[thekyle]

As far as I can tell the Air and Pro get basically the same performance for the first 10 minutes. After that the Air will throttle. There is no task I would do that will max out the CPU for 10+ minutes so I don't see any reason to spend the extra for a slightly brighter (but otherwise the same) screen and two more hours of battery life (18 vs 20).

[reader_mode]

Well as I can tell from fan noise levels on my current MBP - running a device simulator or a VM along with a IDE is sustained load for sure.

[thekyle]

You may want to check the Activity Monitor to make sure the CPU is actually at 100% when you're doing that. Apparently it's quite easy to get the fans going on the Intel Macs even on lighter loads compared to the new M1 ones.