Which MacBook To Buy In Early 2022?

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at Apple's current MacBook lineup and figure out which one is right for you. 

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So in early 2022 Apple has four distinct MacBook models you can choose from. There's the MacBook Air, the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the 14-inch MacBook Pro, and 16-inch MacBook Pro. Here we can see all of them lined up. The 14 and 16 inch models are fairly new whereas the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro are more than a year old at this point. Those two older models both feature the first ever Apple Silicon Chip, the M1 chip there, and the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro are actually very similar. So similar in fact it's very hard to choose between them. They're similar in price, they're similar in features. The Air is a little bit lighter. The MacBook Pro has the TouchBar. It's a little bit heavier and it has a little bit bigger of a battery and a little bit higher of a price tag. But since the TouchBar is going away it's not as attractive to get a new MacBook with a TouchBar now knowing that there's probably going to be less and less support for it moving forward. So I find it hard to recommend to anybody to get the 13-inch MacBook Pro. 

This is the model I have as a companion to my MacPro. I love it and it's been great owning it but if I were to buy today I would get the MacBook Air. As a matter of fact when I recently had to choose one of the two for a family member I chose the Air without hesitation. So I'm going to go and eliminate the 13-inch MacBook Pro right now. I think if you're looking at that model the MacBook Air is probably the one you want to really get. Aside from the TouchBar the only other difference really is the fan and I thought the fans would be important.They would keep the CPU cooler and allow you to do more powerful things. But in reality, even though I've done some video editing and development work on this MacBook Pro I don't know if I've ever heard the fans come on. So it hasn't really been an issue. So let's go down to three models that I think are the ones you should be looking at here in early 2022. 

Now obviously the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros are way more powerful than the MacBook Air. First they have the M1 Pro or Max processor in them. So a more powerful processor. They also have a lot more ports. In addition you've got a much better display, an XDR Display, it's much brighter. Looking at the MacBook Air it's definitely the lightest of all of them at 2.8 lbs.  It has the lowest starting price by far. It comes with either the  7 or 8 CPU processor. It has 8 GPUs on it. You could have either 8 to 16 GB of memory. It maxes out at 16 GB of memory. Now my 13-inch MacBook Pro I actually only got 8 GB of memory and I've got to say I'm pretty pleased with it. I've done video editing. In fact I've done a very complex episode of MacMost while on the road using it and had no problems whatsoever. As a matter of fact it makes me a little uneasy knowing how much money I spent on my MacPro and then seeing how I was able to basically do the same thing on a MacBook Pro with 8 GB of memory in it. So I'd say in general you would need a good reason to go to 16 GB of memory because the Mac does pretty well with memory management. If you edit video, if you do development work on it, do graphics work on it, then fine, I could see getting 16 GB as justifiable. Otherwise I would only do it if you've got the money lying around and you just want to get the best one. 

Now the screen, of course, the smallest screen is 13-inches and it's only 400 nits so the brightness is a lot less than the larger machines but if that's not important to you it doesn't really matter. Now I want to go and dispense with the fact that the starting price is really $999 because you should never get the 256 GB version of this machine. That's just not enough storage space. The system is going to take up a big chunk of that. You're going to have so little space left that I guarantee you'll have issues. The biggest mistake that people make when buying a new Mac is getting too small of a drive and 256 GB is too small for anybody. So you really should be looking at the next higher up version of that which is $1,249 and it comes with a 512 GB drive. Get this one if you don't think you're going to be using much hard drive space.This is the minimum one you should be getting. Obviously if you think you might be using more you need to get a larger drive. But at the minimum the MacBook Air really is $1,249 for this model. 

One think to consider though is that rumors are that Apple is going to come out with a new MacBook Air model maybe in the Spring. So if you're thinking of getting a MacBook Air but you're not in a rush you may want to wait to see what Apple comes out with. 

Now let's go to the 14-inch MacBook Pro. Obviously a much bigger price tag because it's much more powerful. It's larger, of course. The 14-inch screen which makes the weight 3.5 lbs. But you'd think it would be a lot heavier than the MacBook Air. It's only a little bit heavier than the MacBook Air despite the fact that it's a bigger machine. Now the processor you're going to get isn't the M1 processor but the M1Pro or you can upgrade to the M1 Max. So that starts with 8 CPUs but it also starts with 14 GPUs. So you have more graphic power even at the low end. Memory also starts at 16 GB. So you're starting at a higher point there. You can go all the way up to 64 GB. Minimum drive is 512 so if you don't think you're going to be using much drive space then you would get that. But any more drive space you would be using if you've got photos, if you've got video that you're working on, then you want to get something bigger anyway. But you get 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB of storage for the $2000 price tag. The screen, of course, is bigger and it's much brighter and ports. You've got all of those extra ports. So lots of advantages. So you're paying a lot more but you're getting a lot more as well. 

Now when you go up to the 16-inch screen of course it's going to get a lot heavier. I mean it's a much bigger machine. The price tag is going to be more as well. You can get the same processors in this one as you can in the 14-inch model. The same storage and memory sizes as well. The screen, of course, is a larger screen. The same kind of brightness and the same ports. So you're paying $500 basically for a much larger screen. But that's actually quite an advantage. The larger screen makes it so much easier to do video editing, graphics work, and development work. 

Let's look at some technical specs on the Apple website starting with the MacBook Air here. The ports are Thunderbolt 3 ports, so not Thunderbolt 4. Note it has a 720p FaceTime camera. The camera above the screen. When thinking about size and weight remember the MacBook Air seems to be the same size as the 13-inch MacBook Pro but in fact it starts at .16 inches and grows to .63 inches at one end. So it's tapered like all the MacBook Air models have been.  Now if we look at the 14-inch MacBook Pro we're going to see some very different things. 

