15" MacBook Air | developer's dream
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- čas přidán 15. 06. 2023
- The first ever 15" MacBook Air is out, and I had to see for myself if this is the machine for developers to get.
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I've been using my 16" M1 Pro model for development work for the past year and a half, but recently got the 15" Air so that I have 1 device for home, and 1 for work (to seperate them out). I develop all sorts, so Java Maven, SQL Server, Web, C# etc and was worried that the M2 wouldn't be enough. However it feels just as quick as my M1 Pro and i really cannot tell the difference. I prefer the design of the 15" Air as its just so light! I can use it on my lap anywhere and hold it up with one hand on its corner. I went with 16Gb 256Gb, the 'slower' storgage didn't effect me at all due to my small file sizes I work with, and I got 16Gb to avoid swap. Boom, perfect work laptop
Hey @shaggy12321 ,Did you faced any issue with heating while working on .Netcore apps and Docker as I have similar use case but wondering if I should shell another 600 euro and go for M3 pro or Get M2 Air 15inch 16GB, I do light video edits as well
@@praveenprakash143 get m2 pro
nice, just about to pull the plug on a new m3 air 16gb
as one of those guys that uses the command pallet for everything i hiiiighly recommend moving the menubar to the left side of the screen ( so it does not interfer with right side scrolling) minimize its size and auto hide it. when you maximise a window it will now fill the entire screen and hitting cmd shift (i first replaced spotlight with alfred and now with raycast) is as fast as if not faster than alt tabbing to switch between windows
Developer's perspective is really interesting; thanks! I'm shooting for retirement in a couple years or so, and probably start working on some iPhone app ideas that've been rattling around the back of my cranium for a few years!
I picked up a 16" M2-Max MBP recently. I'm amazed how much performance it has for a laptop. Heck, how much performance it has for _any kind_ of machine! I know it's beneath it's 12-CPU, 38-GPU dignity, but it's also one heck of a movie-watching machine too: Amazingly "spatial" speakers and high-contrast screen!
Thanks for your decent work! Just starting to discover what you've done so far.
Alex, your tests are the best! Thank you!
Glad you like them!
I keep coming back to the 14" Pro as my likely upgrade. The Air is nice but while I don't always need the power the Pro line can offer, I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. I'll be upgrading from a 13" Pro from 2014 so anything is going to be better, but the overall size and features, to me, make it the absolute sweet spot for power and portability.
Love your videos for it gives the true developer insights and most of the questions you answer matches well with my curiosity. 👨🏻💻
Awesome review Alex. This is the one I’ve been waiting for! Waiting patiently for mine to show up.
Your tests were pretty much exactly my day-to-day. Thank you!
Perfect review! You answered all of the questions I had that other reviewers completely skimped over!
Hello, Alex! That was a nice video, thanks for sharing the developer's point of view.
It would be nice to see the real-world comparison of 16/512 Air 15 with MacBook Pro 16 m2 pro. It seems that this Air could be the ideal replacement for web developers who need bigger screens, but don’t need the power of MacBook Pro.
was waiting for 15" review. It was Worth the wait. 🔥🔥
The review I was waiting for 🔥
Although the Base models of the Air are pretty good deals (the 15” for $100 more is probably better), the difference in cost between the 14” Mac Pro and an Air with 16Gb and 512Gb SD is only $300. The weight is practically the same and the screen is an inch smaller, but the mini led screen is higher resolution, brighter and has 120hz ProMotion. It has much better speakers and mic, way more ports (card slot, usb-c, hdmi), but most importantly 50% more performance CPU cores, 60% more GPU cores, and twice the memory bandwidth. For a developer who needs the extra memory, the Pro makes a lot more sense.
For 3world country it doesn't
@@si-level 3rd world country can buy plastic windows computers xD
@@Roban554 and?
@@si-level What do you mean? You do understand the message in my privious comment?
