Don't Buy the M4 MacBook Air until You Watch This!

Summary

Highlights

• Se Park compares the M4 MacBook Air and M3 Pro MacBook Pro, focusing on video editing. 🎥
• He reveals that removing a keyboard cover impacts the MacBook Air's performance due to thermal constraints. 🔥
• The MacBook Pro outperforms with better results in benchmarks and video rendering tests. 🥇
• An OLED screen by Up Perfect boosts visual quality, offering a solution to the smaller MacBook displays. 🖥️
• Se Park stresses waiting for price drops, especially for the M4 MacBook Air, due to significant price fluctuations within a year. ⏳

Key Takeaways

• The M4 MacBook Air and the M3 Pro MacBook Pro are closely matched in performance, but the Pro holds the edge with better thermal management and display capabilities. 🌡️
• Screen wobble and heat issues in the M4 MacBook Air can be problematic, especially on unstable surfaces like coffee shop tables. ⚖️
• A secondary OLED screen can enhance the video editing experience significantly, providing more screen real estate and better color accuracy. 🎨
• Prices for new MacBooks can drop by up to 30% within a year, so waiting can be more economical. 💸
• The video highlights the importance of real-world testing conditions, showing comprehensive benchmarks for both machines. 🧪

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Video Purpose The chapter introduces the context of the discussion, highlighting a transitional period in the Apple laptop lineup with an incoming MacBook Air and an outgoing MacBook Pro. The narrator, S Park, also shares a personal update about his life, indicating his new role as a 'stayhome dad/ YouTuber' due to fewer wedding shooting opportunities. This new role is relevant to a decision he plans to discuss later in the video.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Laptop Specifications and Pricing In this chapter titled "Laptop Specifications and Pricing," the narrator discusses budget laptops for 2025, focusing on their suitability for video editing. The narrator aims to assist viewers in selecting the right budget laptop by highlighting specifications that are often overlooked. Additionally, the video will unveil details about a 16-inch OLED screen by Up Perfect. The conclusion will include a personal decision on which laptop the narrator plans to discard.
• 03:00 - 04:00: Benchmark Testing The chapter titled 'Benchmark Testing' discusses a comparison between two laptops, namely the new 15-inch M4 MacBook Air with upgraded 24 GB memory and 512 GB SSD, and the previous generation 14-inch M3 Pro MacBook Pro with 18 GB memory and 512 GB SSD.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Cooling and Thermal Imaging The chapter discusses the pricing dynamics of SSDs by using a specific laptop purchase experience as an example. Initially, the narrator bought a laptop for $1,700, while the same model was later purchased for $1,600. Interestingly, the price dropped to $1,400 at B&H, indicating how prices fluctuate in the tech market. This scenario sets the stage for comparing benchmarks between two laptops. The chapter ends with the anticipation of conducting a 'cold start' test to compare the two devices.
• 05:00 - 08:00: Performance Comparison The chapter 'Performance Comparison' starts with the speaker expressing a fondness for technology that is both silent and fast, akin to Electric Vehicles (EVs). The speaker specifically mentions conducting a performance test involving the M4 Mac Mini and two other laptops. The result was clear: the M4 Mac Mini outperformed the other devices in this comparison. There's a hint of a narrative related to removing a keyboard cover, suggesting a personal or technical anecdote tied to the speaker's experience during the benchmark test. The speaker's enthusiasm for using the keyboard is also noted.
• 08:00 - 13:00: Display and Monitor Discussion This chapter discusses the importance of using the correct display and monitor settings for video editing tasks. It highlights the personal preferences and necessities such as having a case that fits perfectly and accommodating small habits like snacking while working. The chapter mentions using the Premiere Pro video editing software and describes a benchmarking process using the Puja system. It emphasizes the need to upgrade software and benchmarks to the latest versions for accurate performance comparison across different setups.
• 18:00 - 21:00: Final Decision and Closing Thoughts The chapter discusses the performance benchmarking of the M4 MacBook Air 15-inch and the M3 Pro MacBook Pro 14-inch. Initial tests show the MacBook Air scoring lower than expected due to an oversight in testing conditions. This highlights the importance of consistent testing environments. The narrative concludes with reflections on these results and their implications for choosing between these models.

