The 14" MacBook Pro is better than the 15" Air
Since the 15-inch MacBook Air came out, many people have called it the perfect laptop, the best Apple has ever made. When I reviewed it, I thought it was good, and started to feel weird that so many others called it perfect. Those people are just wrong: the real, almost perfect laptop is the 14-inch MacBook Pro. This is my M2 Max, but I think it also fits the 14-inch M1 Pro and Max, which are so similar.
I’ve used Apple computers since the late ’80s, starting with the Apple II, and got my first Mac in the mid-’90s, a Mac Color Classic with a 9-inch, 256-color display, which I loved. I’ve had a lot of Macs, and this has been my favorite (my favorite Mac desktop was the iMac G4), and not just because it’s one of the newest.
Design
It follows Apple’s usual design cues: rounded corners, flat top and bottom, all aluminum. You can open the lid with one finger, and inside there’s a beautiful contrast between the bright silver and the black keyboard well and bezels (silver is the best color; debate me in the comments). It feels premium, and the rounded bottom edge feels designed for the curve of your fingers.
All the dimensions feel right, including the distance from the front edge to the keyboard, which makes typing comfortable. The 15- and 16-inch models are longer and deeper, which stresses my wrist. The classic 13-inch Air’s wedge is probably the most comfortable to type on, because the sloped front edge lets you rest your arm without anything digging in, but the 14-inch Pro and the M2 Air are a close second.
It’s also a good size for travel: almost a 13-inch laptop’s size, about the weight of the 15-inch Air, fitting any backpack and okay on an airplane tray table.
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Ports
Apple spent years reducing ports until we were left with the bare minimum, which felt user-hostile to professionals, who had to buy dongles or docks. With the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, Apple reversed course and made a good compromise:
- Three Thunderbolt 4 ports.
- A dedicated HDMI port (8K or high-refresh 4K).
- An SD card slot.
- MagSafe charging, so you don’t use up an I/O port for power.
As a creator, I’ll never be fully happy and will always want more, but for most work and work on the go, they’re probably the right ports.
Speakers and display
The speakers are great, loud and without distortion. Physics makes them not quite as good as the 16-inch’s, but they’re simply better than the 15-inch Air’s side by side.
The display is a 14.2-inch panel, fitting between the 13- and 15-inch Air (closer to the 13). It gets bright, up to 500 nits in regular use, and up to 1,600 nits for HDR, which the Air can’t do, so movies and shows look stunning. I took it on a trip a couple of weekends ago and watched shows at night in a tree house, and I’m amazed every time how good video looks.
Performance
Mine is the M2 Max: 12-core CPU, 30-core GPU, with 2 TB and 32 GB. Do I need that? No, but I love the overhead. I could easily use the base M2 Pro (10-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 16 GB, 512 GB). I did that for about six months with the M1 Pro, and could do everything for my day job and YouTube. The base M2 Pro is probably the right spec for me.
Price
I’ve seen them up to $250 off; Amazon had the base 14-inch for $1,750 last week. Refurbished from Apple, the base model is about $1,700, the same as the upgraded 15-inch MacBook Air.
Why “almost” perfect
- The notch. It’s stupid, and losing menu bar icons sucks. Add screen size or bezels, or at least give us Face ID or a better camera.
- The camera. It still kind of sucks in 2023: okay dynamic range, but my face is incredibly soft with no detail, and often splotchy and grainy even in decent light, like a webcam from years ago.
- The keyboard material is cheap and wears too quickly, leaving shiny spots, and no, it’s not grease.
- ProMotion promises higher frame rates and smoother motion, but in practice I’m not seeing it. In a test, a 60 Hz Studio Display and the 14-inch looked similar at 240 fps capture, and a Chromium browser gets 120 Hz while Safari doesn’t, so I don’t know whether apps aren’t taking advantage of it.
- It runs a bit warm, and I feel it all the time, especially editing video. That’s on me: the base M2 Pro would be cooler.
Will it ever be perfect? My personality probably won’t let it be. But it’s a more perfect laptop for me than the 15-inch Air: the performance, design and features I need to get work done. What’s your perfect laptop?
Links
- Ugreen Nexode 65W 7-in-1 Charging Station (31% OFF)
- Ugreen New School Deals to Save up to 30%
- Get the MacBook Pro
- 15” MacBook Air M2 vs 13” - Is bigger better?
- Photo by Ena Marinkovic from Pexels
- My Charging Partner: Ugreen Amazon store
- https://twitter.com/jerryschulze
- https://www.threads.net/@jerryschulzeonyt
- https://mastodon.world/@jerryschulze
- https://bsky.app/profile/jerryschulze.bsky.social
- My iPhone Art
- Grovemade Desk Mat and Knife (save 10% JERRY10)
- UNLIMITED Cloud Backup for your Mac with Backblaze
- Best Laptop
- Best iPad
- Mac Studio
- Studio Display
- Bamboo Monitor Stand
- Synology NAS
- RocketQ NVME SSD
- ACASIS NVME enclosure
- OWC Envoy Pro FX SSD
- CalDigit TS4
- Logitech MX Keys Mini
- Apple Magic Trackpad
- Logitech MX Master 3
- AirPods Max
- AirPods Max Stand (ETSY)
- Kanto YU2 Speakers
- Satechi Magnetic Charger 2-in-1
- My Camera
- Secondary Lens
- Sennheiser MKH-416 mic
- Zoom F6 recorder
- Rode VideoMic NTG
- Used DJI OSMO 3 Gimbal for some shots
- Tascam DR-10L Audio Recorder with Lav
In this video
Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. See my ethics statement.