Exactly. As a web dev that works with Docker all the time, the word Docker alone sucks out 6gb of ram easy. 8GB isn't really something any devs should aim for especially in a device that is expected to last multiple years. The last thing you want is to be bottlenecked by the ram and end up having to get a entirely new device later on just because of that.
I always appreciate these comparison tests.thanks👍🏻
Finally a real software developer review. Most other reviews are from people who just follow tutorials. Thanks!
Thank you for the review ! as usual 🚀🚀🚀
Alex, your reviews and tests helped me a lot in choosing my MacBook! Thanks!
Requirements highly depend on what kind of development you do. I used to have a 1TB SSD MacBook at Unity and it was always running out of space. I had to download several big customer projects and checkout multiple branches of big repos (with lot of git LFS data). Since then 2TB has been my SSD minimum requirement. For memory, some performance profiling (sampling) tools I use become unresponsive with only 16GB RAM, so 32GB is my minimum for memory. When compiling big C++ code bases, you want good CPU performance. Saving 10 mins daily pays back the whole device in less than 1 year. 14” M3 Max weight is only 6% more than 15” Air. But the performance is in different ballpark.
YES SUPER GLAD someone made this kind of video. This was my concern, that they don’t have a fan.
MacBook Air 13" (16 GB/512 GB) will do almost everything. And I'm always using a secondary screen. I do basically backend work. I'm currently using a 16" M1Pro from the company, but portability is terrible for me. I'll go for it as my personal machine. Thanks for the review.
I'm sitting watching this on my new MBA 15"....Love it !
This is why at the time of M1, I preferred MBP over MBA, despite being a fan of the MBA design. I did not want to bet on CPU ventilation and have the full performance to support my work.
With an aluminum body, they are using the shell as part of the heatsink. Bigger aluminum body with more surface area should mean better cooling.
Hey Alex, thanks for the review. Just got a question - the MacBooks were connected to the powersupply during the performance tests, rights?
Wouldn't it make more sense to run them without it? The bigger screen should take more power, so I curious how this translates to power delivery for the cpu.
Maybe you could test it in the future? Cheers!
Looking forward to watch your video on the 16GB RAM model Alex!
THX for this "firsttimeisaw" :-) completely clear and great review. Just what i needed now. Developers point was most important for me. I am running to the store now . Keep up the good work!
I usually just go to work, plug in to a monitor, come home and plug in to a monitor, but considering the m1/2 only supports 1 monitor I think the 15" is nice!
Would like to see more docker/containers to fully understand if 16gb is good enough for budget reasons. Or still need to go 24gb.
I wanted to thank you for your video. It really helped me decide which device to choose.
Currently, I'm a software developer and I'm planning to upgrade my current setup. I have two options in mind:
1. MacBook Air 15" with an M2 chip, 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 24GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD.
2. MacBook Pro 14" with an M2 Pro chip, 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 32GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD.
At the moment, I'm not using any docker containers or virtual machines, but I might start using them in the future. I'm also planning to learn AI and ML, so having some capability in that area would be beneficial.
Here are my specific queries:
1. I feel like the MacBook Pro 14" might be overkill for software development.
2. I live in India, where temperatures can reach 30-35 degrees Celsius, and I'm concerned that the fanless design of the MacBook Air might cause issues.
3. I'm planning to use the laptop for at least 5 years or more.
I would greatly appreciate your suggestions on which option would be best for my needs.
If it supported 32GB ram, I would call a dream too.. Your tests were pretty much exactly my day-to-day. Thank you!.
@@rafadydkiemmacha7543 gaming / large video editing without hitting swap ssd
@@rafadydkiemmacha7543 I run 10 docker containers to spin up a complex environment. The air is for simple javascript kiddies :)
I have had code profiling software run our of memory on 16GB systems while recording. If you need high sample rate, get 32GB memory. These analysis software use a lot of memory and are very unresponsive on low memory amount.