Don't Buy the M4 MacBook Air until You Watch This! Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 so this is a strange time to own a computer especially when it comes to owning a Apple laptop so we now have a incoming MacBook Air that's competing directly with a outgoing MacBook Pro or do we hey how's it going my name is S Park and I'm going to change my title this year my title this year is going to be stayhome dad/ YouTuber yeah I don't have a lot of weddings this year to second shoot and also I'm kind of getting into this now and I'm saying that because that role is going to play directly into the decision I'm going to make towards the end of the video that
• 00:30 - 01:00 technically I already made so at the end of this video I'll reveal which laptop I'm getting rid of but really I want to help you guys decide which budget laptop is right for you especially when it comes to video editing and yes this is the year 2025 doesn't oft cost $16 so these are the budget laptops we're going to talk about and even if you're not into video editing I'm going to reveal some things about these laptops that are not commonly talked about so this should be helpful also as part of this video I want to share with you about this 16-in OLED screen by Up Perfect and how this
• 01:00 - 01:30 monitor addresses some of the shortcomings about these two laptops but before we get started I should tell you the exact specification of these two laptops so this right here is the brand new 15-in M4 MacBook Air with 512 GB of SSD and I also upgrade the memories to 24 GB on this one and over here is the last generation M3 Pro not just M3 M3 Pro MacBook Pro this is the 14-in this has 18 gigs of memory and also 512 GB of
• 01:30 - 02:00 SSD so when it comes to pricing this is where it gets kind of interesting in 2025 is that when I first bought this less than a year ago I purchased this for $1,700 and this one right here I just bought it at $1,600 but as I was making this video interesting enough B&H currently has this laptop for $1,400 so in some sense for price they are almost neck to neck all right before I share which is some of the benchmarks I already done uh let's go ahead and do a little cold start of these two laptops so ready and
• 02:00 - 02:30 start love that music yep i like my laptop like how I like my EVs silent and fast yep just as expected so when I did this test with the M4 Mac Mini yeah that thing destroyed the other two laptops I was testing with but first thing I'm going to do actually is take off this keyboard cover there's a story behind this you'll see this in a second and a benchmark but yeah I love using keyboard
• 02:30 - 03:00 covers cuz one they fit like a glove these are the Case by ones i tried so many of them this is the only one that fits like perfectly and also I like to eat Cheetos while I'm doing some editing so this Premiere Pro video editing software benchmark is by Puja system it is free to download if you guys want to try it but I did have to upgrade my Premiere Pro and my Puja system benchmark on this one so everything is at the latest level so I can compare this benchmark directly to the previous benchmark I done with this but I made sure that these two systems were
• 03:00 - 03:30 identical down to the room temperature so when I first ran the benchmark the M4 MacBook Air 15in got 3,637 whereas in the M3 Pro MacBook Pro 14in got 5,821 and I was kind of a little bit surprised i'm like that seems a little slow for this M4 and you guys probably already noticed from the B-roll when I do these benchmarks I do plug the laptops in so both of them are plugged in but what I didn't realize my first benchmark was with the keyboard cover on the M4 MacBook Air and that made well
• 03:30 - 04:00 let me just show you there you go without the keyboard cover I got 4,768 that's how big of a difference it makes when there's a thermal restriction on this laptop whereas in this M3 MacBook Pro it does have a fan i know it's super silent but it has fans inside and it didn't make a huge difference without the keyboard cover it got 5,836 a wise moon would say barely an inconvenience so I thought that was interesting so I did do some thermal imaging on both of these laptops and I
• 04:00 - 04:30 have to tell you this MacBook Air was getting close to 120° right around that six key whereas in this MacBook Pro was hovering way below 100° and as you can see by this thermal imaging you can see the hot air coming out of that left and right side and again this was in a very controlled environmentish in an Asian household in a springtime i have the heaters off it's about 70° in here there's no direct sunlight hitting any of these laptops so again ideal situation so I want to dig a little bit
• 04:30 - 05:00 deeper into a real life scenario what it's like to use these two machines as a video editing computer so let me go ahead and fire up Premiere Pro i did prepare some projects for you guys here all right you guys want to see which one launches the project first there you go that's so fast it doesn't even matter and just letting you guys know I am screen recording right now so that's going to eat away a little bit into the processing but it's not going to really hurt till later down this road so first
• 05:00 - 05:30 up is just regular 4K 60 4:22 10 bit Sony footage and as you guys can see it's not going to drop any frames let's get a little bit harder on this one all right so the next up is what I consider a 5K so this is 1.33 anamorphic stretch so 5K resolution technically it is upscale but I do work on this footage a lot so previously same thing uh I have one color adjustment layer and then one contrast adjustment layer so L applied
