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We put Apple's MacBooks through everything in our lab. From our 2-day battery test that simulates real-world workflows to our robot-controlled mouse and keyboard that actually lets us measure performance using real apps like Photoshop and Premiere. We also measured the displays, we analyzed the speakers, we tested the webcams and microphones, and just about everything else you can think of with really just one goal in mind. Figuring out exactly how much you get at each step from the Neo to the Air and from the Air to the Pro. So, that way by the end of this video, you'll have all the data that you need to decide whether or not spending the extra money is actually worth it. Let's find
out. This video is sponsored by WhisperFlow, which has made me realize that typing is kind of ridiculous, right? Like you can think faster than your fingers can actually move. And until we all get brain chips, the next best thing is your voice. And to prove it, we built out this whole typing test where on a MacBook, I can get around 100 words per minute, which I actually think is pretty good. But with WhisperFlow, for these same exact string of text, I can get up to 200 words per minute. So, basically double the speed. But, you know, it's not just that WhisperFlow can get the words down fast. It's also how it formats those words. So, let's say I'm sending our editor some notes. So, normally, I'd say something like, "Hey,
a few things before you head out. For uh the Pixel camera test, make sure we're ingesting the 12-megapixel samples." Wait, no, not 50-megapixel, 48-megapixel. Uh for the intro, add warp stabilizer to any b-roll that needs it. And then, export the footage in ProRes 422 before uploading it to frame.io. Now, normally, that appears as a big giant block of text exactly how I said it. But with WhisperFlow, you get a clean formatted list that's actually ready to send. You can get 1 month of WhisperFlow Pro completely free at the desktop checkout at the first link down below. All right, we'll start off with the displays, which
is an area where I feel like Apple's spec sheet doesn't really tell the whole story. Take brightness, for example, where Apple is saying that the Neo and the Air have the exactly the same level of brightness. But, in our testing, we actually found the Air to be around 10% brighter. Now, that's not a huge difference, but when you combine it with the fact that the Neo also doesn't get the same anti-reflective coating as the other two, it does hand the Air an advantage when it comes to day-to-day visibility, since the Air just doesn't have to fight through as much glare and reflection. The Pro model takes us another step further. Not only about 20% brighter in typical conditions than even
the Air is, but it's also the only one of the three that can actually boost its display in bright environments, like when you're outdoors or sitting next to a window, roughly doubling the output of the other two. But, it's not always a daytime. In a dark room, minimum brightness can matter just as much. And here, the Pro is the best once again, with it being able to go the dimmest of the bunch, while the Neo actually edges out the Air by a small margin. In terms of color, the Air and the Pro also have another advantage. Not necessarily because they're dramatically more accurate than the Neo, but because they can reproduce just a wider range of colors. So, this chart here represents
the colors the human eye can see. And on the Neo, the display can only reproduce everything inside of this triangle, whereas on the Air and the Pro, their displays cover this larger triangle, known as the P3 color gamut, meaning everything in between those two triangles are colors you can only see on the more expensive models. Now, for most people, I don't think this is going to matter much, but if you're editing photos or videos, or if you just want to know that watching a movie like Avatar, the colors you see are exactly as they were intended, well, that's where this pays off. Finally, two features that are exclusive to the Pro model is first, you get a 120 Hz Pro Motion display, which isn't something that's going to make or
break the experience, but it does make opening apps or like scrolling and dragging windows around feel noticeably smoother. And then, the second thing is the Pro model just gives you deeper blacks with higher contrast, which makes watching movies or like HDR content just pop in a way that the others can't. Of course, the display only makes up half of the experience, with the other half coming from the speakers. And this is an area where I think Apple's spec sheet could really steer you the wrong way, since on paper, it seems kind of straightforward. Two speakers on the Neo, four on the Air, and six on the Pro. But in reality, it's not that simple. Just take a listen for yourself.
