I've used MacBooks for 20 years (yes, even during those painful Intel days), and with Apple silicon, these laptops are better than ever! Whether you’re upgrading from an older model or buying your very first one, there’s never been a better time to find the best MacBook for your needs.
Personally, if you want something light, powerful, and easy to take on the go — especially for writing, browsing, or everyday work — the M4 MacBook Air is a no-brainer. It’s incredibly thin, has all-day battery life, and since Apple dropped the MRSP by $100, it’s an even better value.
But if you’re like me, and you want to do more demanding work like video editing, coding, or even gaming, I’d steer you toward the new M5 MacBook Pro. Need additional horsepower? That's where the M4 Pro MacBook Pro comes in, which is a monster for advanced tasks. But M5 Pro is set to come early next year, so whether you can wait or not is up to you.
My top picks
The MacBook Air M4 is the best laptop for the money — especially with its $100 price cut over the. The M4 chip is a strong performer, the upgrade webcam is nice, and you get the same long battery life and bright, colorful display in a sleek package.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro nails the sweet spot between portability and performance, giving you the power of M5 with the portability of a 14-incher. It's my pick for the best MacBook Pro for most.
The MacBook Air M2 is two generations behind, but the ol' M2 chip still offers more than enough performance for not just casual productivity but also light content creator tasks too. It remains one of the lightest and longest-lasting laptops you can get — especially now that you can find new models for under $700.
The best MacBooks you can buy today
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The best MacBook overall
The 13-inch MacBook Air with the M4 chip is my top recommendation for most people. Why? It strikes the ideal balance between performance, portability, and price. Its ultra-light design makes it effortless to carry, while the M4 chip delivers the speed and efficiency needed for everyday tasks without draining the battery. It’s even capable of handling video editing and some gaming. Every MacBook on this list is impressive, but for the average user, this is the one to get.
Read the full review: MacBook Air M4 (13-inch)
Who is this for?
For the majority of users, this is the MacBook to beat. The 13-inch M4 MacBook Air delivers impressive power and all-day battery life in a sleek, lightweight aluminum body, making it perfect for work on the go. It effortlessly handles everyday productivity and multitasking, with enough muscle for occasional demanding tasks like photo editing. Best of all, Apple has knocked $100 off the base model price, making it an even better deal!
Why is it the best overall MacBook?
It all comes down to the three p's: price, portability and performance. First, with $100 off the pricing (starting at $999 for M4 rather than $1,099), you get a lot more bang for your buck. And speaking of bang, M4 brings a roughly 20% uplift in performance across tasks, along with a sharper 12MP webcam and nearly 15 hours of battery life. Finally, all of this is crammed into that same, sleek chassis that now comes in a gorgeous Sky Blue finish.
What do we like?
👍 Strong M4 performance: In our benchmarks, the M4 MacBook Air proves its power — scoring over 14,000 in Geekbench 6 multi-core and ensuring consistently fast performance.
👍 Impressive battery life: It may not last quite as long as the M3 model, but at just under 15 hours in our testing, the M4 MacBook Air has some serious stamina.
👍 Same ultraportable design at a lower price: Along with this new chipset, you're getting a 12MP webcam too — all in that same sleek chassis. And even better? It's $100 less and starting at $999.
What don’t we like?
👎 Only marginally better than M3: With a roughly 15-20% uplift over M3, if you already have this MacBook Air, save your money for a couple more years at least!
👎 No Wi-Fi 7: With a lot of Apple's hardware heading in the direction of supporting the super-fast Wi-Fi 7, it's frustrating to not see this get the upgrade.
Bottom line
When it comes to the do-all MacBook, the 13-inch Air with M4 is the perfect option for that. That chip is blazing fast (even without a fan), and the impressively thin and light dimensions make this super easy to carry around — topped off with worry-free battery life.
The best cheap MacBook
I think the MacBook Air M2 is a truly great MacBook for those who want something a little cheaper. At $699, I love how it combines impressive performance with incredible efficiency — I can get more than 14 hours of battery life on a single charge. The display is bright, colorful, and perfect for work or streaming, and the slim, lightweight design makes it easy to carry anywhere without sacrificing power or quality.
Read the full review: MacBook Air M2
Who is this for?
The M2 Air is for those who want to get into the Apple ecosystem on the cheap. Yes, the M1 Air is technically cheaper at $599, but with this, you get the slick utilitarian design over the wedge, and vastly improved M2 performance. Comparatively, the other MacBooks on this list run circles around it, but this is still a stellar system with more software support coming down the line (including Apple Intelligence).
Why is this the best budget MacBook?
$699 at Best Buy… What more do I need to say than that? With any new MacBook purchase, it’s easy to spend over a thousand dollars. So to have this very low-cost Apple option, which still has that same premium aluminum construction and long-lasting battery, is a great option.
What do we like?
👍 Strong M2 performance: The improvements to M2 over M1 focused on really picking up the speed on those CPU cores while drastically upping the GPU performance, and it really shows in its multitasking ability and 4K video processing. Shoutout to the zippy SSD speeds too!
👍 Supreme battery life: With over 14 hours of use on one charge, this is a serious stamina champ at this price. Plus the included 35W charger does boost this device up to full in just under a couple hours.
👍 Comfortable ergonomics: The new flatter display gives your wrists plenty of space to rest on that aluminum unibody as you type, and the ocean-size touchpad is smooth to navigate with a tactile click. Throw in a stellar display, and you're onto a winner.
What don’t we like?
👎 It’s old: I mean this one is obvious, right? Apple has moved on a lot in terms of performance since the wedge MacBook Air. And with that age, you know the Cupertino Crew will stop software support for this sooner than other options on this list.
