Hello everyone,
Setup: I am looking for a laptop that can serve as both my main home computer and a portable work laptop. At home (around 80% of the time), it would be connected via a hub to two external monitors, a keyboard and other peripherals. The remaining 20% of the time, I would use it in the field, for example, working inside a van as part of my research work.
Intended uses:
- Web browsing and general productivity (e.g., Obsidian).
- Excel, including data analysis.
- Work-specific software with relatively modest system requirements (2.0 GHz CPU and 8 GB RAM).
- Statistical analysis software (e.g., JAMOVI).
- R and Phyton
- Some AI-related tasks, but nothing particularly demanding
Option 1: 13-inch MacBook Air M5, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 32 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD.
Option 2: 14-inch MacBook Pro M5, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 16 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD. This would cost £120 more than Option 1. Upgrading the Pro to 32 GB RAM would cost an additional £400 compared with the Air, although I could consider it as a long-term investment if there were a compelling reason to do so.
My main concern with the Air is thermal throttling under sustained workloads, given its fanless design. I have heard from colleagues that their MacBook Airs can get quite hot when running demanding tasks.
Given my use case, would you prioritise the Air's 32 GB of RAM or the Pro's active cooling and potentially better sustained performance? Is the Pro worth the extra cost, particularly if I stick with 16 GB RAM?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!