Is 400€ price difference justified between Pro and Air

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Level 1

4 points

Is 400€ price difference justified between Pro and Air

I am looking to buy Macbook for uni and also for job. Right now I am studying CS and do alot coding for the job, and also for uni classes. Also from time to time I do video editing (not some heavy load but videos from 8-12 mins) and music prod with 10-20 plugins running at the same time.

Next year also I will have 3D modeling class so I would took it as considiration aswell.

Now my question is, how much of a difference between Air and Pro can be?

They have the same M4 chip, same value of RAM (don't know if there is an difference in speed), also same storage space. So I was looking to buy Air M4 16GB RAM, 512GB storage 13" and price is bout 1200€, and Pro M4 16GB RAM and 512GB storage 14" is 1600ish€.

Is 400€ difference justified and will I get some better performance?

Also M4 24GB RAM and 512GB storage 13" is 100€ less than Pro M4, so is it maybe better to get extra ram over Pro model?

Posted on Aug 13, 2025 10:51 AM

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Answer 1

VikingOSX

Level 10

122,052 points

Aug 16, 2025 02:50 PM in response to tonzpptx

The MacBook Air has no fan and the MacBook Pro does. Not a big deal for compiling code, but it will be for video editing and 3D work you have mentioned and Mac cooling.

I would do the MacBook Pro with no less than 32 GB RAM, a 1 TB internal drive, a 2 TB external Time Machine backup drive, and optional Mac configuration that provides more CPU and GPU cores. You may not like the extra € expense until your workflow benefits from it. Buy what you will need in the future as the hardware cannot be upgraded.

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