad OS has some good multitasking now. You've got split screens, you've got overlays. You can easily switch between apps. But it's still not pro level multitasking that you get with a regular operating system where you can have multiple windows and arrange them like you want. Even though there is fewer apps for macOS they are probably the ones that you need to get work done.  Right. If you need video editing apps you really need macOS. There's stuff in iPad OS. But the pro tools are really going to be for Mac.
The same thing for a lot of graphic stuff. Definitely for developer tools whether you're developing apps or whether you're developing websites, working on servers. Things like that. You're going to have an advantage using macOS. Apple's own tool, Xcode, which is used to develop both Mac apps and iOS apps only works on the Mac. It's a Mac tool. So you can't even create iPad apps on the iPad. You have to do it on the Mac. Also if there are specific apps that you need to use for your profession chances are they are probably on macOS, not on iPad OS. 
Of course this varies and you just need to basically take an inventory of what you really need to do on your laptop. If everything you need is available as an iPad app or you can do it in the web browser, then maybe you're fine with the iPad Pro. But if there's some critical tool that's not available for the iPad well then the decision is made for you. Also keep in mind that you can go outside of the Mac App Store with macOS. So you can download all sorts of open source apps, apps for very specific purposes, things like that. You'll find that in macOS but you won't find it on the iPad because everything has to go through Apple's App Store.
On the other hand on the iPad it's easier to learn. So if you're not a techi and you want something easy to learn. It's much easier to learn to use iPad OS than it is to learn macOS. Also the same for apps, right. Apps tend to be simpler and more self-explanatory. Also don't forget there is some things that just work inside of apps. Lots of social networks, lots of photo sites, things like that that you have to go through an app to do it. They don't even have like a website or something. So in that case it's a little advantage to have an iPad.
With gaming you're going to have a lot more games on the iPad but they are going to tend to be casual games. More hardcore games you're going to find some on the iPad but mostly on the Mac. Of course if you're really into hardcore games you're probably using a PC or more likely something like an Xbox or PlayStation. If you're a hardcore gamer you're probably not buying either one of these.
So if it's weight that you're interested in the iPad wins. If it's Power the MacBook Air wins. If you need something that also works as a camera the iPad Pro wins. It also wins if you want the touchscreen. But as far as apps are concerned the iPad Pro, of course, has a lot more available which is a big advantage. But the Mac has more pro tools.
So what's the right answer. Well, there is no right answer. If one of these was clearly better for everybody Apple would just make that one and not make the other one. I definitely could see some people that have a desktop Mac like an iMac getting an iPad Pro with the keyboard and using that as their portable machine. That way you have access to the best both worlds. But if there's a program that's only available on the Mac and you can't get that on the iPad Pro well then you're going to have to go with the MacBook Air. The iPad Pro just still isn't an option for you. At least not as your only portable machine.
Let me know what you're thinking. Is the iPad Pro now a legitimate laptop replacement? Which one of these is the better low end portable solution for Apple users.

Comments: 13 Responses to “iPad Pro Vs MacBook Air – Which One Is Right For You?”

Ron Melzer

4 years ago

MacBook Air vs iPad Pro - For casual use I would lean toward the iPad. For business use it would depend on the apps required by the business. For student use, definitely the iPad. The key is the Apple ecosystem, it all works together. MacBooks, iPads, iPhones, and Apple watch. As an individual goes from day to day, month to month, year to year, their needs will change as will the device of choice. All their work will follow them from device to device. Bravo Apple

Douglas Brace

4 years ago

As someone that works in online learning at a community college, I would NOT recommend the use of an iPad as someone's only computing device.

Gary Rosenzweig

4 years ago

Douglas: Why not? Is there something specific that is missing?

Douglas Brace

4 years ago

Gary, it generally comes down to compatibility. An educational institution's LMS may be compatible with an iPad but there are other solutions that the college or individual programs can mandate that may not be, such as virtual proctoring software for secure test taking. Yes, I know there are ways around these cheating solutions and that it is a game of "cat and mouse" but that is above my pay grade to decide.

Douglas Brace

4 years ago

Another example is that Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are usually not file formats that instructors accept because they do not have that suite of applications or the LMS and other solutions are not compatible with those file types.

Gary Rosenzweig

4 years ago

Douglas: Just because you are on an iPad doesn't mean you need to use Pages/Numbers/Keynote. Microsoft Office apps are available for iPad, and also Google Docs and others. Definitely right about needing to be compatible with your institutions's system. But I'd be disappointed in my institution if they didn't support a wider range of devices.

Douglas Brace

4 years ago

I agree with you Gary and I would being disappointed too if I were a student but it is the reality. Microsoft Office is still king and mostly the Windows version because of course requirements that require the functionality of the Windows version and not the mobile, web, or Mac versions. The largest LMSs and web-based software in the world (Moodle, Blackboard, Canvas or Turnitin for plagiarism) do not support Pages, Numbers, or Keynote and I do not see that changing anytime soon.

Carol Moncrief

4 years ago

My concern is how easy is it to use Photos, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers on an iPad versus MacBook Air. It seems there is more functionality of these apps with MacBook Air. Is that true?

Gary Rosenzweig

4 years ago

Carol: True for Photos. The rest somewhat. It depends on what you are doing. For some people all the functions they need are on the iPad versions.

Stephen Taylor

4 years ago

I moved away from Air to iPad in 2018. Will now go back to Air as the backlit keyboard is a real plus and Office for Mac on the iPad is a real struggle. Excel spreadsheets on the iPad when I’m away on business are a mare ps I use an iMac at base but the iPad Pro (with keyboard) has not met my specific situation. ps thanks Gary for all your good work. Stephen (UK)

Debra

4 years ago

Great comparison Gary! I have been using an older iPad air and mainly use it for social networking and Cricut Design Space. Normally I sit on the couch or in bed therefore the light weight of the iPad is ideal for me. I am contemplating the new Mac air only because I’ve been told using fonts with glyphs is not available for the iPad? Any information regarding that? Thanks

Gary Rosenzweig

4 years ago

Debra: Fonts with glyphs? I think you can type anything as long as you have the right keyboard installed. Have you looked for one?

Mike Ganey

4 years ago

I have a bit of overkill in the Apple world, owning an 27" Retina iMac, a MacBook Pro 13" and iPad Air 3. I love the iMac for its screen and it will continue as my go-to for photo editing. I just put my iPad Air 3 up for sale on eBay, and intend to get an 11" iPad Pro and the new keyboard case. If in fact it can be held in my lap, as opposed to the current Apple iPad keyboards which flop around, then bye-bye MacBook Pro. If the new keyboard fails the lap test, go to a MacBook Air?

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iPad Pro Vs MacBook Air – Which One Is Right For You?

Comments: 13 Responses to “iPad Pro Vs MacBook Air – Which One Is Right For You?”

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