The holiday season is here whether you like it or not. It is that time of the year where buying gifts is quite common, with some of those gifts being MacBooks.

Right now, there are a couple of options for those looking to buy a new MacBook, which are the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

What makes the MacBook special is it takes the macOS experience and puts it in a laptop. On top of that, the apps the Mac has are truly some of the most unique on the market and are better than some that are offered on Windows computers.

Please note that for this article, we will not be listing desktop Macs like the iMac, iMac Pro, Mac Pro or Mac Mini.

MacBook Air

This laptop is for those who are just looking to do some web browsing, watching streaming services, YouTube videos, managing social media, but also has the capabilities for video editing with software like iMovie and basic functionality of Final Cut Pro, as well as work with Pixelmator, Photoshop and other Adobe apps.

The size and portability of the MacBook Air is what truly makes it stand out, not to mention the design of it is something that many will not get with a Windows PC.

If you have a family member or friend that tends to do a lot of writing, that is where this laptop is going to be of great benefit to them. The updated butterfly mechanism keyboard is excellent, especially when it comes to the travel of the keys. The clicking of the keys is another nice feature of the laptop.

Having the Touch ID sensor in the keyboard is covenient for unlocking the MacBook Air and making purchases with Apple Pay.

The MacBook Air starts at $999 through Apple. It comes in Space Gray, Silver and Gold for its colors.

MacBook Pro

With this laptop, this is for the true pro users in your life. If you have that filmmaker that is always recording videos of some sort, the person who is an aspiring graphic designer, or even, the aspiring journalist/blogger type that is looking to do a little bit of everything. That could include writing in Pages or Microsoft Word, editing videos in Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro and doing work in Photoshop or Pixelmator.

Unlike the MacBook Air, the MacBook Pro has two screen sizes, which are the 13-inch and 16-inch versions. It also comes in Space Gray and Silver colors.

Apple released the 16-inch MacBook Pro in 2019, which gave it the updated butterfly mechanism keyboard you can find on the 2018 MacBook Air.

With that said, it is a comfortable keyboard to work with no matter what kind of work they are doing.

One aspect of the MacBook Pro that makes it different from the MacBook Air, in terms of its design, is it has the TouchBar. The TouchBar will enable users to have a second screen on the keyboard that gives them a shortcut to the app you are working on.

In apps like Pages, this could be a word predictor. Other apps like Final Cut Pro could include the video timeline or have the emoji keyboard shown in iMessage. 

Additionally, the TouchBar does include Touch ID. It has the same functionality as it does on the MacBook Air.

Lastly, the design of the MacBook Pro is incredible. For all of the power it provides and it is still cased in a slim form factor. However, that also means less ports for things like an SD card or USB-A port. The only ports you will find on both laptops are USB-C ports and a headphone port.

If you are looking to purchase either the 13 or 16-inch MacBook Pro for a loved one, be sure to also include a USB-C hub so they can get access to USB-A and SD card slots.

The USB-C hub we are going to recommend is the HyperDrive 7-Port Universal USB-C Hub through Best Buy. It will provide ports such as multiple USB-A, HDMI and an SD card slot.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,299 and the 16-inch model starts at $2,799 through Apple.

Anyone who buys a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro through Apple with their Apple Card will get 3% in Daily Cash and 12 months of 0% APR.

Do you know which MacBook you’re going to buy for your loved one this year? Let us know on Twitter at @appleosophy.