- We’ve removed our MacBook upgrade pick, the 16-inch 2019 MacBook Pro, due to the 2021 release of the updated MacBook Pro. We will update the guide after testing.
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October 18, 2021
The best Mac laptop for most people is the 13-inch MacBook Air with Apple’s M1 processor. It’s more than fast enough for the things most people use a computer for—web browsing, working on documents, and light photo and video editing—but the M1 even handles professional work like 3D rendering or compiling code pretty quickly. Plus, it has a great keyboard and trackpad, a colorful high-resolution screen, and outstanding battery life.
Our pick
Apple MacBook Air (2020, M1)
The MacBook Air has a comfortable keyboard, good performance, and a reasonable amount of storage—things that haven’t always been true of previous MacBook Airs.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $1,000.
Recommended configuration
Processor: | Eight-core Apple M1 CPU | Storage: | 256 GB SSD |
Graphics: | Seven-core Apple M1 GPU | Screen: | 2560×1600 IPS |
Memory: | 8 GB | Tested battery life: | 14.4 hours |
We recommend the basic $1,000 version of the MacBook Air, which has enough speed, memory, and storage for most day-to-day computer tasks. Apple’s new M1 processor is much faster than the low-power Intel processors in previous MacBook Airs, and its battery life is so good that you should almost never need to charge it during the day if you don’t want to. And unlike previous MacBook Air models, the M1 version doesn’t require a cooling fan, which keeps it dead silent even when you’re maxing out the processor by exporting a video or playing a game. Like its predecessor, the M1 version of the Air includes a much-improved keyboard with a deeper, more satisfying feel and improved reliability compared with MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models released between 2016 and 2019. The only downside is that some Mac apps that run well on Intel Macs haven’t yet been optimized for the Apple M1 chip, and you might notice some performance lag until those apps are updated.
The Air includes only two USB-C ports (which support Thunderbolt 3) plus a headphone jack—but Thunderbolt 3 docks and USB-C hubs and adapters are common enough and inexpensive enough that this isn’t as big of a problem as it used to be. The Air also omits the older MacBook Pro’s (situationally useful but largely unnecessary) Touch Bar in favor of a row of physical function keys and a standalone Touch ID fingerprint sensor.
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Our pick
13-inch MacBook Pro (2020, M1)
If you do processor-intensive work like video editing and app development but don’t want to deal with the extra size and weight of the 16-inch Pro, the $1,500 version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro is a big step up from the Air.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $1,300.
Recommended configuration
Processor: | Eight-core Apple M1 CPU | Storage: | 256 GB SSD |
Graphics: | Eight-core Apple M1 GPU | Screen: | 2560×1600 IPS |
Memory: | 16 GB | Tested battery life: | 18.4 hours |
If you regularly do the kind of tasks that use all the processing power you can throw at them, like encoding high-definition video and developing and compiling iOS, the $1,500 version of the 13-inch Pro is a worthwhile upgrade over the Air. You won’t notice the difference for everyday browsing and document editing, but the cooling fan in the Pro allows its M1 chip to run faster for longer, providing 10% to 20% more performance than the Air when compiling code, exporting video, or doing anything else that uses all the processor’s cores for more than a few minutes. The configuration we recommend has the same improved keyboard as other recent MacBook models, uses a Touch Bar instead of typical function keys, and includes double the memory of the MacBook Air we recommend, which is useful if you edit large photos or high-resolution videos. You can add more internal storage if you like, though external SSDs are more economical than Apple’s storage upgrades.
Our pick
Apple MacBook Air (2020, M1)
![Mac Mac](https://www.imore.com/sites/imore.com/files/styles/large_wm_brw/public/field/image/2017/01/delete-apps-mac-hero.jpg)
The MacBook Air has a comfortable keyboard, good performance, and a reasonable amount of storage—things that haven’t always been true of previous MacBook Airs.
![Best Best](https://productivetihube.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/best-mac-apps-2020-1024x640-1.jpg?w=1024)
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $1,000.
Our pick
13-inch MacBook Pro (2020, M1)
Best Apps Mac 2020 Update
If you do processor-intensive work like video editing and app development but don’t want to deal with the extra size and weight of the 16-inch Pro, the $1,500 version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro is a big step up from the Air.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $1,300.
Andrew Cunningham has been testing, reviewing, and otherwise writing about PCs, Macs, and other gadgets for AnandTech, Ars Technica, and Wirecutter since 2011. He has been building, upgrading, and fixing PCs for more than 15 years, and he spent five of those years in IT departments buying and repairing laptops and desktops as well as helping people buy the best tech for their needs. He has also used every Mac laptop that Apple has released over the past two decades.
The best reason to buy a MacBook is that you need or prefer macOS to Windows. The operating system is stable and easy to use, but more important, it integrates well with iPhones and iPads—for example, iMessages and SMS messages sent from your Mac also appear on your iPhone and vice versa, and features such as AirDrop and iCloud make it easy to share notes, pictures, videos, reminders, contacts, passwords, bookmarks, and other data between your devices.
Macs are also a good choice if you want great support. Apple’s tech support is routinely rated above that of most if not all other PC and phone makers, and Apple Stores and Apple authorized service providers offer accessible in-person tech support and repairs in many locations.
And MacBooks that use Apple processors (or “Apple silicon”) instead of Intel processors are better than Intel MacBooks and most Windows laptops in some key ways. Apple’s processors have much better performance and faster graphics, and they get stellar battery life. Their batteries are also less prone to draining quickly when you’re using an energy-hogging app like Zoom or Google Chrome.
Macs aren’t a great choice if you have less than $1,000 to spend on a laptop, if you want to run high-end games, or if you want to be able to make upgrades or repairs yourself. Windows ultrabooks provide decent performance and more kinds of ports at or below the price Apple charges for the MacBook Air. Budget Chrome OS and Windows laptops are a better choice if you have only $500 to spend, while business laptops make it easier to fix and upgrade components over time. And Windows gaming notebooks and pro laptops, while typically large and bulky, usually have newer and faster dedicated graphics processors than Apple’s laptops do (and you can buy some of them for less than half of what a 16-inch MacBook Pro costs).
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The Best Laptops
From budget-friendly options to thin-and-light ultrabooks to powerful gaming laptops, we’ve spent hundreds of hours finding the best laptops for most people.