We already have a good idea how the new MacBook will work

When the new low-cost MacBook is introduced this week, those looking to buy a portable Mac will have a choice of three categories: MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro.

For those with less demanding or demanding needs, the choice may be more obvious – a less expensive MacBook on the one hand, or a MacBook Pro on the other. But what about those who live somewhere in between…?

As we’ve noted before, a large portion of current MacBook Air buyers have very undemanding needs. Tasks such as email, web browsing and writing do not require much in the way of CPU or GPU performance. It will be obvious to many of these buyers that the upcoming MacBook will do the job perfectly, and the only question is whether they can live with any of the color choices on offer.

But what if you are someone who has more demanding needs, without taking you to the MacBook Pro area?

For example, you may be a novice photographer who is used to doing modest levels of photo editing on your device. Maybe you do some 4k video editing from time to time, but with relatively few tracks. Maybe you’re a musician who does a certain amount of audio editing for many songs. You’ve already decided that your usage doesn’t justify the extra cost and bulk of a MacBook Pro, but how do you choose between a MacBook and a MacBook Air?

The review of the new machine will help, of course, but comparing both the measurements and the use of the old models of the MacBook Air already gives us a good idea.

M1 vs. A18 Pro

While the idea of ​​using a smartphone chip to power a laptop sounds somewhat controversial, it really isn’t.

The first Apple Silicon MacBook Air model was powered by the M1 chip. This was highly praised for its combination of performance and energy efficiency. The A18 Pro chip is perfect significantly similar to the M1, as the benchmarks show.

Geekbench 6, single-core

Yes, in single-core performance, the smartphone chip is faster – and there are a number of other benchmarks, such as NPU performance in AI tasks, where the same is true.

Geekbench 6, multi-core

In multi-core operation, both are neck and neck.

The results of some benchmarks vary, but the overall story is the same. In most cases, there is not much difference between the two chips.

Of course, the latest MacBook Air is about to be powered by the M5 chip, which will be capable of much better performance, so is M1-level performance still acceptable in 2026?

The performance of the M1 is more than adequate for most

I am a good case to answer this question.

I bought a refurbished M1 MacBook Air last year as a trial run to see if it would meet my needs or if I would upgrade to the M4 model. If the M1 machine proved inadequate, I got a good enough deal that I knew I could recoup the purchase cost at resale, so it was a risk-free experiment.

It only took a week to answer the question. Even with photo editing and the occasional 4K video editing, the machine felt more than up to the job. Indeed, it turned out so well that now I only carry this instead of my M1 Max MacBook Pro 16-inch when I travel, even if I know in advance that I will be doing video editing.

The MacBook will likely prove the same

I need to add one rule that may or may not seem important. When I bought the M1 MacBook Air, I opted for 16GB of RAM. The upcoming MacBook will only have 8GB because that is the limit of the A18 Pro chip.

I got a chance to try a few tests on an 8GB M1 MacBook Air owned by a friend, and my impressions are that it still runs fine. Yes, RAM may seem important if you need to run multiple applications at once, but for most tasks performed on the MacBook Air, I strongly suspect that the MacBook will be more than adequate.

So far we need to have enough reason to choose MacBook Pro over MacBook Air. Starting this week, we’ll also need to have a good enough reason to choose the MacBook Air over the entry-level MacBook.