Re: Best Macbook Laptop To Buy
Sofia Gilcrease
For many people, deciding between a MacOS laptop and a Windows machine will come down to personal preference and budget. Apple's base model laptop, the M1 MacBook Air, starts at $999. You can sometimes find it discounted or you can get educational pricing from Apple and other retailers. But in general it'll be at least $1,000 for a new MacBook, and the prices just go up from there.
Apple's great hardware, however, comes at a price. Also, you're limited to just Apple laptops. With Windows and Chromebooks (more on these below), you get an amazing variety of devices at a wide range of prices.
Software between the two is plentiful, so unless you need to run something that's available on only one platform, you should be fine to go with either. Gaming is definitely an advantage for a Windows laptop, though.
MacOS is also considered to be easier and safer to use than Windows, especially for people who want their computers to get out of the way so they can get things done. Over the years, though, Microsoft has done its best to follow suit and, with Windows 11 here, it's trying to remove any barriers. Also, while Macs might have a reputation for being safer, with the popularity of the iPhone and iPad helping to drive Mac sales, they've become bigger targets for malware.
Yes, they are, but they're not for everyone. Google's Chrome OS has come a long way in the 10-plus years since it arrived, and Chromebooks -- laptops that run on Chrome OS -- are great for people who do most of their work in a web browser or using mobile apps. They are secure, simple and, more often than not, a bargain. What they can't do is natively run Windows or Mac software.
The pandemic changed how and where a lot of people work. The small, ultraportable laptops valued by people who regularly traveled may have suddenly become woefully inadequate for working from home. Or maybe instead of needing long battery life, you'd rather have a bigger display with more graphics power for gaming.
If you're going to be working on a laptop and don't need more mobility than moving it from room to room, consider a 15.6-inch laptop or larger. In general, a bigger screen makes life easier for work and is more enjoyable for entertainment, and it's also better if you're using it as an extended display with an external monitor. It typically means you're getting more ports too, so connecting an external display or storage or a keyboard and mouse are easier without requiring a hub or dock.
For travel, stay with 13- or 14-inch laptops or two-in-ones. They'll be the lightest and smallest while still delivering excellent battery life. What's nice is that PC-makers are moving away from 16:9 widescreens toward 16:10- or 3:2-ratio displays, which gives you more vertical screen space for work without significantly increasing the footprint. These models usually don't have discrete graphics or powerful processors, though that's not always the case.
You can play games and create content on any laptop, but Windows is the better platform for gamers than MacOS. Windows laptops offer a wider variety of hardware and greater support for a wider variety of games. For content creation, Apple's MacBook Pros have long been favorites.
The types of games you play and what content you create -- and the speed at which you do it -- will vary greatly depending on the components inside the laptop. For casual browser-based games or streaming-game services like Nvidia GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming, you don't need a powerful gaming laptop. And similarly, if you're trimming video clips, cropping photos or live-streaming video from your webcam, you can get by with a modestly priced laptop, Chromebook or MacBook Air. For anything more demanding, you'll need to invest more money in discrete graphics like Nvidia's RTX 30- or 40-series GPUs or a MacBook Pro based on Apple's M2 Pro or Max chip.
For many years, this Apple laptop was everyone's favorite laptop. It was reasonably priced, thin, light and built like a tank. It could last for years and take lots of falls and bumps. For any college student or coffee shop creative type, $999 would get you sorted.
For many years, this Apple laptop was everyone's favorite laptop. It was reasonably priced, thin, light and built like a tank. It could last for years and take lots of falls and bumps. For any college student or coffee shop creative type, $999 would get you sorted.
The first fork in the road you'll come to when shopping for a MacBook is whether to follow the Air path or head down the Pro road. For most people looking for an everyday home laptop or a work laptop for running basic office apps, a MacBook Air will suffice. An Air is also the better pick for students on tight budgets. For creative types who need the added processing and graphics muscle of Apple's new M3 Pro and Max chips, a MacBook Pro is worth the added cost. To help you find the right MacBook for your needs and budget, here are the main considerations to keep in mind.
The processor, aka the CPU, is the brains of a laptop. MacBooks have used Apple's own processors since the introduction of the M1 processor in 2020. The M1-based MacBooks were clear improvements over Apple's preceding Intel-based machines in terms of overall performance, efficiency and battery life. The M1 MacBooks were more powerful with longer runtimes while also operating more cooly and quietly.
Memory, or RAM, is where the operating system stores all the data for currently running applications, and it can fill up fast. After that, it starts swapping between RAM and SSD, which is slower. MacBook Air models start at 8GB of RAM along with the 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro. The minimum on the M3 Pro or M3 Max MacBook Pros is 18GB. If you buy from Apple, you can configure the laptop with more memory -- up to 16GB or 24GB on MacBook Airs and up to 128GB on the M3 Pro and Max MacBook Pros.
The review process for laptops consists of two parts: performance testing under controlled conditions in the CNET Labs and extensive hands-on use by our reviewers. This includes evaluating a device's aesthetics, ergonomics and features with respect to price. A final review verdict is a combination of both objective and subjective judgments.
For the hands-on, the reviewer uses the laptop for their work during the review period, evaluating how well the design, features (such as the screen, camera and speakers) and manufacturer-supplied software operate as a cohesive whole. We also place importance on how well everything works given the cost, and where the manufacturer has potentially made upgrades or trade-offs for the price.
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