• 05:30 - 06:00 and then contrast later so two adjustments so pretty standard and here we go easy peasy both of them green green meaning it's not dropping any frames again this is 60 frames per second 4:22 10 bit footage so I already know the results so I'm going to go ahead and stop it here so this doesn't have any problem playing back 4K and 5K 4:22 10 bit Sony footage with two adjustment layers so now we get to the interesting
• 06:00 - 06:30 part i'm going to go to AK now I personally don't own an AK camera this is a Sony A1 footage 42010 bit uh courtesy of DP Review if you go to their site you can download this to see for yourself but check this out gonna go ahead and play the full footage here and go yep both of them right away you can see yellow which means it's dropping frames let's find out which laptop dropped the most frames and we have here 81 frames dropped on the MacBook Pro and
• 06:30 - 07:00 119 frames dropped on the MacBook Air now I'm going to go ahead and turn off some of the adjustment layers all right so no adjustment layer let's see what happens and go oh okay both of them got some yellows all right so we have here MacBook Pro dropping three frames only whereas in the MacBook Air dropping 67 frames all right just so we are clear on the real
• 07:00 - 07:30 life scenario I'm going to go ahead and stop the screen recording and show you guys one more time and go so without screen recording both of them did not drop frames okay now let's up the ante one more time so I'm going to turn on the adjustment layer and you'll be able to tell realistically how many frames did this laptop drop okay turning yellow already all right so let's start with MacBook Pro dropped 73 frames on that
• 07:30 - 08:00 time around interesting and this time around 114 frames dropped on here now there's one more thing obviously no one's going to actually do a full res preview on a 8 AK project so I'm going to go ahead and drop this down to like half res just in case I want to like pixel peep and zoom in so let's do a half res here real quick okay and half res okay i'm impressed all right macbook Air it's slicing through half res no problem ak footage with the adjustment color
• 08:00 - 08:30 grading on okay so that was kind of an insane test even for me this is the first time me doing it like side by side like this i just know that this M4 MacBook Air it is impressive but when it comes to rendering I have a feeling as the previous test if you guys saw my last video you guys already know this but I wonder how much thermal throttling this is going to do when I start to render so I have a 10-minute 4K video ready for you guys i'm going to go ahead and export exactly same setting it's at 50 megabits per second and this time I'm not going to make that mistake of
• 08:30 - 09:00 exporting at 60 frames per second yes the footage is 60 frames per second but I'm going to go ahead and export at 24 or technically 23.976 frames per second just like I would do on a YouTube video so let me get the timer ready here i know I don't have my kids to help me out and click on it exactly at the same time so it's going to be slightly offset to a couple seconds to this timer but let me go ahead and hover over this okay I only get one chance right start and both of them start okay it's done all right let's see
• 09:00 - 09:30 how long it takes a few moments later all right almost done on the MacBook Pro well that's my wife done it was about 6 minute and 30 secondish all right and we're still chugging on the MacBook Air eternity later and here we go all right about 10 minute and 40 secondish yeah that's a a huge difference between these two but don't get me wrong by no means these two laptops are slow i remember
• 09:30 - 10:00 the days when exporting a 10-minute video 4K took way longer than actual 10 minutes so this is still good it's just that yeah that's warm oh my goodness and you might be also wondering why are you not plugged in doing these benchmarks so this is my workflow guys so most of the time when I'm taking this laptop to a coffee shop or anywhere else I am not really plugged in so it is so impressive that it's able to slice through most of these tests no problem without even being plugged in and this last video
• 10:00 - 10:30 editing test has a little bit to do with gaming but really it's for my purpose so I want to get into Unreal Engine editing and I did the test previously on this MacBook Pro and it did okay so this time around it was getting around 20 frames per second whereas in the MacBook Air this one is actually slower than the M4 Mac Mini so this 15-inch MacBook Air error is getting around lower teens it was even dipping to single digits so when it comes to graphics power clearly the MacBook Pro has advantage but if you're trying to get into Unreal Engine
• 10:30 - 11:00 editing I would probably draw the line on this machine here but I have a slight theory when it comes to why this machine scored pretty high on that Premier Pro benchmark and you probably guessed it right it has to do with the disc speed so I'm going to go ahead and run this test real quick to show you guys let's just make sure I'm on the correct setting on both of them identical yes 5 gig please and ready and All right so I'm getting Wow okay this is faster than before so 3,400ish
• 11:00 - 11:30 megabytes per second on the right about 3,000 megabytes per read and the M3 MacBook Pro yeah this is getting over 4,000 megabytes per second on the read so I already knew about that but still this MacBook Air has a pretty impressive disc re-sp speeded comparing this with my base model Mac Mini that's also M4 that one was getting around 2,000 megabytes per second on the right and around 2700 on the read so compared to