Would love to see side by size comparisons of Xcode, especially with the canvas/live preview open. Would be good to see Xcode open with another app like safari open in Split View/side by side
hey thats only 15" not 32" :D, xcode with canvas ok, but never with safari in split view side by side at 15"
Fantastic comparison! I already have a 14" MBP M1 Max for the 64GB, but at $4K I feel a tad uncomfortable traveling with it! I might pickup a 13" Air w/ 24GB if I get enough business income to pay for it. I have been really happy with the 14" form factor, especially with portability at home (I roam a lot). Going to 13" screen is a noticeable step down, but a good trade off for traveling in my personal situation. Thank you!
maybe buying insurance would be cheaper than buying another macbook? lol
I aggree with you. I don't know how to place / store such so expensive notebook in the hotel room..
@Alex, After having 13" Air in Midnight color for longer time, do you see any visible paint scuff(apart from fingerprint smudges) on 13" Midnight color ?
Nice video Alex, As usual you throw lot of light on the 2 devices during comparison.
Yes, please compare the 8GB vs 16GB 15" Airs. Xcode + iOS simulator compile and cold start times.
No need to compare; buy 16GB as it will double your performance in RAM-intensive apps as well as future-proofing. The 8GB model is not for pro users per se.
The screen on the MBP 16” is just like night and day different…
Mini LED
1000 Nits (double the MBA) that would help fight the reflection outdoors (also goes up to 1600!! In short bursts of HDR)
120hz (double again)
I mean, I get back in the old days when laptops were really heavy, but the m2 max 16” MBP is only 1.5 lb’s heavier…I think the only reason to get the air over the pro is price, if you have a choice between either of them with price not being a factor, I can’t see a scenario where anyone would actually choose the MBA…
That being said, price is an issue for many people, and many people don’t need the power of the MBP, so I expect a lot of people will love the 15” MBA. I just don’t see it as a realistic alternative to the MBP 16”.
I use OrbStack instead of Docker desktop. It is a lot faster, lighter and way less resource intensive on macOS.
Great video 👏 thanks!
thx
Great video! To sum it up, if I’m going to run Docker at all, base model 15” MacBook Air is a no no?
Thanks for this comparison. Especially the first test regarding the heatmanagement was quite revealing. I thought over the last weeks to buy a macbook pro 14 inch 16g of ram and 1tb discspace instead of an mb air 13" with the similar specs. And yes, the pro is more better in terms of display, performance and so on. But the 15 inch model turns this completely to me. Cause it's very portable and the bigger size of the screen, Trackpad, improved sound compared to the 13" model and now the throttleing is much less detectable. This makes the 15" model with 16gb ram 1tb really a very huge temptation to me and not only to me maybe....... To me the idea of a fanless more powerful laptop is now more given with the 15" model.
Don't worry too much about fanless. A MBP with fans will only ever spin the fans up if you are working the GPU hard enough to otherwise throttle. I'm pretty sure you can turn off the fans and let it throttle regardless. In the year I've owned my 16" M1P MBP, the fans have never spun up once, I'm simply not using GPU intensive tasks. I see these fans as basically redundant, but hey, they are there if ever required.
@@dadthelad I think it's more so because it has no vents for the exhaust, meaning there won't be no dust entering those said vents on the air. Meaning less maintenance and better longevity. I mean, that's how I'd take it.
Very meticulous and detailed tests as usual Alex! I am convinced by your tests that the 15" Macbook Air is the better choice. I will definitely get one as soon as it becomes available in PH. Thanks!
Alex, great content and real world tests as always!! 👍 What would you recommend for someone like me who just has to open dozens and dozens of safari (personal stuff) and chrome (work stuff) tabs - literally, like 50-100 tabs, mixture or CZcams, web apps and other stuff. I also will likely have Numbers running in the background, some PDFs opened, Contacts, Notes, Apple Mail and from time to time, Photos (managing thousands of family pics and vids), Maps and Apple Music for background music while I work. No Final Cut yet but will want to learn in a year or so! Might I as well be getting a MacBook Pro 16 inch, maybe?! 😅
It’d be very interesting to see the real world differences between a 15” Air with 512gb/24gb and the base 14” Pro with 512gb/16gb. I’m mainly interested in how Windows on Parallels and Docker perform on these 2. Here in Canada they are priced exactly the same.
