The MacBook Air and Non-Touch Smart MacBook Pro: A Comprehensive Comparison

When it comes to choosing the right MacBook for your needs, there are several factors to consider. One of the most important decisions you'll make is whether to opt for a MacBook Air or a non-touch smart MacBook Pro. In this article, we'll delve into the features and specs of each model to help you decide which one is best for you.

Port Options

The 12-inch MacBook is the only model in its class that only comes with a single port, making it difficult to charge and transfer data at the same time without purchasing a USB-C hub. On the other hand, the MacBook Air and non-touch smart MacBook Pro both get two ports, while the 2018 touch bar MacBook Pros come equipped with four Thunderbolt 3 ports. This is especially useful if you need to connect multiple devices or use high-speed transfer methods.

Battery Life

When it comes to battery life, the new MacBook Air takes the top spot, with a rating of 12 hours compared to 10 hours on the rest of the MacBooks. The 13-inch non-touch smart MacBook Pro and the 2018 touch bar MacBook Pros both come in at around 10 hours, while the 15-inch MacBook Pro trails behind slightly due to its larger size.

Display Quality

The 15-inch MacBook Pro boasts the largest display among all the models, making it a great option for those who want a larger screen. The 12-inch MacBook has the smallest display, followed closely by the 13-inch non-touch smart MacBook Pro. The 13-inch MacBook Air has a slightly smaller trackpad than its counterpart, which is interesting considering that the machines themselves are similar in size.

FaceTime and Cameras

When it comes to FaceTime cameras, all of the MacBooks come equipped with high-definition cameras, except for the 12-inch MacBook, which only gets a 480p camera. This makes the 12-inch MacBook less suitable for video conferencing or online meetings.

Performance

When it comes to raw processing power, the non-touch smart 13-inch MacBook Pro has a slight edge over its counterpart due to its dual-core processor. The 15-inch MacBook Pro, however, takes the top spot thanks to its six-core processor and dedicated graphics chip. This makes it an excellent option for those who need high-performance capabilities.

Performance Per Dollar

When we look at performance per dollar, the non-touch smart 13-inch MacBook Pro comes out on top, followed closely by the 15-inch MacBook Pro. The 12-inch MacBook, however, trails behind due to its low performance and lack of a fan, which can make it prone to overheating.

Graphics Performance

The 15-inch MacBook Pro is the clear winner when it comes to raw graphics performance, thanks to its dedicated graphics chip. This makes it an excellent option for those who need high-performance capabilities for tasks such as video editing or gaming.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the choice between a MacBook Air and a non-touch smart MacBook Pro depends on your specific needs and preferences. If you're looking for a lightweight laptop with great battery life, the new 13-inch MacBook Air is an excellent option. However, if you need more ports, a larger trackpad, or better performance capabilities, the non-touch smart 13-inch MacBook Pro is a solid choice.

On the other hand, if you want to invest in the absolute best MacBook with the largest display, top-of-the-line speakers, and incredible performance, the 15-inch MacBook Pro is the way to go. With its six-core processor and dedicated graphics chip, this model is perfect for those who need high-performance capabilities for tasks such as video editing or gaming.