Now, how much of that difference you're able to hear depends on what you're listening to this video on. So, we also ran a spectrum analysis with our calibrated mic, which does a good job at visualizing it. Where despite having only two speakers, the Neo was actually able to produce more bass than the Air. The Air is a little bit louder, though, and it also pulls ahead in the higher frequencies, but honestly, listening to these laptops side by side, I could barely tell the difference. With the only real jump here being the Pro, which has deeper bass, clearer mids and highs, and it just sounds fuller across the board. Moving on, let's get to the performance tests, where we used a
robot-controlled mouse and keyboard to actually test these laptops using real-world applications. And as we wait for each laptop to boot up here, let's quickly go over the specs. So, on the MacBook Neo, we have the A18 Pro chip with 8 GB of RAM. The MacBook Air that we're testing has the base M5 chip with 16 GB of RAM. And while you can technically get the Pro with the same specs as the Air here, we configured ours with the M5 Pro chip with 24 GB of RAM. And at least when it comes to booting up, both the M5 laptops did so in around 30 seconds, while the Neo takes a little bit longer, fully logging into macOS after 54 seconds. So, the first real-world test we're for is web browsing, where on our locally hosted
website, we're loading videos, we're loading 3D models and maps, and we're even performing calculations to generate a chart. And the good news is all three are actually really close, with only a small advantage going to the more expensive models. And that same story continues in Microsoft Word, where loading a 500-page document took almost exactly the same amount of time on all three. So, some good performance from the Neo early on. Of course, we also haven't been pushing the chips too hard. So, here we're unzipping a 6 GB file. And this time, there is some separation. But, honestly, it's still not by much, with the Neo only taking 4 seconds longer than the other two. In Photoshop,
we're doing some real work now. Not only are we loading the app up, but we're editing the same exact 15-megapixel raw image. First, doing a spot heal, then we're using the smudge tool across the brush, we're doing an object selection of the cone in the background, and then finally doing a content-aware fill. And while the Pro model does come out ahead, it's only by 2 seconds compared to the Air, while the Neo comes in about 10 seconds later. So, there's definitely a difference here, but at least between the Air and the Pro, it's really not by much. But, we'll see what happens here in Premiere, since this one is much more demanding. The first thing we're doing is loading the app, then we're creating
a project, we're importing the same exact two clips on each laptop, and then we apply a color grade to the longer clip, we add a warp stabilizer to the shorter clip, we render it as if we wanted to preview it, and then we export the entire sequence. So, it's a lot in a short little burst there, and this time, the M1 5 Pro shows why it's the Pro model, finishing the entire workflow in just 1 minute and 35 seconds. The Air, honestly, wasn't too far behind, finishing only 11 seconds later, while the Neo took roughly twice as long as the Pro to complete the exact same workflow. Now, one thing that's worth mentioning is we're not measuring sustained performance here.
Between every test, every laptop has a chance to cool back down, so we're only comparing peak performance. Like here in Blender, where the Pro is able to render that still in a 24 seconds, the base and 5 follows at 28 seconds, while the Neo, just like in Premiere, takes twice as long as the Pro does. This next task is pretty simple. We're just launching into a game in Cyberpunk, and interestingly, all three of them loaded the game in almost exactly the same amount of time. Of course, loading the game isn't the same thing as actually playing it. So, when we ran Cyberpunk's built-in benchmark, we got a much better idea as to the performance gaps. Where at the ultra preset, the Pro's extra horsepower
and its active cooling clearly showed. With it getting 46 frames per second on average, compared to the Air's 18 frames per second. And the Neo, well, it really wasn't designed for stuff like this. With it getting just nine frames on average. But obviously, if you're really trying to play AAA games on here, the Pro model is clearly going to be your best bet. Next up, we have our two-day battery test. And the first thing we're looking at is web browsing. Where we're using Chrome on all three laptops, and we have every display calibrated to the same 200 nits of brightness. And you know, to make it realistic, we're not just loading the web pages, but we're also scrolling through them. So, that
way both the chip and the displays stay active. And after two hours of it, the Pro opens up in early lead, dropping by only 11 percentage points, while both the Air and the Neo surprisingly drop by the same amount at 19 points. But this next test is the one I'm more excited about. So, just like you might in real life, we have the laptops playing music on Spotify with the speakers being calibrated to the same volume level, while each laptop is working in Excel and Word. Obviously, this isn't the most processor intensive task in the world. We're just copying from Excel and pasting it into Word, and then typing on every letter on the keyboard. And this time, the results were a lot closer.