• 11:30 - 12:00 that this is significantly faster this is the 512 GB SSD of course so it is taking advantage of that dual N so just remember guys when you get this laptop definitely consider 512 GB of SSD in fact that's like the minimum these days for video editing anyway and you might be wondering at this point how in the world are you going to decide which laptop to get rid of they're really close at this point so the next topic is going to be the screen oh yeah so this MacBook Pro has a liquid red XDR display
• 12:00 - 12:30 that can top off to 1600 nits in HDR content it is insane how good this thing looks and even for refresh rate this display can support up to 120 hertz now you can't actually select manually 120 hertz they call this prootion but it has variable refresh rate it can push up to that whereas in this monitor here yeah so this is the old tech 15-in MacBook Air still sports the the old LED back lit IPS it's 60 Hz on the refresh rate
• 12:30 - 13:00 so not the best when it comes to fastm moving frames now would most people notice it probably not i do notice it when I'm scrolling web pages really fast my eyes do get strained a little bit more on this display compared to this one but I have to go back to the reason why I was considering this 15-inch MacBook Air is that 1 in i know it's just 1 in makes a huge difference when it comes to video editing even this single display for 15-in is really not enough for me to actually video edit in
• 13:00 - 13:30 i do have this dual 32in monitor setup at home with my Mac Mini so I'm kind of spoiled by that this 14-in wasn't really doing it for me i am getting a little bit older so tiny little display with all my timeline crammed in there i was squinting a lot yeah just not enough so this is where I like to introduce you to this gorgeous 16-in OLED display that is look how thin this is guys i mean like I'm just going to take the cover off for a second look at that yeah that to me
• 13:30 - 14:00 was the most insane part of this monitor full transparency you Perfect did send me this monitor uh they actually asked me to pick any monitor I want from their website and I picked this one and there was a reason for it this is not a sponsored video but I do have to make this video on time that was my promise so I'm making this video part of this because of this but I think it does solve some problems here so let me go ahead and take away this laptop for a second let me show you something really cool all right first of all this does have a built-in monitor stand so the cover which is kind of like a
• 14:00 - 14:30 leather-like material what you do is you fold it over now most of the review that's online give kind of bad review on this saying that when you put this on it just slides off what you have to do is actually fold this over there's a magnet behind it and then it stops there so that's the important part but one of the feature that really stood out to me when it comes to having this as a secondary monitor is that on a clutch I wouldn't do this like every time but on a clutch I could connect this on a single USBC cable now I'm going to use that cable on
• 14:30 - 15:00 purpose in a second I'll show you plug that in and it's going to automatically detect it and right now this cable is telling me how many watts it's going into it so right now it's using six watts from the laptop to this monitor so it's not too bad but you guys have to look at this color look at this color so this is not your regular LCD screen this is 100,000 to1 contrast ratio color it also supports 10 bit if you're a videographer you know how important that is going from 8 bit to 10 bit huge difference it's 3K resolution and it's
• 15:00 - 15:30 500 nits so you can use this even outdoor as long as it's shaded under the sun now it is a glossy screen just like your Mac so some people don't like that but it's matching the actual style of my Mac so this monitor can really help the limitation of both of these laptops so on the 14-in not having enough screen real estate this is going to help you expand that and also this is 120 hertz so on the MacBook Air it was 60 Hz right so if you feel like you're missing out
• 15:30 - 16:00 on the hertz side you can add this monitor to get your 120 Hz fixed now the way I would use this traveling I just traveled to WPPI in Las Vegas and I brought this monitor with me cuz I was supposed to do a recap video for that event so the way I travel with it I did bring one more USBC cable so you can do one more USBC cable and this is going to be for power and you don't have to have a wall plug for this because it's such a low power monitor i just brought one of these this is an MPF battery and you
• 16:00 - 16:30 guys seen this before so this one dual purpose it's going to power some of my lights but what's special about this particular one is that it does have USBC but not only does this actually charge via USBC it can also do a USBC out meaning I can plug this in bam and it will power oh just got brighter so when it's plugged into the laptop directly using one cable it's going to be in lower power mode when it's on battery it's going to get brighter but you'll notice that it's still saying 5 watt here so it's actually doing the other way around now