Regardless of which model you choose, make sure to check out our Apple price guide for the best deals on all Apple products, including iPads, AirPods, and more.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe holidays are quickly approaching you're probably trying to figure out which MacBook you should buy whether it's for yourself or you're buying it as a gift well today we've got every macbook available from apple's current macbook lineup and they're all the base models including the 13-inch MacBook Air the 12 inch retina macbook the 13-inch non-touch bar macbook pro the quad core 13 inch MacBook Pro and finally the 6 core 15 inch macbook pro all of them are currently on sale for some pretty amazing prices but only for a limited time so make sure to use the links in the video description below to buy one before the deals are gone you can also check out our Apple price guide where the best deals on Apple products are updated every single day with so much in common between these Mac books it seems like a tough decision so let's break them down into categories that really matter we'll talk about performance in just a minute but let's start with portability the 12-inch MacBook is by far the thinnest and lightest one of them all weighing in at only 2 pounds compared to 2.7 5 pounds for the air 3 pounds for the 13-inch MacBook Pros and 4 pounds for the 15-inch pro from above it's also noticeably smaller than the rest of the Mac books so small that it almost feels like a toy but that makes it incredibly portable as for the air it's basically as large as a 13-inch pro supportability should be identical other than being a quarter of a pound lighter one thing you'll notice is the difference in shape all of the MacBook Pros have more of a flat slate shape compared to the 12-inch MacBook in the MacBook Air which have a wedge design that gets thinner near the front end every single one of these Mac books has a high quality retina resolution display but there are some differences that you should know about even though the new 2018 MacBook Air is the newest it actually has the worst display it's the least color accurate and it's also the dimmest display as well even the 12-inch MacBooks display is brighter and it supports a wider range of colors now if you really care about the display all three of the MacBook Pros feature in incredible 500 nits of brightness and p3 wide color gamut support so they're super bright and incredibly color accurate this is going to be a huge deal if you want to use your laptop outside or you want to minimize bright reflections on the screen on top of that the touch bar MacBook Pros also get true tone a feature that adjusts the color balance of the display to match your environment I personally love this feature speaker quality volume is a huge deal so here's a sound comparison so you can hear the differences for yourself the 12-inch MacBook offers the quietest speakers with the least amount of bass volume and bass goes up a little bit on the 13-inch MacBook Air but going to the 13-inch MacBook Pros everything gets better the volume increases significantly the bass is deeper and punchier and the highs become very crisp and clear the 15-inch MacBook Pro gets even louder speakers with more bass and a well rounded sound now on to the keyboards they're all packing apples butterfly keys but the new 13-inch MacBook Air in the 2018 touch bar MacBook Pros feature the third-generation butterfly keyboard which includes a silicon barrier beneath the keyboard that's meant to protect the switches from debris that can possibly cause some keys to fail it was a pretty rare issue to begin with but the extra peace of mind is nice to have and it also makes the keyboard quieter as well apart from that the Mac books that feature the wedge design are a little bit more comfortable to type on since the keyboard slopes downward towards the front edge the 2018 MacBook Pros also come with a touch bar giving you interactive and customizable buttons along with the touch ID sensor for logging in and using Apple pay the new MacBook Air also gets the touch ID sensor even though it's missing the touch bar so that's a nice plus for that model considering it's the cheapest those models also come with Apple's t2 security chip and if you don't know what that is click the I icon above when this video is over now let's talk about the ports the 12-inch MacBook only gets a single port so if you want to charge and transfer data at the same time you'll have to buy a USB C hub on top of that it doesn't support Thunderbolt 3 so you're limited to only five gigabits per second transfer speed instead of 40 on the rest of the macbook switch do support Thunderbolt 3 the MacBook Air and the non touch smart MacBook Pro both get to poor and both of the 2018 touch bar MacBook Pros actually get four of them so they're the best options if you love having a lot of ports if you love large trackpads the 15-inch pro has the biggest one of them all in the 12 inch macbook obviously has a smallest one the 13-inch MacBook Air has a considerably smaller trackpad than the 13-inch MacBook Pro which is interesting because the machines themselves are basically the same size for battery life the new MacBook Air is rated at 12 hours compared to 10 hours on the rest of the MacBooks so if battery life is what you're after the air is the best option and if you love using FaceTime they're all packing HD webcams except for the 12-inch MacBook which only gets a 480p FaceTime camera finally let's talk about performance starting with the processors all but the touch bar MacBook Pros have dual-core processors the 13 inch touch bar MacBook Pro gets a quad-core processor in the 15-inch model gets a 6 core processor looking at raw processing power with Geekbench 4 we see a small spike in performance