Display and Resolution: Liquid Retina vs. XDR
Let’s start with one of the most noticeable differences. I’m not talking about chassis thickness or weight, but rather the display and the viewing experiences each model provides.
(Credit: Brian Westover)
The MacBook Air features a 13.6-inch or 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display, depending on the Air model (which Apple dubs “13-inch” or “15-inch”). These screens display different resolutions at different sizes, but both MacBook Air models produce 224 pixels per inch (ppi), a step up from the full-HD displays common on many laptops. That’s plenty of pixels for reading documents, browsing the web, and streaming video in full HD.
On the other hand, the MacBook Pro, which comes in 14.2-inch and 16.2-inch models (“14-inch” and “16-inch”), uses Apple’s Liquid Retina XDR display to boost the resolution to an impressive 254ppi. Liquid Retina XDR unlocks sharpness exceeding 3K, ideal for detailed visual work like photo and video editing, or high-resolution streaming and gaming.
On top of this, the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro displays differ in a few other key ways. The MacBook Air’s panel is a standard 60Hz display with a locked refresh rate and 500 nits of brightness, the latter being quite bright for a mainstream laptop. It combines with support for 1 billion colors and a full P3 wide color gamut. (Our reviews have noted that it looks vibrant and lifelike.)
(Credit: Brian Westover)
However, the MacBook Pro’s displays, in either size, are significantly better in several ways. In addition to sharper resolution, the MacBook Pro’s Liquid Retina XDR panels produce a sustained brightness of 1,000 nits at high dynamic range (HDR), and can ramp up to an even higher 1,600 nits for HDR content. (The MacBook Air doesn’t support HDR content at all.) With the release of the 2025 MacBook Pro with M5, this display can ramp up the brightness of standard dynamic range, or SDR, content to 1,000 nits for better readability in bright light, such as outdoor use, or if you’re seated near a window. This brighter display and HDR capability, combined with its adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz, makes the MacBook Pro’s display exceptionally suited for detailed visual work like photo and video editing, as well as providing a smoother and more immersive experience for gamers.
Mini-LED backlighting enables these impressive features. The technology employs numerous local dimming zones behind an LED panel to produce superb contrast and brightness control and enable HDR output. The MacBook Air, on the other hand, uses fairly standard LED backlighting.
The MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro both serve up high-quality displays, with very little to complain about. However, if you sit the two side by side, the difference is clear: The MacBook Pro has a significantly better screen.
Winner: MacBook Pro
Design: Portability vs. Power
In recent years, the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro have begun to look much more alike. They share Apple’s signature aesthetic, with sleek metal construction and slim designs in both cases. But you’ll find some key differences.
(Credit: Brian Westover)
The MacBook Pro measures 0.6 or 0.7 inch thick, depending on the model, and even the larger one weighs less than 5 pounds. By almost any definition, the MacBook Pro is relatively thin and light. But the MacBook Air adds new meaning to those words, measuring just 0.44 inch thick and weighing as little as 2.7 pounds in the 13-inch model. That makes the MacBook Air the lightest and most compact laptop in Apple’s lineup, and one of the most portable laptop designs you’ll find.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The primary differences in design come down to two things. The first is temperature and airflow. Built for performance, the MacBook Pro has a larger chassis to accommodate active cooling: Small fans inside the laptop draw in cool air and force out heated air, moving heat away from the processor.
The MacBook Air, in contrast, has no internal fans, relying on passive cooling through the chassis to produce “good enough” cooling. That’s a positive if you don’t like fan noise. But the MacBook Air cannot match the top performance levels that you’ll see on the Pro because it has to pull back a bit to prevent the system from getting too hot and throttling during prolonged intensive workloads. The MacBook Pro, with its active cooling system, can produce better performance from that standard chip and accommodate higher tiers of CPU that are too hot for the MacBook Air.
The second big difference in design is the battery. The MacBook Pro’s larger chassis has a larger battery inside, meaning higher power capacity and longer life (which we’ve proved in our real-world testing). The MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro both deliver impressive all-day battery life, but the MacBook Pro consistently lasts longer than 24 hours in our video rundown tests. (More on that below.)
The MacBook Air, on the other hand, prioritizes light weight and portability. It’s one of the most compact laptops you will find, ideal for users on the go, students shuttling between classes, professionals who travel frequently, or even casual users who don’t want to lug a larger laptop to the couch.