First of all you've got a lot of options in the chip here. You can start with the 8-core CPU and 14-core GPU if you want. You can go to the 10 and 16 version of that. These higher end machines also come with the Media Engine so something in it to make handling video faster. Note that you can configure instead of having the M1 Pro you can have the M1 Max with a 10-core CPU and a 32-core GPU in it. The screen is also very much improved over what you're going to find in the MacBook Air. You can go in memory all the way up to 64 GB. That's if you get the M1 Max. The M1 Pro would only go to 32 GB. The storage you can configure all the way up to a very expensive  8 TB  SSD. Here's a view of all the ports you get on the 14 and 16 inch models. Here's an important one that a lot of people overlook. The camera is actually 1080p. So a significant improvement over the 720 camera in the MacBook Air. So if you do a lot of video conferencing you're going to look a lot better with the camera that's built-in and if you do any recording or YouTube or whatever, then this camera is actually useable for that whereas the 720p is probably too low for that at this point. These machines also have a much better sound system if that's important to you. 

Let's look at the 16-inch model here. It's very similar. You've got the Pro and Max chip options here. You've got the Media Engine but at the high end you could actually get the Media Engine here that has two video encode engines built-in instead of just one and two ProRes encode and decode engines. So if you're doing video work there's a good reason to look at the 16-inch model very closely because of that. Note too the 14 and 16-inch models the ports are actually Thunderbolt 4 ports. Now if you're looking for another excuse to go with the 16-inch model note that if you get a 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M1 Max processor you get a special mode not available anywhere else called the High Power Mode. Apple's got a little note about that here. It allows you to just bump the performance up. You're going to want to do that, of course, when plugged in. But it's important if you're doing stuff like 8K video work. 

Now it should be pretty obvious to you whether or not you're going to get either a MacBook Air or the 14 or 16-inch MacBook Pro. The MacBook Air is a much cheaper machine. It's really good for students and people that just need it for casual computer use. They want something that's really portable and, of course, where price is important. It's the most portable model. It's not that powerful but it's powerful enough to do any amount of web surfing, word processing, light photo and video editing if you just like editing your own videos and your own photos it's perfectly fine for that. It's only when you think of doing professional photo editing using say PhotoShop on a regular basis professionally or do video editing on a regular basis, again professionally, that you probably need something better. The value is incredible on the MacBook Air for $1249 you get a pretty powerful machine that's lightweight and great for just about any general purpose. But if you want to go above that to the 14 or 16-inch MacBook Pro, of course you're going to sacrifice portability but those are even more powerful and they could actually be very powerful. Maybe five stars there for the MacBook Pro 16 with the M1 Max processor. 

The value isn't as much because you're paying a lot for these but if you need that power then, of course, they are the ones to go with. The other thing to consider is the screen size. If you want a bigger screen because you need to get work done and the bigger screen will help you do that then the 14 and especially the 16-inch MacBook Pro, those are going to be the models for you. 

Let's take a look at the purchase page for the MacBook Air. Of course you're going to want to go with this 512 GB model here. So we'll select that. Then you look at the options and you could see here you've got an option to go up in memory. Only $200. If you really don't think you'll need it, if you're just surfing the web and doing word processing that's fine to stick with the 8GB model especially if you're tight on money. But if you want you can upgrade to the 16GB version. Storage. The number one mistake people make is buying too little storage. Only get the 512 GB if you don't think you'll need any storage at all. Just some photos, some files. Really not much. If you have a decent amount of photos, if you're going to be doing any video work, I really strongly suggest going to the 1TB drive. Basically take an audit of what you have now. Figure out how much space you'll need. Then double that because you want this to last for years in the future. Maybe you're doing 1080 video now. You'll be doing 4K soon or maybe even 8K eventually. You want to make sure you plan for that. 

Now let's look at getting a 14-inch MacBook Pro. So here you could start with one of these two options. So the main difference is here you're starting with a slightly better M1 Pro processor and then that also jumps you to the next size of drive storage. So let's start with that. Now you can go in and customize. You can go up to the Max processor here or even the higher end Max processor. Now note that the price is going to jump more than it says here. Look it says $2499. If I add this it jumps way more than $200. Why? Because the M1 Max processor has a minimum of 32GB of memory. So by adding the M1 Max you're also jumping from 16 to 32GB of memory. Now for storage the same rules apply. If you think you need 1TB then you probably need 2. So add it for $400. Now these higher end options are really expensive. Very big SSD drives are rare now and you pay a premium for them. Of course Apple only puts really top level SSD's in their machines. So these prices may be way more than what you might find if you were, say, building your own machine with a SSD in it. But if you've got the money and you have the need you can go higher. For most people the choice is going to be between the 1TB or 2TB storage option. 

Now let's look at buying a 16-inch machine. So here you've got a bunch of different options. You have to start with the 10 core processor here and you can start right away with the Max processor or stick with the Pro. I'm going to go and select that one here just to see all of the different options. So here I can jump for another $400 to 64GB of memory. Storage, again, you can jump to a 2TB drive. I don't know why anybody would spend the money to get an M1 Max but leave it at 1TB. At least go for that level which is pretty reasonable. You can also jump to the higher level, especially if you think you're going to be doing a lot of video work, especially if it's in the field where having an external drive attached is not going to be very convenient .

So there you go!. The rest is really up to you figuring out what it is that you need and what your budget is. I think it's pretty clear whether or not you're going to be looking at an Air or one of the high end MacBook Pros. Then it's just a matter of figuring out all of the different options. I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.