with a non-touch bar 13-inch MacBook Pro in a huge increase with the touch bar MacBook Pros thanks to the extra cores we also looked at performance per dollar using the full retail price of each macbook in the 2018 13 inch quad-core macbook pro comes out on top with the 15 inch model trailing slightly behind as expected the 12 inch macbook gives you extremely low performance per dollar one thing to know is that the 12 inch MacBook is the only one without a fan so performance will take a bigger hit if it starts to heat up now looking at raw graphics performance with Geekbench for the MacBook Pros have a huge advantage here in the 15-inch MacBook Pro skyrockets in terms of performance and that's because it's the only model with the dedicated graphics chip ask for graphics performance per dollar the 13-inch non touch bar MacBook Pro wins here because of its low price and the 15-inch MacBook Pro is right behind it so if you're still confused on which macbook you should buy I'll break it down for you if you want the thinnest lightest macbook you can get and you don't really care about performance ports webcam quality or having the best speakers then buy the 12 inch macbook if you want the absolute best battery life touch ID in the third-generation keyboard but you don't care that much about performance display brightness or the smaller trackpad then go with the new 13 inch MacBook Air now if you want some extra performance better speakers a very bright and color accurate display you don't care much for touch ID and you I have the money to spend on the 2018 touch bar MacBook Pros then definitely go with the 13-inch non touch bar MacBook Pro now if you're trying to get the best processor performance you can get for your dollar go with a 13-inch touch bar MacBook Pro in its quad core processor you'll get four Thunderbolt three ports the touch bar with touch ID the t2 security chip and the third generation keyboard if you're someone who wants the absolute best with the biggest trackpad the best speakers the biggest display and the highest performance you can get with a powerful six core processor in a dedicated graphics chip for intense rendering tasks then definitely go for the 15-inch MacBook Pro that's the exact model that I bought from myself because it personally feels the most professional to me with its largest 15 inch display top-of-the-line speakers and incredible performance so hopefully this video helps you make up your mind and please use the links in the video description for the best deals on mac books you can find anywhere and also check out our Apple price guide as well which also includes the best deals on every product Apple sells like iPad pros in air pods thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video if you enjoy this video like it and hit that subscribe button also check out a price guide which makes it extremely easy to find the best deals and Apple products updated daily be sure to follow us on social media and we'll see you in the next videothe holidays are quickly approaching you're probably trying to figure out which MacBook you should buy whether it's for yourself or you're buying it as a gift well today we've got every macbook available from apple's current macbook lineup and they're all the base models including the 13-inch MacBook Air the 12 inch retina macbook the 13-inch non-touch bar macbook pro the quad core 13 inch MacBook Pro and finally the 6 core 15 inch macbook pro all of them are currently on sale for some pretty amazing prices but only for a limited time so make sure to use the links in the video description below to buy one before the deals are gone you can also check out our Apple price guide where the best deals on Apple products are updated every single day with so much in common between these Mac books it seems like a tough decision so let's break them down into categories that really matter we'll talk about performance in just a minute but let's start with portability the 12-inch MacBook is by far the thinnest and lightest one of them all weighing in at only 2 pounds compared to 2.7 5 pounds for the air 3 pounds for the 13-inch MacBook Pros and 4 pounds for the 15-inch pro from above it's also noticeably smaller than the rest of the Mac books so small that it almost feels like a toy but that makes it incredibly portable as for the air it's basically as large as a 13-inch pro supportability should be identical other than being a quarter of a pound lighter one thing you'll notice is the difference in shape all of the MacBook Pros have more of a flat slate shape compared to the 12-inch MacBook in the MacBook Air which have a wedge design that gets thinner near the front end every single one of these Mac books has a high quality retina resolution display but there are some differences that you should know about even though the new 2018 MacBook Air is the newest it actually has the worst display it's the least color accurate and it's also the dimmest display as well even the 12-inch MacBooks display is brighter and it supports a wider range of colors now if you really care about the display all three of the MacBook Pros feature in incredible 500 nits of brightness and p3 wide color gamut support so they're super bright and incredibly color accurate this is going to be a huge deal if you want to use your laptop outside or you want to minimize bright reflections on the screen on top of that the touch bar MacBook Pros also get true tone a feature that adjusts the color balance of the display to match your environment I personally love this feature speaker quality volume is a huge deal so here's a sound comparison so you can hear the differences for yourself the 12-inch MacBook offers the quietest speakers with the least amount of bass volume and bass goes up a little bit on the 13-inch MacBook