MacBook Pro 2021 vs. MacBook Air 2020: New M1 chips complicate your laptop choice

This is the first brand-new screen size for a MacBook since the 15-inch Pro went to 16 inches in 2019 (the iMac added a 24-inch version this past summer). Along with that, it actually gets both thicker and heavier. The trade-off is that the thicker body allows for all those extras, like the resurrected HDMI and SD card ports. 

The bigger screen covers even more of the top panel, with thinner bezels. So thin, in fact, that the webcam has been reduced to a notch, cutting into the display itself, much like on an iPhone. So far, I've heard mixed reactions to that, but I think the better 1080p-resolution webcam more than makes up for it. I've used the 1080p webcams in the 27-inch iMac and newer 24-inch iMac, and it makes a huge difference in video meetings. 

Keep in mind these shopping notes are based on the on-paper specs for the new MacBooks, plus my long experience testing and reviewing MacBooks, which goes back to the very first MacBook Pro in 2006 and the first MacBook Air in 2008. For more in-depth notes, make sure to check out my review of the 14-inch MacBook Pro.

If you're more about portability than the big screen, especially if you output to a larger display, the 14-inch feels (on paper) like the sweet spot for portability and power.

Just about everything I said about the 14-inch MacBook Pro applies here as well. The two devices are remarkably similar, and you get both with either the M1 Pro or the M1 Max. Both also share the same heat pipe cooling system. New ports? The same. Notch-based 1080 camera? Same. No more Touch Bar? Same. The main difference, spec-wise, is that the 14-inch starts with some less powerful M1 options, with a base of eight CPU and 14 GPU cores. The 16-inch starts with 10 CPU and 16 GPU cores in its version of the M1 Pro. Both support up to the 10 CPU and 32 GPU cores version of the M1 Max chip. 

To spec out a 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro with the closest matching specs, you end up with that M1 Pro 10 CPU/16 GPU chip, plus 16GB RAM and 512GB storage. On the 14-inch version, that will cost $2,299. In the 16-inch, it's $2,499. So you basically pay a $200 premium for a 2-inch-larger screen. (The 16-inch maxes out at over $6,000.)

And it could certainly be worth that. The previous 16-inch MacBook Pro was pretty impressive to look at. As opposed to the power-plus-portability pitch of the 14-inch Pro, the 16-inch feels like it's for people who want a bit of the feel of a big-screen desktop, without actually having a desktop.

At first, I was somewhat wary of jumping into an M1 MacBook Air. I was worried about compatibility issues with things like Adobe software and about overall performance compared to the trusted old Intel MacBook Air. 

But after nearly a year, I can say the Intel-to-M1 transition has been relatively smooth. The best thing I can say about the M1 chip is that it's largely transparent to the everyday MacBook Air user, which is exactly what you want from a big under-the-hood change like this. 

Apple's Rosetta emulation, for software not yet optimized for the M1, still runs most programs just as well as it did under Intel chips. Key Adobe software and other creative apps were updated for native M1 support, with more on the way. I've run into occasional problems with gaming apps or some drivers, and support apps for things like a label printer and some 3D-printing software.