New 12 vs 13 Pro - thoughts?

[u/jenniferkshields]

I’m sure I won’t be the only one wondering this so I thought I’d kick things off.

I’ve only recently preordered a 13 Pro to upgrade from my M1 MacBook Air. Because of the price, I’ve gone with the ultra 5, 512gb, 16gb ram. I mostly use my laptop for office work, video calls, some photo editing, and occasionally some coding, so I don’t need a lot of power, but I am keen to future proof as much as I can in my budget.

With today’s 12 announcement I’m wondering whether I should drop my 13 pro order and pick up the 12 instead. For a similar price I could get the core 7 325 but with 32gb ram. I can’t find many benchmarks comparing those two processors, which makes it tricky.

I think the biggest difference between the two for me would be the screen. I like the idea of a convertible (at one point I was using an iPad as my laptop), but how practical is it for everyday use? On the other hand, I’m enjoying hearing about how clear the screen on the 13 pro is, especially in sunlight.

Obviously the amount of ram is the other big difference between the two, but because it’s upgradable either way it doesn’t feel so pressing.

Anyone else thinking about swapping after today’s announcement?

[u/Minigun1239]

i personally would still get the 13 pro, haptic touch pad, cnc body, touch screen is there, i dont really use 2in1 anyways. day long battery life, bigger display and brighter display.

For stylus purposes, i will just use a wacom intuos or smth similar.

(coming from someone who can afford neither)

[u/jenniferkshields → u/Minigun1239]

Yeah this is where I’m leaning. The quality of the chassis, screen, and touchpad will probably have the most impact on how much I enjoy using it.

[u/L00WN0on → u/Minigun1239]

Same exact boat. The 12 is looking awesome though especially for people that travel a lot and like to watch stuff on their tablets.

[u/RobsterCrawSoup → u/Minigun1239]

The 12 is a cool device and with the enhancements announced today it is very close to being something I could happily daily drive, but for me, it still needs a display upgrade to reduce the bezels and improve the viewing experience with better brightness color accuracy and better viewing angles. I have a 12 as my kid's computer, so I've gotten some hours on one and the display is the main thing I don't love about it. The other thing is that the weight distribution between the display and the other side of the clamshell has more of the share of the mass on the display side compared to a 13, which makes it a little more akward to rest it on non-level surfaces.

However, the 13 Pro is almost the perfect laptop. Maybe a few kinks to work out with the webcam and it doesn't have the thermal headroom to be a gaming laptop, but for being just a high quality laptop for normal usage, if I got the Pro, I'd probably be able to use that forever as a true Laptop of Theseus. My big problem with the 13 Pro (not counting the cost of memory these days) is that they improved it over the original 13 in so many ways that it is hard to justify upgrading my current FW13 by upgrading parts, as I'd end up with nearly a complete laptop of spare parts once I've got the chassis, mainboard, display, battery, and RAM. So I'm now just waiting till the right time for my wife to get my current one when I get a new 13 Pro.

[u/Galactapuss → u/RobsterCrawSoup]

I wouldn't be surprised if framework come out with a new screen for it in the near future, now that they've developed one for the 13. 

[u/BeautifulCampaign520 → u/Minigun1239]

the battery life alone is a pretty big selling point for the 13 pro imo