It’s hard to tell the difference between the new M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, so we’ve broken them all down for you.
The first Mac laptops with Apple silicon are here and you can already pre-order them at Apple.com. But picking which model to buy isn’t nearly as easy as it was last week. It’s not just that you’re entering a new world of compatibility, Apple also hasn’t done all that much to differentiate between the two machines. Here’s what we know from diving into the specs. Neither the 13-inch MacBook Pro nor the MacBook Air is any different than the models they replace. They both measure the same 8.36 inches by 11.97 inches, and the Air still has a tapered edge that extends from 0.16 inches to 0.63 inches while the Pro has a fixed 0.61-inch height. And the Air is lighter at 2.8 pounds versus just 3 pounds on the Pro. The design of the new MacBooks is identical to the old ones. The inside is the same as well. Both feature a Magic Keyboard flanked with a pair of vertical speakers along with family sizable bezels around the display. A big Force Touch trackpad is centered below the keyboard and they come in the same colors: silver and space gray for the Pro and silver, space gray, and gold for the Air. While both laptops already featured 13.3-inch displays, the Pro had a bit of an advantage with support for the DCI-P3 gamut for greater color saturation. Now the MacBook Air has that spec too, so the displays are nearly identical: The only difference between them now is one most people aren’t likely to notice. On the MacBook Pro, the max brightness is 500 nits while the Air only reaches 400 nits. But both are brighter than your eyes can handle for an extended period of time. The Air and Pro have the same Magic Keyboard that launched last year, so you don’t need to worry about loud, sticky keys. Apple’s newest keyboard is a huge improvement over the old one and will feel great to type on. Both feature backlighting with an ambient light sensor as well as a Touch ID sensor for unlocking, authentication, and Apple Pay purchases. The keyboard on the new MacBooks is excellent. The difference is with the function keys.