Both the Pro and the Air each dropped by 24 percentage points, while the Neo only did a little bit worse with a 26-point drop. Now, in this next test, each laptop is going on the same 30-minute Zoom call. We actually have this cut out of me moving around on a robot to try to simulate a real call as best as we can. With the cameras having to actively track the subject and having to blur the backgrounds. And after 30 minutes, the Pro comes out on top once again. Dropping by only six percentage points, the Air is right in between losing eight, while the Neo drops by 10. But, interestingly, the Neo was technically the most efficient there. It just lost a larger percentage because it also has
the smallest battery. So, let's see if that efficiency can help it out here in the standby test. Since for most people, their laptop actually spends more time in standby than anything else, unless you shut your computer down. Where after 16 hours, somewhat surprisingly, the Pro actually does the worst here, dropping by four percentage points, while both the Neo and Air lose just three. In this next task, we're just streaming the same movie on each laptop. And you know, while we do calibrate the speakers to the same volume levels, obviously we can't control for the speaker quality, with both the Air and the Pro having more speakers to power. One thing the Pro model does have going for it here,
though, is because of Promotion, it's the only one that can actually drop its refresh rate below 60 Hz. Which means in a movie like this, it could be running as low as 24 Hz. And at least after the two hours, it seems to have paid off, with the Pro taking the smallest hit by far, dropping by only 17 points, while the Air and the Neo drop by 24 and 26 points, respectively. So, at this point, over 22 hours into this test, I think the results are pretty clear. The Pro is clearly ahead with 38% of its battery remaining, while the Air only holds a six-point advantage over the Neo, which is honestly a much smaller gap than I was expecting. And we'll get to see how long that lasts in this final test,
where we're simply going to be running Premiere Pro until each laptop dies. Somewhat ironically, this is actually a worst-case scenario for the Pro model, since as we saw in the performance tests, it runs Premiere significantly faster than the other two, which in theory means it's probably going to run through its power faster. But not before the Neo dies, with it fully depleting after 43 minutes into Premiere. The Air is actually able to stretch out its battery to an hour and 10 minutes into Premiere, while the Pro, despite chewing through that workload the fastest of the bunch, still managed to run 1 hour and 46 minutes into that test. So, for me, the big takeaway is this. If your
workload is mostly browsing, productivity, and like video calls, then the gap between the Neo and the Air is actually a lot smaller than the spec sheet would have you believe. With, again, the real upgrade coming when you go over to the Pro model, which is simply on a different level. Until, of course, you get to heavy-duty stuff, where you obviously give up some efficiency for that raw power. Now, when it comes to charging these laptops back up, you do get more options with the Air and the Pro. Not only can they charge over USB-C, just like the Neo, but they also come with MagSafe chargers in the box. And, oh man, was there a difference. After 30 minutes, the MacBook Pro and its 70-W power brick got
back up to 45%. The Air actually did one point better, mainly due to having a smaller battery, while the Neo charges like an old iPhone, only reaching 22% in 30 minutes, despite having the smallest battery. But, shifting gears, the next thing we tested were the cameras, where the Air and the Pro have some advantages. So, the first thing is, obviously, Center Stage, where the camera will automatically keep you in frame as you move around. But, the second thing is, actually, image quality. So, even though all three will technically record a 1080p video, on the Air and the Pro, that 1080p just looks a little bit sharper, with it also having more natural-looking skin tones. It's not a huge difference by any means, but,
you know, if you're using this for work and you're going video calls, on the Air and the Pro, you will come across looking a little bit more polished. The microphones, on the other hand, were almost the opposite story. So, looking at Apple's spec sheet, you'd expect the more expensive models to sound significantly better, but that's not really what we found. Just take a listen for yourself. After 2 long years of R&D, the PhoneBuff camera test is finally here. After 2 long years of R&D, the PhoneBuff camera test is finally here. So, even compared to our reference mic, the data pretty much confirmed what we heard.
With there just not being a whole lot to separate the three. And if anything, I actually found myself preferring the Neo sound over the Airs and maybe even slightly over the Pros. But the bigger takeaway here is I don't think microphone quality alone is any reason to upgrade. Of course, there's still more separating these laptops than just the test that we've covered so far. For example, the Air and the Pro each have thinner bezels than the Neo, which just give them a more modern look alongside more practical benefits like having a larger trackpad and having backlit keyboards. Then there's the whole IO situation. So on both the Neo and the Air, you only get two USBC ports. But on the Air, you also get
MagSafe. So if you want to charge your laptop while using those two ports, you actually can. And then the Pro model takes this even further with three USBC ports plus a full-size HDMI port and an SD slot. And then on top of that, the more expensive models also have faster connectivity. You get Thunderbolt 4 on the MacBook Air and Thunderbolt 5 on the MacBook Pro. And at least in our 50 GB file transfer test, that extra bandwidth actually showed up. With transferring that same file in about a third of the time that it took the Neo. But you know, whether or not this actually matters to you though, really depends on the devices you're plugging into them. And the same thing goes for Wi-Fi. So on our
network, the Air and the Pro were noticeably faster than the Neo because they support Wi-Fi 7. But if you don't have Wi-Fi 7 or if your internet connection can actually give you those speeds, then you won't be able to take full advantage of it. So ultimately, it all comes down to your personal workflow. Only you can decide if the jump from the Neo to the Air or from the Air to the Pro is actually worth the extra money. But hopefully, this video has given you the data to help you make that decision. And if it did, a big thumbs up would be highly appreciated. Anyways, that is it for me in this video. Thank you for watching and as always, I'll see you in the very next episode.
