I have never used Macbook. I was using a MSI gaming laptop for 4 years. I love my laptop but it is not portable, its heavy, low battery and plastic. I want to switch to a macbook. I will use it for only work. I am a freelancer software developer. The reason I want macbook is I heard that macbooks have no performance loss unplugged and have long battery life. Budget is important. Max ~1500 $.Which one is suitable for me?
So I bought in at the m1 generation, maybe the situation has improved for m2 and m3. However, I’m really glad I went with the 13 pro rather than the 13 air. Even though the m1 13 pro was never really deserving of the “pro” name, having active cooling actually makes a big difference to sustained performance. Even if its just a little fan and a vent, I feel like I can really push my laptop when I need to without thermal throttling like crazy. I also appreciated the extra GPU cores and slightly brighter screen.
That being said, I’ve heard good things about the 15 air and that might be a good contender for you. The 13 does feel like it has limited screen real estate sometimes. I don’t do heavy multitasking so it’s not a big deal for me but having multiple windows open at the same time can feel a bit tight at 13.
Considering your portability issue with your MSI laptop, I would suggest you to go with the M2 MacBook Air 13" with 16 GB RAM. Storage upgrade depends on you.
The 13” MacBook Air is probably your best bet in terms of portability, but if you want to get something more Pro get a used 2021 14” MacBook Pro or refurbished M2 14” MacBook Pro from Apple certified refurbished