Apple’s new 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro “occupies a weird space in Apple’s current Mac lineup and there’s little reason for most users to buy it,” Mike Peterson writes for AppleInsider.
Mike Peterson for AppleInsider:
Apple hasn’t revealed why it’s kept the 13-inch MacBook Pro — with an upgraded chip — on the roster. It’s likely that the company won’t ever confirm why.
More than that, the 13-inch MacBook Pro officially becomes available to order on June 17, while the new M2-equipped MacBook Air is still nowhere to be seen. Given the lack of changes, it makes sense that the MacBook Pro would be ready to go sooner, but it lends credence to the theory that Apple is offloading older parts…
Keeping the MacBook Pro virtually unchanged would actually make sense if it received a price drop. However, the 13-inch MacBook Pro retails for $1,299 — the same exact price as its predecessor. That’s also $100 more expensive than the MacBook Air, which has enough new features to justify the cost.
For the majority of users and in the majority of cases, that money is undoubtedly better spent on the MacBook Air. There could be a few exceptions to that, however.
If you work with heavy editing or CPU-intensive tasks, then the 13-inch MacBook Pro could provide sustained performance with its active cooling system. The addition of ProRes encoding and decoding also hints at the fact that the MacBook Pro is meant to be a portable field workstation.
MacDailyNews Take: The new 13.3-inch M2 MacBook Pro also offers a bit more battery life than even the new 13.6-inch M2 MacBook Air, which may be an important factor for some users (the Pro offers up to 17 hours wireless web vs. up to 15 hours for the Air; up to 20 hours Apple TV app movie playback vs. up to 18 hours Apple TV app movie playback for the Air). The Pro sports an integrated 58.2-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery vs. and integrated 52.6-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery for the Air.
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