Ultimately, whether your focus is portability or performance, the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro represent tailored solutions for either need.
Winner: Tie
Processing Speed Benchmarks: M4 vs. M5
The next significant difference between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro lies in their processor options. The launch of the MacBook Air laptops with M4 chips puts the Air on a more even footing with the base-level MacBook Pro. For many everyday tasks like web browsing, document editing, and streaming, the MacBook Air’s M4 chip can match the entry-level MacBook Pro’s performance. But the MacBook Pro is also available with more powerful Apple processors, specifically the new M5 chip, along with the M4 Pro and the M4 Max.
These chips feature more processing cores, additional GPU cores, and higher memory capacities, elevating the MacBook Pro from a mainstream laptop to a workstation-grade machine. Therefore, the Pro is better suited for tasks such as rendering animations and engineering software that would overwhelm the humble M4 chip. These higher-end chips are specifically intended for professional workloads that demand sustained, high-level computational power.
Then there’s speed. Regardless of which test you examine, the MacBook Pro is generally faster than the Air laptops, and its active cooling system enables it to sustain peak performance for extended periods without thermal throttling. In contrast, the fanless MacBook Air may see performance dips during prolonged intensive tasks.
True, the M4 MacBook Air laptops and the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 posted similar scores in several tests. However, the launch of the M5-powered MacBook Pro significantly widens the gap. In our testing, the new M5 chip delivered a 19% improvement in multi-core processing over the M4 model, as measured by the Geekbench 6 benchmark, along with significant gains in graphics and AI tasks. This puts the entry-level MacBook Pro firmly ahead of the Air, even before you consider the workstation-class M4 Pro and M4 Max chips found in higher-end configurations.
Winner: MacBook Pro
Graphics Performance Benchmarks: A Clear Gap Between Air and Pro
Graphics performance is another area where the MacBook Pro significantly outpaces the Air. Comparing the graphics options on the MacBook Air, you can get the base M-series chips with an eight- or 10-core GPU. That’s more than adequate for daily use, from streaming video to basic gaming. It’s also capable of handling light creative tasks, such as photo editing and casual video editing.
The entry-level MacBook Pro, now equipped with the M5 chip, tells a drastically different story. While it also starts with a 10-core GPU, the architecture has been overhauled with new Neural Accelerators attached to each graphics core and enhanced ray tracing capabilities. In our testing, this resulted in a big gap between it and the MacBook Air’s M4, allowing the base Pro even to play some demanding games, like Cyberpunk 2077, that the Air struggles with.
For workstation-grade power, you can still step up to the M4 Pro or M4 Max. These chips boost the GPU core count to either 16 or 20 GPU cores, while the M4 Max takes it even further, with 32-core and 40-core options.
The same performance divide is evident in our graphics tests. The different Air models all sit in the same range, but the MacBook Pro line now surges ahead, starting with the base model. The new M5 chip unlocks capabilities and use cases at the entry level that were previously impossible.
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Specifically, the M5 is much better at rendering complex 3D models in apps like Blender and producing smoother gameplay in graphically demanding games. We even saw playable frame rates in some blockbuster games on the base-level M5 processor’s graphics. Of course, the M4 Pro and M4 Max configurations push this further, unlocking workstation-grade capability for smooth 4K (or sharper) editing and professional-level 3D production. We must assume that M5 Pro and M5 Max chips will be forthcoming (they’re not official yet) and reach even loftier heights.
Winner: MacBook Pro
Keyboard and Trackpad: Hands-On Differences
In the past, the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air offered markedly different hands-on experiences due to their distinct keyboard designs. Now, they’re much more similar because of Apple’s Magic Keyboard design, complete with backlit keys, full-height function keys, and integrated Touch ID.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
However, they’re still not exactly alike. The MacBook Pro, having more chassis space to play with, provides deeper key travel and a key-switch design that hits with more satisfying feedback and sound while typing. The MacBook Air has a shallower key depth, resulting in a spongier typing feel and a bit more resistance to each key press. These are minor differences, but they matter if you spend a lot of time using laptop keyboards.
(Credit: Brian Westover)
The accompanying trackpad is also a point of distinction. The MacBook Air uses a slick, glass-surfaced design, decently sized for tapping and scrolling, with instant response and elegant haptic feedback.
