Gearbest Tech
[Gearbest Technology]The boundaries between iPad Pro and MacBook Air have always been blurred. Although they belong to different categories, they are both the stars of Apple's 13-inch product line. Especially with the arrival of the M4 iPad Pro, it’s quite confusing who to choose.
price
The M4 iPad Pro starts at 8,999 yuan for the 11-inch model and 11,499 yuan for the 13-inch model. On the other hand, the starting price of the M3 MacBook Air 13-inch is also 8,999 yuan.
Don’t forget, if you really want the iPad Pro to be used as a laptop, you have to spend at least 2,399 yuan on a Magic Keyboard, bringing the total price to 11,398 yuan (not counting the Apple Pencil). In this way, you can actually buy a higher-configuration MacBook Air with the same budget. This matter is quite confusing.
design
The M4 iPad Pro has been redesigned and really shines. Apple claims that it has set a record for the thinnest of its own products, with the 11-inch iPad Pro having a thickness of 5.3mm and the 13-inch iPad Pro having a thickness of only 5.1mm.
However, once you pair it with the new Magic Keyboard, the M4 iPad Pro doesn’t have much of an advantage in thinness and lightness compared to the MacBook Air. For reference, the earlier Magic Keyboard made the iPad look thicker than the MacBook Air. So in terms of daily carrying, MacBook Air may be better.
When it comes to the differences between iPad and MacBook, each has its own merits. The MacBook's hinge allows you to adjust more angles, and the convenience of the iPad Pro as a tablet cannot be underestimated. But if you're primarily looking for a laptop replacement, tablet mode may not be as common as you might expect.
In terms of color, the iPad Pro is simple and straightforward, with two options: space gray and silver. MacBook Air offers more options, including silver, space gray, starlight, and the new midnight color.
screen display
The new generation iPad Pro has just been released, and it is obvious that the display effect is better than the MacBook Air. The previous generation iPad Pro was one step ahead with its mini-LED screen, and now the iPad Pro uses OLED technology, which takes the display effect to a new level. Apple has cleverly solved the brightness problem through a double-layer OLED panel design, which makes the iPad Pro screen not only brighter than the MacBook Pro's mini-LED, but also has better contrast.
Of course, for a notebook, the MacBook Air's screen is quite good, with accurate color reproduction and remarkable brightness. However, there are already many affordable Windows OLED notebooks on the market, such as the ASUS Zenbook Q425. Although its OLED screen may not be as bright as Apple's, it still has outstanding visual effects and supports a 120Hz refresh rate, while the MacBook Air screen is still stuck at a 60Hz refresh rate. In comparison, the MacBook Air is slightly inferior in scrolling and animation smoothness, while the iPad Pro has a screen refresh rate of up to 120Hz. In addition, the iPad Pro supports touch operations, while the MacBook Air does not have touch screen functionality.
Keyboard and interface
The biggest change of the new Magic Keyboard is that it is equipped with an enlarged version of the tactile feedback trackpad and the addition of a full-size keyboard layout with a row of 14 function keys. These two improvements make the iPad Pro more practical and bring it closer to the MacBook experience.
As for the interface configuration, the two are almost the same. Both are equipped with two Thunderbolt ports, as long as your iPad Pro is connected to the Magic Keyboard. A small advantage of the MacBook Air compared to the iPad Pro is the addition of a MagSafe 3 charging interface. In this way, the other two interfaces can be freed for use through the dedicated charging port. In addition, the MacBook Air also retains a headphone jack, a convenience that the iPad has not provided for many years.
Performance and battery life
In fact, the M4 chip appeared on the iPad Pro before the MacBook, which surprised many people. How powerful is this new chip? Apple says the M4 is 4 times faster than the M2 and 10 times faster than the M1. At the application level, M4 on iPad Pro is said to be 50% faster in ProCreate and four times more efficient when processing ProRES Raw video streams in Premiere Pro. But compared with the M3, the advantages of the M4 seem to be less prominent, so the specific performance depends on the actual data.
On the other hand, AI capabilities cannot be ignored. Apple will announce artificial intelligence results at next month's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), and M4's neural engine is the key to it. M4 can achieve 38 trillion operations/second (TOPS), which is almost quadrupled compared to M3’s 18 TOPS, which is a huge improvement. Although the specific performance in the future remains to be seen, it is obvious that M4 is a highlight in the field of artificial intelligence.
Interestingly, the M3 MacBook Air may still have an advantage in battery life, after all, the iPad Pro's battery capacity is much smaller.
in conclusion
Ultimately, the key to which device to choose depends on your software needs and usage scenarios. The iPad Pro is more expensive than the MacBook Air, but it's worth every penny. It has a better screen, a faster processor, a dual-camera system, Face ID, and a touchscreen. The MacBook Air offers a variety of configuration options, a larger keyboard and trackpad, long-lasting battery life, a headphone jack and a more portable design, plus a clear price advantage.
Most people may tend to choose the MacBook Air safely. However, the unique experience and screen effect brought by the iPad Pro are difficult to replicate on the Mac. At present, it seems that the boundaries between the iPad and Mac series are becoming increasingly blurred. If practicality is considered, most people may prefer to choose MacBook Air.
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