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Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

Why does the 13" Pro have a 720p camera and the Air have a 1080p? Seriously, why is Apple still putting in 720p cameras? This has to be a mistake, right?

Edit: Also the pro is missing the magsafe charger. Are they phasing out the 13" pro?

Pro: https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-13/specs/

Air: https://www.apple.com/macbook-air-m2/specs/

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To clarify, you’re talking about the 13” Pro only. But yeah, total mystery to me why they’re still selling it. It made sense in 2020 on the cusp of the Intel/Silicon transition, but now that we already have the redesigned 14”, don’t really understand what they’re doing here.

Who would buy one of these? The Touch Bar is an evolutionary dead-end, and the design of the new 14” and 16” Pros seemed specifically targeted at addressing the well-known shortfalls of this previous generation.

Simple answer: price.

13in pro starts at $1299. The newer 14in starts at $1999.

Why purchase a 13in pro over the m2 chip air?

Probably the biggest reason is the fan.

Allows for increased sustained performance as benchmarks have shown with M1.

That’s a fair point. And I guess Apple wouldn’t keep selling them if people weren’t buying.

They always keep selling not-fully-refreshed versions alongside the new redone machines. It’s confusing to look at head to head.

Maybe they do because of it? There's a chance they have some stock of touchbars, old chassis and displays left and therefore are continuing the model series.

> To clarify, you’re talking about the 13” Pro only.

Yes. The 13" Pro is currently the only pro model with a M2 processor. I updated my comment for added clarity.

I might go for it. If it weren't for the keyboard and the odd battery/performance issues with my late 2016MBP I'd be happy with it. When I got it I thought it was too thin, but I got used to it and now the new 14" feels bulky. I loved mag safe, but it's not a must have. I love the 4 USB-C ports, I don't need any other connectors, and I actually enjoy the touch bar.

I'd have to test the keyboard though, the new pro keyboard is awesome so maybe I don't want to miss out on that.

I have a 2020 post-butterfly 13" and one of the new ones from work and I don't think I could tell them apart based on keyboard feel alone. I'm very happy with the 2020 keyboard at any rate, beats the pre-butterfly ones people keep raving about. No idea if they made any major changes after that, but I don't feel much of a difference.

I have the M1 13” Pro, honestly I love it.

13” is the perfect size of laptop IMO, the battery life is insane, the performance is great, the screen is good enough for me (I don’t care about higher refresh rates etc)

If the M2 is just more of the same but faster, yes please. Why fix something that isn’t broken?

The 13” MBP is $1,299 and has better performance and better battery life than the MBA. The 14” is too expensive at $1,999, has inferior battery life, and weighs more.

If I had to buy a laptop today I would get the 13”. The Touch Bar is no issue to me as I use it docked 75% of the time.

I bought M1 13” because:

- size

- Touch Bar (last chance to buy mbp that does not have useless-to-me Fn keys)

It probably has a little to do with marketing. Buyers will instinctively compare the M2 air with the M2 pro and the air will look much better.

“A 1080p web cam, thinner chassis, mag safe and 100$ cheaper. What a steal”

That Pro is the old design. It's just Apple's usual thing of keeping an old design of a product around to serve some kind of gap they see in their market - it creates a confusing product lineup because this means you have:

New Macbook Air: New design & M2 chip

New Macbook Pro 13": Old design & M2 chip

Macbook Pro 14" & 16": New design & M1 Pro/Max chips

The new M2 13" pro is in exactly the same unit as the old Intel 13" pro I guess, just with a different processor?

It's also the only "new" M1 or M2 machine with touchbar (seems to have been dropped elsewhere) and without the new magsafe.

It seems to be kind of a mistake, and a mistake to buy it.

MBP13 is an old form factor so it'll be definitely phased out. There are 14 and 16 that are getting real love these have 1080p webcam IIRC.

But the phase-out period is very long in recent Apple products (which is probably a good thing especially for enterprise context.)

I think the 13" Pro is just to is linger until the 14" can drop in price enough to fill it's spot.

The 13" Pro is now also the only Mac with a TouchBar, which is just strange.

Even the pricing makes me think that this is just a phase out. I'm willing to bet this is the last generation of 13" Pros. Just seems like the 14" is replacing it. As far as I can tell the Air is better than the 13" in almost every way, except maybe the bigger battery and active cooling. You can pay the $100 difference to upgrade the chip to be identical, which is odd for Apple. Usually there is still a minor premium.

Probably haven't phased out old manufacturing pipeline so they "have" to keep making these (and make money off it) before it is gone entirely in the future

Tbh it's weird they even bothered refreshing it, instead of going ahead and phasing it out. It's the only one left with the touch bar, with no MagSafe, etc. The Air's screen is now bigger than it. And there's also the 14-inch MBP. I just don't see the point of it now.

I recently bought an M1 Air and I miss the magsafe charger. I really don't understand why they try to move away from it. A reliable working solution to a problem.

I imagine the existence of the 13" Pro using the old hardware design means the 16" M2 Air is at least another year out, and at some point, it will simply cease to exist.

So, why update it? Redesign it instead.

remember 14" is more like a 13" with a narrower bezel.

The 14" is a tank compared to the 13"

I have a new M1 14" MBP, and an old 2015(!) Intel 13" MBP.

They are pretty much exactly the same height/width, if you put one on top of the other they line up close to perfectly. The 14" just has less bezel.

The M1 14" is thicker and heavier though.

Meh. Same thickness, 8mm wider, 9mm deeper. I'll grant that 200g is a noticeable increase.

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