THIS is what I’m really waiting for too!
Yeah, that would be REALLY interesting. As a FE dev I would love to see how those two machines handle mobile development.
Parallels performance is why I got the pro model.
there's no real world difference
Don't know about the 15" but I have the 13" Air with 24GB and it runs Parallels extremely well. 12GB for Mac, 12GB for Windows11. Perfectly smooth. I would assume the 15" is going to be the same or even slightly better.
Developers usually use external monitor of 27” or 32” to get a real step in being more productive. I would still take the 13” size, more portable, lighter and cheaper.
You can also download a screen resolution tool and get a lot more lines than that
I was waiting for this but tbh the 16” pro is where it’s at (assuming money isn’t the concern). Yea I love how thin the new air design is, it’s beautiful and thin and feels so cool, but the pro has an sd card slot and brighter screen, etc
I'm still bummed they only let you plug in one external screen, that's the only reason(aside from size) I'm thinking about selling my 13" m2 air to get a 16".
great video! You got me thinking to switch to new Air from M1 Pro 🤔. Would be great to see the comparison - 16 gb Air vs 16 gb Pro
As a programmer which one of these choices is better? Buy a Desktop PC with i513400 + 4060ti or MacBook Air m2 8/512?
underrated channel😮 so amazing review
I appreciate that!
My only complaint would be that the air doesn’t have 120hz screen/Brighter screen, that’s what’s holding me back from going from a 14pro to a 15 air.
I dunno if it's a developer's dream. It only supports 1 monitor natively. As a developer, I often need at least 2 screen in addition to the Macbook screen.
8:33 "That GPU is being pegged"
This is not a sentence I expected to hear in my lifetime.
The deal breaker for me, that reviews don't seem to point out since the first M1 MacBook Air, is that they can only have one external display. The Pro 14" and Pro 16" can have mulitple displays. I have the 16" with two external displays and would rather have the 24GB Air 15" for the portability, but need the external display support :(
I thought the multiple display was an M1 limitation? Are you saying even the M2 macbook air doesn't support multiple displays?
@@James_08_07 Yeah, the M2 13" Air doesn't allow more than one. Not sure if it's an I/O controller limitation (like it was with the M1 I believe), or if it's artificially limited to be a "pro-only" feature.
Any M1 or M2 machine only supports one monitor through thunderbolt. You can get another display on the Mac Mini M1 because of the HDMI port. M1/M2 Pro supports 2 external displays and M1/M2 Max supports 4 external displays.
If you really need it you can use an external docking station for dual monitor support, but I agree bummer it isn’t supported natively.
@@KHudso it's not as easy as that for two reasons. First is the docks that do support it for the Air (like Anker's) are hacks from their side and not all MacBook certified docks will do more than one monitor.
Second issue is Apple disabled MST support via thunderbolt in their software a few years ago which means that the native DisplayPort way of attaching a single cable to get multiple display outputs isn't actually supported. Therefore, even with the pro laptops, you have to get a dock which is designed for MacOS's multiple display output - a real issue when in an office which already has dozens of Thunderbolt 4 docks (from Belkin, Kingston and others) that cost hundreds and won't output more than one display...
This was a feature in MacOS about a decade ago. (if you boot into Linux or Windows, the Pro laptops can use these docks and MST with no issue)
What kind of apps are you developing? Just curious. My MacBook Air 13” was getting hot even dragging large files from iCloud Drive to the desktop so I’m trying to understand how people are managing to run Xcode on these lol
What I would love to see is a video of a temp monitor being recorded while working with the MAcbook Air ... maybe if you do a live session? This way the temps can be showed in a real life situtation instead just when pushing the machine to its limits.
everyone has different work patterns. During typical work, I hardly see the temps going above 50 or so.