• 16:30 - 17:00 so this battery is powering this monitor and it's actually charging my laptop right now so this is the setup I have so I'm going to go ahead and leave the link in the description about this battery and especially for this monitor so you Perfect is telling me that there's going to be a special coupon code for my audience so this is going to be heavily discounted so I'm not sure how much exactly that's going to be so check out the link below but the real reason why I also picked this one this is really for filmmakers out there so check this out guys so you guys know how much I love
• 17:00 - 17:30 holes especially when it comes to plates like this this right here is a VESA mount that has so many quarter20 holes in it and guess what this monitor right here you guessed it right it has VESA mount so I'm going to mount this onto here you see where I'm going with this so yes if you're a colorist a video editor colorist this monitor is gonna be a little bit too good too much color too contrasty so you do have to calibrate this monitor but for watching movies
• 17:30 - 18:00 playing games or even just have something that's on the side of your laptop as a second monitor this is a huge plus in fact that it is very easy to travel with instead of fast i was constantly using this when I was traveling i was using at the Airbnb we rented out with the brand I was working with i was working at the airport with dual monitor setup yeah I felt like I didn't miss too much on my dual monitor at home all right let me go ahead and clear this out and tell you guys what I decided in terms of which laptop I'm going to keep and which laptop I'm going to get rid of all right so if you guys
• 18:00 - 18:30 follow me on Instagram you guys already know I have problem with this 15-in laptop because when I Here I'm gonna go ahead and shake the table a little bit you can't really see too much from this angle from the top view but I'll show you this clip from my Instagram stories you can definitely tell this 15-inch laptop it wobbles a lot on the screen now I did have to actually go visit the store and make sure it's not just this particular laptop and this is not defected it seems like all 15-in MacBook
• 18:30 - 19:00 Air the screen does wobble quite a bit now some people that's not a problem for me maybe I get motion sickness easily or if I'm so used to this 14-inch laptop or my 16-inch PC laptop the wobble is not there and yes this is going to be a problem when the table is actually shaky so you have to look at 90% of my use case when it comes to a laptop like this is going to be at a coffee shop and most of the coffee shop doesn't have the most stable desk like I do here at home so yes 15-in definitely nicer than the
• 19:00 - 19:30 14-in that one extra inch yeah ask anybody especi No don't not going to say that yes this 15-in compared to 14-in screen size it is much friendlier when it comes to video editing but because the timing was right because I was able to find that perfect monitor that's going to go with this 14-in laptop I am okay with keeping this laptop so yes I am returning this 15-in MacBook Air not just because the screen wobble which was the trigger of this whole entire
• 19:30 - 20:00 decision but after using it for a while and doing that video project when I was traveling I realized this thing gets hot pretty quick so yes ideally in a room like this 70° it's fine but when I'm working outside possibly with sunlight from the window directly hitting this laptop it's going to thermal throttle this quite a bit but the real final dagger was the price drop on this laptop so when I saw that final price $1,400 now compared to what I bought it for and how much this laptop actually is
• 20:00 - 20:30 the value proposition it is whack guys and this is where I want to give you guys a thought most YouTubers probably not going to talk about is that when you get these laptops you have to consider the fact that within a year now you're going to have 30% drop on the price of these laptops and I know you're not used to hearing this the first instinct of seeing these laptop when it first launches it should not be "Let me go get that first shiny brand new fullric laptops." Now if you have access to B&H
• 20:30 - 21:00 right now go ahead and check out the price of this laptop cuz I think that's an insane price for that performance but if you're considering getting the 15-in MacBook Air right now because the value proposition is so whacked I would wait a little bit i would definitely unless you're in a hurry I would wait for this laptop to just drop a price just a little bit maybe around Thanksgiving time and this is why I can never justify getting like those $5,000 $6,000 laptop at those specked up price is because at the end of the day I am a stay home dad
• 21:00 - 21:30 a YouTuber who's making $5 on this video right now those are my thoughts guys so I'm going to go ahead and say goodbye to this laptop and this is my first time returning something to Apple store so I'll let you know how that goes but the giveaway winner of this Hey Crane M3 is gonna be I'm going to butcher his name so bad i am so sorry aub Abedrao did I get that i probably butchered it i am so sorry Aub if I
• 21:30 - 22:00 pronounced that correctly you won the Crane M3 i will be contacting you in a very secure manner so I will not be contacting you in some random manner so you'll know I'm going to contact you in two different ways and this is how I do giveaway guys so you definitely want to subscribe and hit that bell notification cuz these giveaway they just kind of come out of nowhere i'll be doing one sometime in the near future but yeah I congratulations i'll be contacting you and for everyone thank you so much for watching till the end till next time guys take care hey yo when did this
• 22:00 - 22:30 light go out guys was this off this whole time the battery run out i am so spoiled by these MacBook batteries