Air but going to the 13-inch MacBook Pros everything gets better the volume increases significantly the bass is deeper and punchier and the highs become very crisp and clear the 15-inch MacBook Pro gets even louder speakers with more bass and a well rounded sound now on to the keyboards they're all packing apples butterfly keys but the new 13-inch MacBook Air in the 2018 touch bar MacBook Pros feature the third-generation butterfly keyboard which includes a silicon barrier beneath the keyboard that's meant to protect the switches from debris that can possibly cause some keys to fail it was a pretty rare issue to begin with but the extra peace of mind is nice to have and it also makes the keyboard quieter as well apart from that the Mac books that feature the wedge design are a little bit more comfortable to type on since the keyboard slopes downward towards the front edge the 2018 MacBook Pros also come with a touch bar giving you interactive and customizable buttons along with the touch ID sensor for logging in and using Apple pay the new MacBook Air also gets the touch ID sensor even though it's missing the touch bar so that's a nice plus for that model considering it's the cheapest those models also come with Apple's t2 security chip and if you don't know what that is click the I icon above when this video is over now let's talk about the ports the 12-inch MacBook only gets a single port so if you want to charge and transfer data at the same time you'll have to buy a USB C hub on top of that it doesn't support Thunderbolt 3 so you're limited to only five gigabits per second transfer speed instead of 40 on the rest of the macbook switch do support Thunderbolt 3 the MacBook Air and the non touch smart MacBook Pro both get to poor and both of the 2018 touch bar MacBook Pros actually get four of them so they're the best options if you love having a lot of ports if you love large trackpads the 15-inch pro has the biggest one of them all in the 12 inch macbook obviously has a smallest one the 13-inch MacBook Air has a considerably smaller trackpad than the 13-inch MacBook Pro which is interesting because the machines themselves are basically the same size for battery life the new MacBook Air is rated at 12 hours compared to 10 hours on the rest of the MacBooks so if battery life is what you're after the air is the best option and if you love using FaceTime they're all packing HD webcams except for the 12-inch MacBook which only gets a 480p FaceTime camera finally let's talk about performance starting with the processors all but the touch bar MacBook Pros have dual-core processors the 13 inch touch bar MacBook Pro gets a quad-core processor in the 15-inch model gets a 6 core processor looking at raw processing power with Geekbench 4 we see a small spike in performance with a non-touch bar 13-inch MacBook Pro in a huge increase with the touch bar MacBook Pros thanks to the extra cores we also looked at performance per dollar using the full retail price of each macbook in the 2018 13 inch quad-core macbook pro comes out on top with the 15 inch model trailing slightly behind as expected the 12 inch macbook gives you extremely low performance per dollar one thing to know is that the 12 inch MacBook is the only one without a fan so performance will take a bigger hit if it starts to heat up now looking at raw graphics performance with Geekbench for the MacBook Pros have a huge advantage here in the 15-inch MacBook Pro skyrockets in terms of performance and that's because it's the only model with the dedicated graphics chip ask for graphics performance per dollar the 13-inch non touch bar MacBook Pro wins here because of its low price and the 15-inch MacBook Pro is right behind it so if you're still confused on which macbook you should buy I'll break it down for you if you want the thinnest lightest macbook you can get and you don't really care about performance ports webcam quality or having the best speakers then buy the 12 inch macbook if you want the absolute best battery life touch ID in the third-generation keyboard but you don't care that much about performance display brightness or the smaller trackpad then go with the new 13 inch MacBook Air now if you want some extra performance better speakers a very bright and color accurate display you don't care much for touch ID and you I have the money to spend on the 2018 touch bar MacBook Pros then definitely go with the 13-inch non touch bar MacBook Pro now if you're trying to get the best processor performance you can get for your dollar go with a 13-inch touch bar MacBook Pro in its quad core processor you'll get four Thunderbolt three ports the touch bar with touch ID the t2 security chip and the third generation keyboard if you're someone who wants the absolute best with the biggest trackpad the best speakers the biggest display and the highest performance you can get with a powerful six core processor in a dedicated graphics chip for intense rendering tasks then definitely go for the 15-inch MacBook Pro that's the exact model that I bought from myself because it personally feels the most professional to me with its largest 15 inch display top-of-the-line speakers and incredible performance so hopefully this video helps you make up your mind and please use the links in the video description for the best deals on mac books you can find anywhere and also check out our Apple price guide as well which also includes the best deals on every product Apple sells like iPad pros in air pods thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video if you enjoy this video like it and hit that subscribe button also check out a price guide which makes it extremely easy to find the best deals and Apple products updated daily be sure to follow us on social media and we'll see you in the next video\n"