Very interesting, thank you! 8Gb enough for front-end it is was surprise for me. Happy to heard this. But PRO’s brightness outdoor 😢 not better. I thought i need it for hdr content, but now i’m not sure…
docker without any containers running and already taking 5gb of ram sounds insane. I recommend colima, an alternative to the vm the official docker desktop summons. so much lighter and actually customizable.
what about battery life?
@@Chidorin I can barely notice the difference. I use it to create apis in pyton with fastapi and pydantic.
@@sphexie ty, what about hours, how long can it last
can you run a comparison of Macbook Air 15" with Macbook pro 16" please? Do you think the portability and price of former offsets the performance of latter?
Alex, how is the midnight blue chassis of your 13” looking after several months?
Ideally, I'd like to see container videos and parallels running Windows. It's one of those, I'm rarely ever going to use windows, but sometimes I need to test things and I'm not at home. I bought an M2 min instead of the latest and greatest MacBook Pro while I waited for next gen of MBP but this might be an option with that battery life.. and form factor.. it's pretty enticing. MBP starts to lose its value.. I'd have to max out the ram mind you. Great video! Amazing content dude, much appreciated.
16 GB or 24gb Macbook Air for machine learning. I don't want the extra weight of the pro. If it takes it longer that's fine. Would be nice if you can run all the models you ran on the MacBook pro versions.
Keep those beats going!! 🎧
great video Alex! I have been looking forward to your review! Would you still recommend the 16gb or 24 gb MBA for some MSc level of machine learning? I just have a year of studies left and I am concerned that after finishing my studies the MBP will be a total overkill (considering that I have a laptop from work)
Do work like that won't allow personal computer and don't need to invest in such machine? How about gaming?
You aren't going to gain anything from having a MacBook if you are not using it for work, and even if it is used it won't matter since the state of deep learning on metal is way behind Nvidia.
Either get the cheapest M1 Air, or get well-specced MBP for side hobbies like Unity development or Blender.
Great comprehensive review, I'd love to a see a comparison between the 15 inch m2 16gb of ram vs the base model 16 mbp m2
My rule of thumb take the minimum memory you can handle and double it. You can never have too much memory! This new air is a winner! (Upgraded ram and ssd)
i would love to see a video wher u test differences running containers (and stuf that hog memory) on the 8 and 24 gig models
Developer here. I had waiting for an Air to come out for years BUT when I bumped the specs to 16GB 512GB then the price went higher than a refurbed 16" M1 Pro. The choice was obvious then.
Great Review !
Thank you for the video!
10:53 yes I want to see comparisons between 8Gb and 16 Gb of RAM
currently using the work issued m1 pro 16gb/512gb and it handles all my backend and react ui dev tasks really well, redis client, IntelliJ, Dbeaver client, docker, bunch of chrome tabs and few other tools running and never had any issues. I saw another comparison video recently that shows the m3 air processes faster in all tasks than the m1 pro, so most definitely the m3 air with 16 or 24gb of ram and 512gb of storage will be enough for most of us run of the mill software developers
Great video with great advice. I guess, the smaller MacBook Air 13“ is better for travelling, though. What I like to see on your show is a comparison of the Mac Studio M1 Ultra with the Mac Studio M2 Ultra using several applications such as ML, Video /Photo processing, Docker, application builds with XCode, VS Code or IntelliJ, …
It's not like you can fit the 13" in your pocket, I don't see the travelling advantage personally. I travel with my 16", no worries at all.
How does the MacBook air 15 inch performs once connected to the studio display? And say… with xcode open
oh gosh to see this both laptops just a bit a way from falling down the round table makes my heart stop to beat xD
So... MacBook Air 15" 16/512 is pretty fine for programming, VsCode, little Docker, Parallels and multitasking ?
