To Air or to Pro...? Purchasing advice, please!

Esoterich wrote:

Longtime Mac & PC user here. The time has come to source a new laptop for my wife. To date, this has been a fairly easy process (except for the premium prices). She has always (18+ years) opted for a MBP, and they have served her well. But now I am unsure which way to go, because of the power and speed of the Airs and the costs of the MBPs. I know that she will prefer the largest screen, whichever route she goes.

Note that all of the current M4- and M5-family MacBook Airs and Pros can drive at least two external displays, at the same time as the built-in screen. (Because the MacBook Airs don't have a lot of ports, attaching two displays might only be practical if you also had a USB-C or Thunderbolt dock or hub.)

With older Mac notebooks,

• Those based on plain M1 and M2 chips (MacBook Airs, 13" MacBook Pros) can only drive one external display.
• Those based on plain M3 chips (MacBook Airs, 14" plain M3 MacBook Pros) can only drive one external display with the lid open, two with the lid closed.

I would say she isn't a power user, as none of her applications are too intense, which makes me think the 15" M4 Air would suffice. However, she is an accountant,

You may want to get her a large (27" – 32") standalone monitor, keyboard, and mouse for use when at home. Even the 13" MacBook Air can easily drive a third-party 4K monitor or the 27" 5K Apple Studio Display.

and although she's not running scientific math computations or performing hi-res video editing, she does use virtual machines. At any given time she might concurrently be using QuickBooks, Parallels, Windows, spreadsheets, several browser tabs and email.

Note that Apple Silicon Macs

• Do not support Boot Camp, and cannot run Windows as the main OS
• Cannot run regular Intel versions of Windows

If she runs Windows, she will be running Windows 11 for ARM inside of a virtual machine created by a program like Parallels Desktop or VMware. Windows 11 for ARM can run some applications that are built for Windows/Intel PCs, in emulation, using Microsoft's emulation code, but there is overhead and there may be limitations.

Microsoft Support – Options for using Windows 11 with Mac® computers with Apple® M1®, M2™, and M3™ chips

Running Microsoft's Intel emulation environment, inside Windows 11 for ARM, inside a virtual machine is probably going to chew up a lot of RAM. You can get 32 GB of RAM on M4 MacBook Airs and on 14" M5 MacBook Pros – more on 14" and 16" MacBook Pros that use M4 Pro and M4 Max chips. My guess is that 24 GB of RAM would be marginal for running Windows 11 for ARM virtual machines, and that it would be best to get 32 GB or more.

2.) Since the 16" MBP only comes with Pro and Max chips, isn't it way overkill for what she needs?

Between those two chips, she would probably be better off with the M4 Pro chip.

The M4 Max chip has a stronger GPU, has more hardware video encoding and decoding engines, and can support more than two external displays. You can order M4 Max MBPs with huge amounts of RAM. This comes at a price, both in money and in the amount of runtime you get on a battery charge, and it doesn't sound like she would really get much use out of the ways in which the Max chip is better than the Pro one.

3.) And for extra credit, now that Apple is using integrated system and video RAM, does this mean she will need more of it? Basically, what is the minimum RAM that would be needed for her day-to-day work?

Given her plan to run Windows applications, I would suggest 24 GB as a bare minimum – and 32 GB or more as the ideal target. Available RAM options seem to depend mostly on processor chip.

• 13" and 15" plain M4 MacBook Air – 16, 24, or 32 GB of RAM
• 14" plain M5 MacBook Pro – 16, 24, or 32 GB of RAM
• 14" and 16" M4 Pro MacBook Pro – 24, 36, or 48 GB of RAM
• 14" and 16" M4 Max MacBook Pro – 36, 48, 64, or 128 GB of RAM

For the other uses, even 16 GB would probably be enough, though 24 GB or 32 GB might be more future-proof.

I'll take a stab at answering your questions ...

1 - An M4 MBAir should be able to handle your stated requirements just fine. The M4's performance is way beyond any of the older Intel MBAirs or MB Pros. As for heat, I don't know why that would be a problem with your uses unless Parallels is the problem child.

2 - Would the 16" MBP Pro (M4 Pro or Max) be overkill? Maybe, maybe not. I'll just say that I purchased an M4 Pro MacBook Pro a few months ago and it's the nicest laptop I've ever had.

3 - All the models come with 16GB or 24GB RAM these days, but it's integrated system & video RAM. The 16GB may be fine for today ... but if you look forward to years of use out of the machine, remember that software requirements grow over time ... I'd suggest 24GB would be a better place to start, then consider future possible needs for macOS and the apps you expect to use and configure more RAM if you think you may need it in the next 4-5 years. You cannot upgrade the RAM after purchase.

Other things

If you intend to run Windows, don't expect the same experience you may have had with Bootcamp on Intel Macs. You will need to run Parallels and use an ARM version of Windows. Even then, you may find some limitations in what you can run in the VM Windows environment and how Windows 11 ARM64 actually works.

For work use, a 15" display is the minimum I would suggest. And the 16" MBPro display is even nicer.

There are more ports on the MBPro compared to the MBAir and it also has an HDMI port for an external display (or projector). Consider your needs there.

Esoterich wrote:

To date, this has been a fairly easy process (except for the premium prices).

Note that Apple's Certified Refurbished Store currently has a number of M4-family MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros. I played a bit with the filters, and there seem to be several 15" M4 MacBook Airs with 24 or 32 GB of RAM, and several 16" M4 Pro MacBook Pros with 24 – 48 GB of RAM, in the U.S. Certified Refurbished store.

(That may change, as the selection is "catch of the day".)

Certified Refurbished Macs usually go for about 15% off original list price, but the quality of the refurbishment is high, and you get a 1-year warranty.

Refurbished Mac Deals - Apple

Have you or anyone else done a detailed analysis of whether she actually NEEDs Windows?

Excel and other Microsoft Office apps are available for Mac, and may not even require a new license.

QuickBooks and Quicken are available in versions for Mac.

Your (or Readers) can determine whether any of the other Apps she uses actually Require Windows, are available as native Mac apps

Another option for certain packages is to run under Wine or CrossOver compatibility environment, which could be less resource-intensive than full-blown Windows. Those environments convert common Windows system calls into MacOS system calls, allowing many commercial Windows-developed packages (that do NOT require special Drivers) to run without the huge overhead of full-blown Windows.

Great advice as always from MartinR

Always include more RAM than you think you need.

For another opinion, Apple has a Wizard:

Mac - Which Mac is best for me? - Apple