The best Mac for most people to buy is the 13-inch M4 MacBook Air. It’s more than powerful enough for most tasks, and it has a great display and a slim, lightweight design. This latest version fixes the issues we’ve had with past generations—the included webcam has been upgraded to a much higher-detail 12-megapixel camera, and the M4 MacBook Air generates much less heat when under a heavy workload in comparison with the M2 version. Apple’s $1,000 starting price is also $100 less than that of the previous, M3 version, a welcome and rare price reduction. All of this makes the M4 MacBook Air a great choice for a wide range of people, from students to professionals. You can read more about the M4 MacBook Air in our guide to the best MacBooks.
The MacBook we recommend
The M4 MacBook Air has a thin, light design, a bright screen, and the fan-favorite MagSafe port.
What about the MacBook Pro?
We recommend Apple’s 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros only to those who need the extra processing power, including professional media editors, coders who need to compile large projects, and 3D designers. That’s because these Pro laptops trade the best parts of the Air, such as a silent fanless design and a lighter weight, for more power. The Pro models are pricier, heavier, bulkier, and more annoying to schlep around. That isn’t an issue if the laptop allows you to take a professional workload on the go, but for everyone else, this kind of laptop isn’t worth the hassle and cost.
The MacBook Pro lineup, like the Air, is now powered by the M4 chip. The 14-inch and 16-inch Pro models offer a base M4 chip with options to upgrade to an M4 Pro or M4 Max chip. The base model M4 version offers a fantastic pro-level XDR display and wider array of ports than the Air for a lower price than the fully specced out M4 Pro or M4 Max versions. But both the Air and Pro displays are impressively color-accurate in the sRGB color space, and if you’re just working in sRGB or Rec. 709, there’s no reason to spend more on a display. Content does look better on the XDR display, but it’s really intended as a display for creating content rather than watching it.
The base M4 MacBook Pro has slower USB-C ports that are Thunderbolt 4 instead of the newer Thunderbolt 5, but otherwise has the same number of ports as the M4 Pro and M4 Max versions, including an HDMI port and SD card reader. There’s a small number of people we think the M4 MacBook Pro appeals to, like those who need an HDMI port on their MacBook, or those who work in color-critical workflows but don’t actually need to edit large media files. Generally, the M4 MacBook Pro is about a pound heavier than the MacBook Air and quite a bit thicker. We also think that most people aren’t likely to benefit from the extra ports on the Pro, such as the SD card reader and the HDMI port.
That being said, MacBooks running on Apple’s older Pro and Max chips are still good investments. In our tests, older M2 Max and M3 Max chips outperformed the newest M4 Pro processor with 48 GB of memory. Apple has discontinued making laptops with those older chips in favor of the newer M4 Pro and M4 Max, but if you find one for less than $2,500 from a third-party retailer it’ll be faster than a similarly-priced M4 Pro.
If you already own a MacBook with an M2 Pro or Max chip, you have little reason to upgrade to one with an M4 chip. The chips are all objectively fast, and unless you’re in time-critical situations, you can save thousands knowing that you’re waiting only an extra few seconds to render and export a video scene.
How much memory do I need?
You can think about your MacBook’s memory like the size of your physical desk or workspace. Apple includes 16 GB of base memory in all its laptops except the older M1 MacBook Air. Having 16 GB of memory is like having a regular-sized desk: it’s fine for papers, some spreadsheets, and maybe a few magazines in the corner that you’ll read later. But just as you need a larger desk for drafting architectural plans or a larger room to develop photos, you need more memory to do the same thing digitally.
We recommend 16 GB of memory for most people, and 24 to 48 GB of memory for professional media editors, coders, or AI engineers.
This article was edited by Arthur Gies and Caitlin McGarry.