Even compiling rust works well on the 13in....
What about the same test for new Mac Air 15'' (16Gb RAM + 512Gb SSD) vs Mac Mini M2 (the same configuration)? Thanks.
can you show whether it is possible to run both programming tools and video editing on 16gb macbook air without throttling?
Finally my dream come true (as a developer). Need to start saving.
Midnight Color is super awesome, I have 15 inch 8/512
Would like to know and follow all of your tests and tools used in this video! Thx!
Any chance we'll be seeing a review on Unreal Engine 5.2 performance on Mac now there's native support, perhaps testing against a windows laptop for comparison?
Been using 13" Macbook Pro 2018 for 5 years now... Well time to time I would like to have more space, but in general comparing the dell 15-17" with Macbook 13" then the last one is not that bad at all... Will see, maybe going for 14" with M3
mac air m2 15inch VS mac pro m2 13 inch .... which one would you recomend for ios development?
please do a full comparison with 16inch. full benchmarks test
should u consider using thermal pad in this macbook air 15 to cool it down?
2:13 Bombastic Side Eye!!!!
Can you test with the 24gb model too? Would be interesting to see how the extra ram improves the multitasking, containers, virtualization and speed from a developers perspective.
Also, are the 1tb SSDs significantly faster than the 512gb SSDs?
will not much
I don't think the upgrade to internal storage is worth beyond 512, unless you are a content creator. Even then you could probably save a lot from running a nvme in a external enclosure than upgrading the internal storage.
In my case I have an MBP M1 pro 16 GB of memory and it struggles some times with docker and several apps/projects open at the same time, I got an M2 mini 24GB of memory and that one is way better for my workflow and it was way cheaper, my suggestion as backend software developer is: get the most memory you can afford and depending on your workflow most likely you don't need that much CPU performance.
@@glez120 Yes, both front-end and back-end developers require more memory. If air has 32GB of memory, it would be even more perfect.
@@glez120 I also currently have the MBP M1 pro 16 GB and there's usually about 5gb of swap being used so 16gb is not enough for my usage. And you're right about the CPU, I generally don't see it go to high percentages and that's why I am considering the air now.
I'd really like to know how warm it will be for node workflows without the fan.
You know the cool part, at 2:03 you mentioned how it might be difficult to run android on an 8GB machine? Because of the unified SOC and swap space, I have managed to run a full iPhone 14 Pro max + android pixel 7 emulator simultaneously with no issues! The only thing to do different is install the android emulator barebones (ie, without android studio) so it doesn't eat up too much memory!
OrbStack is a nice lightweight alternative to docker for mac 😊
Can you also do a comparison of the 15-in MBA 24gb vs 14-in MBP 16gb?
I'm looking to buy a 15 inch M3 air with 24 GB ram and 512 GB ssd, so I want to know from you should I buy this with 24 GB for Android development or should I go for M3 pro base variant, basically I'm buying this to learn KMP, so please help me to pick up the right machine.
Just to know if you can give your advice to students in engineering with some task with create app with VBA in excel. Do some web dev, python programming and AR application with unity. Is the MacBook Air 15 inch is a good option or the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is better ?
I'm researching M3 Air tests, notice that the Xcode version of running benchmarks is 14.3.0
Hope we can see another Xcode 15 version test video with basic model and 16GB RAM model!
As a coder, do you miss having a number pad?
That’s usually a consideration for me.
I want to buy a macbook air for solely iOS development for next 4- 5 years. So xcode and vscode and some chrome tabs. I will buy 13" m2 air 16gb 256 gb( i have a good pc setup for storage). Will it be good investment? Will xcode lag in big projects?
Thing is, with faster data buses and faster ssd having an overflow of ram with 8gigs of Ram isn’t such a big deal.
Great video!!
thx!
Thanks Alex