15” M5 Air vs. 14” M5 MacBook Pro
I’m struggling to decide between the 15 inch M5 air and the 14 inch M5 MacBook Pro. For context I currently have a 15.6 inch Lenovo laptop with 16 GB of ram (it’s a circa 2018 Lenovo Yoga 730 and the keyboard is starting to fail). I am a PhD student in Theoretical Quantum Physics, so my typical workflow involves having some chrome tabs open (email, calendar, slack, Overleaf/LaTeX for writing papers, a few science journal articles open), Zotero with many science papers open for reading, textbook PDFs open, and I also run Python code for physics calculations which involve large linear algebra computations (that sometimes max out the memory on my current 16 GB Lenovo, and gets quite hot). I typically use stuff from the numpy/scipy libraries. I primarily use my laptop for my PhD work, but also use it to watch sports on weekends. Otherwise I typically watch YouTube/ all of my content on my iPhone (I don’t own a tv as I live in a small apartment).
The core reason I’m so conflicted is I am used to the bigger screen size, but also need something capable for my uses. I value portability since as a PhD student I’m often working in cafes, in another office / meeting space, in my office (which has 1 external monitor), or at home (which I don’t have room for a monitor right now).
When comparing the 15 inch air and the 14 inch pro side by side, the pro seemed too small for me as I often have side by side tabs with code and pdf. Despite this, I am aware that the pro is the better laptop overall, and I do worry about not having the fans if I were to get an air. I have a few questions that hopefully will help me make a decision.
Is 16 GB of ram enough for my workflow or will 24 GB be better for my coding/ for future proofing?
Will having fans matter?
I ask because upgrading the 15 inch Air to 24 GB ram will cost almost the same as the base 16 GB pro (which has all the nicer features, fans, and larger storage) BUT is still smaller than I’d like.
Any help is greatly appreciated, this will be my first MacBook.
This is my first Reddit post!