The MacBook Pro amplifies those powerful positives further. The Pro’s trackpad is larger, and it has a different overall feel than the Air’s, probably due to the stouter chassis’ more substantial backing to the trackpad and its accompanying haptics.
Winner: MacBook Pro
Battery Life Testing: Both Are Endurance Machines
I briefly touched on battery size earlier. The Pro has a larger battery, which means a larger capacity for energy storage and, in turn, longer battery life.
That difference—one of the most significant between the two models—shows up in our video-playback test. Both laptop lines have superb longevity, with batteries that will carry you through a full day of work or school and your leisure time before and after, all without needing to charge. The MacBook Air is estimated to last up to 18 hours on a charge, and our testing bears this out.
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The MacBook Pro tops that substantially. Our testing confirmed Apple’s peak 24-hour battery life claim, with the new M5 model lasting 24 hours and 6 minutes. While the previous M4 model exceeded this estimate by hours, the M5 appears to trade some of that extreme longevity for its big boost in AI and graphics power. Regardless, MacBook Pro models consistently produce some of the longest battery-life results we’ve seen from any laptop.
However, you must look at this difference in battery life in context. Battery life can vary significantly based on workload and display brightness. The MacBook Pro delivers better performance than the MacBook Air and needs a larger battery to power that speed. But higher speeds shorten the battery life, making this a moot point for more demanding users. This larger battery capacity is partly offset by its more demanding hardware—especially with the M5’s new GPU architecture—meaning that while it still provides exceptional longevity, its advantage over the Air in lighter tasks might be less pronounced than the raw numbers suggest.
Winner: MacBook Pro
SSD Storage: Space Options and Speed
If you haven’t caught on to the recurring theme, the difference in performance and portability between the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air may lead you to think that bigger is better. While that’s not always true, it does apply to storage. The MacBook Air and the Pro provide multiple configuration options to increase storage. The MacBook Air is available with up to 2TB of SSD capacity.
The MacBook Pro provides significantly more headroom. The new base M5 model now supports up to 4TB of storage (double the previous limit), while the M4 Pro and M4 Max configurations quadruple the Air’s limit to a massive 8TB. Speed is also a factor: The new M5 MacBook Pro enjoys a doubling in SSD speeds compared with the previous generation, Apple claims, giving it a distinct advantage over the Air when loading large projects or local AI models.
Whether you need all that storage is entirely a matter of individual preferences and needs. Remember this: The MacBook Pro can give you much more space to play with if you up-configure it, but you’ll pay a lot to do so. Adding storage to a MacBook Pro can cost an additional $200 to $300 per terabyte compared with using an external drive.
Winner: MacBook Pro
Port Selection: More Connections on the MacBook Pro
Thanks to its fanless design and shaved-down chassis, the MacBook Air stays slim and light. But it compromises on ports in the pursuit of portability.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Aside from the MagSafe power connector and the headphone jack, the MacBook Air offers only two ports, both of which are Thunderbolt 4. You lose a bit of portability if you have to carry along port adapters for common peripherals or accessories.
(Credit: Brian Westover)
The MacBook Pro fleshes out the port selection with a third Thunderbolt 4 connector, a full-size HDMI 2.1 port, and an SDXC card slot. Those extra ports are convenient for connecting to external displays without an adapter, grabbing photos or video off of a memory card, or just taking advantage of the higher speed of Thunderbolt 4. (And, on higher-CPU models, those Thunderbolts get upgraded to Thunderbolt 5.)
Winner: MacBook Pro
Pricing: The Affordability Factor Favors the Air
Finally, let’s get to the one area where you may not want more: the spend.
The MacBook Pro delivers higher performance and impressive features, but it does so at a premium price. Crucially, however, Apple has held the line: The new M5 MacBook Pro starts at $1,599, the same price as the M4 model it replaces. You get a significantly more powerful machine, featuring next-gen AI and graphics capabilities, without a price hike.
That said, the MacBook Air remains the more affordable option. It’s the least expensive contemporary MacBook while still delivering excellent everyday performance and features, not to mention superb portability.
If your biggest concern in your buying decision is your budget—and that’s the case for most laptop shoppers—then the MacBook Air takes a sizable lead. Apple’s recent $100 price cuts for both of the base M4 MacBook Air models compound this advantage.
So it’s easy to see how the MacBook Air became one of the most popular laptops in the world. It combines Apple’s well-regarded premium design with M4 configurations that are more affordable than the previous generation.
Winner: MacBook Air
