Let's say, for example, you were willing to bet on the brand new world of Apple silicon with the M1 chip You've got two choices: the new MacBook Air or the new $1,299 MacBook Pro 13-inch

Both laptops are powered by Apple's powerful new M1 chip, which promises to blow away the best Windows-based laptops So why pay $300 more for a MacBook Pro? There are some notable differences between the two Apple silicon Macs, as described below, but not enough to justify the premium

The new MacBook Air is sleeker and lighter than the MacBook Pro, weighing 28 pounds and ranging from 016" to 063" thick; the MacBook Pro weighs 3 pounds and is 061" thick

Sure, the MacBook Pro has a Touch Bar display, which is handy for shortcuts, but I don't see that as a real advantage

The new MacBook Air has the same powerful M1 chip as the MacBook Pro That is, the same four high-power cores and four high-efficiency cores to balance heavy workloads and light tasks

However, while the MacBook Air has a 7-core GPU, the MacBook Pro is boosted to 8 cores That doesn't seem like a big difference to me

It is worth noting that the MacBook Pro has an active cooling system, while the Air is fanless, so the Pro may offer more sustained performance under heavy load

Other specs are similar: universal memory (RAM) in the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro starts at 8GB and increases up to 16GB Storage for both models starts at 256GB and goes up to 2TB

The MacBook Pro's display has a clear advantage at 500 nits versus the MacBook Air's 400 nits The Air also supports P3 wide color gamut, and both systems support True Tone

When it comes to audio quality, the MacBook Pro has stereo speakers with high dynamic range and wide stereo sound, and Dolby Atmos support In addition, it has three studio-quality microphones

The MacBook Air also has stereo speakers and three microphones, but they are not as high quality as the Pro

This is probably the biggest difference between the two laptops: the MacBook Air has up to 18 hours of battery life when streaming video, while the MacBook Pro has 20 hours Also, the Air can be used for up to 15 hours of surfing the web, whereas the Pro can withstand 17 hours

It remains to be seen how well the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro will handle older Intel apps, but looking at the specs and features, the Air appears to be a much better bargain You get nearly the same performance, in a thinner and lighter design, for less money

Benchmarks and reviews may change my opinion, but for now I'd give the Air the nod