👎 Light on ports: With MagSafe, those two USB-C ports are free for your accessories. But with just these, you will be living that dongle life for your various peripherals.
Bottom line
The M2 MacBook Air may be showing its age at just over three years old, but Apple silicon systems really stand the test of time and this is a phenomenal example of that. Plus, with Apple upping the baseline RAM to 16GB and offering it for $700, this is a steal for what you get!
The best MacBook Pro overall
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro M5 isn’t a huge upgrade from the MacBook Pro M4, but it’s still one of the finest laptops for power users. I like the powerful M5-driven performance, which can deftly handle my workload and even run Apple silicon-optimized games at smooth frame rates. On top of that, the bright and colorful 14-inch mini-LED display makes everything pop, while the laptop’s relatively thin and light design makes it easy to travel with. It’s the best overall MacBook Pro.
Read the full review: MacBook Pro M5
Who is this for?
Like last year’s model, the MacBook Pro M5 is for power users who want a dependable machine wherever they go. It offers a perfect mix of portability, performance and battery life.
Why is this the best overall MacBook Pro?
The MacBook Pro M5 is the best MacBook Pro because it nails the basics for power users, namely, strong performance, epic battery life and easy to travel with. It offers more ports than a MacBook Air (three Thunderbolt 4 / USB-C, one SD Card slot and an HDMI port). Its 14-inch display size is also in that sweet spot when it comes to easy readability.
What do we like?
👍 Strong M5 performance: The new Apple M5 chip provides a notable performance boost over its predecessor and Windows-based competitors. If you’re a video editor, you can render 4K videos much faster than before, and if you’re into gaming, the new MacBook Pro can also deliver impressive performance for titles that are optimized for M-series Macs.
👍 Vibrant display: Like last year’s model, you can spend an extra $150 for a nano-texture display, which radically reduces screen glare. Trust me, the investment is worth it, especially if you work near a window or outdoors. And as before, everything looks bright and colorful on the 14-inch mini-LED display.
👍 Astonishing battery life: The MacBook Pro M5 is no joke when it comes to battery life. In our testing, the laptop endured for an incredible 18 hours and 14 minutes! The Dell 14 Premium lasted for a comparatively paltry 8 hours and 16 minutes. If you want a laptop that can potentially last for two full work days on a single charge, this is it.
What don’t we like?
👎 A minor spec bump: The MacBook Pro M5 deserves its spot on this list, but it’s a modest spec bump over the MacBook Pro M4. If you have an M3 or older MacBook, then you can consider upgrading. But if you own last year’s 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro, you can skip this M5 model.
Bottom line
The 14-inch MacBook Pro M5 is one of the most powerful and longest-lasting laptops out there. I love its practical design, lovely display and insanely long battery life. The nano-texture display option is also a worthwhile upgrade.
The best big-screen MacBook
The 15-inch MacBook Air hits a real sweet spot — offering that spacious, immersive screen without the steep price of the 16-inch MacBook Pro. While it’s not a pro-level video editing machine, the M4 chip had no trouble powering through my daily workload and multitasking, and it’s ready for Apple Intelligence too. Battery life is stellar at over 15 hours, making it a great pick for anyone who needs all-day performance in a slim, silent package. I just wish Apple gave it more than two USB-C ports.
Read the full review: MacBook Air M3 (15-inch)
Who is this for?
This is for the people who have those casual-to-moderate productivity demands, but really want a big screen laptop experience. The M4 chip performs just as good here as the 13-inch, but you’re getting the benefit of a larger display (and bigger battery too).
Why is this the best big-screen MacBook?
Previously, a giant screen was limited to just the 16-inch MacBook Pro, so a 15-inch Air is warmly welcomed! Put simply, this is the cheapest way to get a MacBook with a large display. But with that, Apple hasn’t forgotten about what makes the Air so great — making it slim, light and incredibly portable too.
What do we like?
👍 Strong M4 performance: The M4 chip proves to be just as snappy in the 15-inch Air as it does in all the other 3-nanometer-armed MacBooks on this list — reaching nearly 15,000 in our Geekbench multi core testing, and lightning quick SSD read/write speeds too.
👍 Gorgeous display that goes big: You don’t really know how big a 15-inch display will be until you see it. This thing is big. Not only that, but it packs an impressive average brightness of 487 nits and a lot of color so this is great for both work and binge watching.
👍 Same Air design with one key improvement: What’s even more impressive is the fact that Apple keeps the 15-inch MacBook Air just as slim as the 13-inch at 0.44-inches. For something of this size and stature, that aluminum construction feels almost impossible in the hands — plus the upgrade to a 12MP webcam makes for some vastly improved visual clarity in Zoom calls.
👍 Incredible battery life: With that additional space in the bottom deck, Apple has crammed it with more battery to deliver well over 15 hours on one charge in our testing.
What we don’t like?
👎 Desk vies is awkward to use: With that higher megapixel count and wider field of view, you can use desk view using the MacBook Air's webcam, but it does look a little awkward!
👎 No fan = lower sustained performance: Over a longer period of work or gaming, you’re best off sacrificing an inch of screen size and going for the M3 MacBook Pro, which has a fan to keep the M3 running at 100% for longer.
Bottom line
Regardless of our criticisms of ports and sustained performance, it’s hard to really knock the 15-inch MacBook Air in real-world use. The M4 chip affords impressive power and battery life, and Apple has made the thinnest big screen laptop you can buy right now.
The best MacBook for power users
The MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024) is for folks who want a 16-inch MacBook Pro but don’t want to spend extra for an M4 Max model. Like the other 16-inch MacBook Pros I’ve reviewed, this laptop features a flat utilitarian design and a roomy keyboard. The M4 Pro chip powering this machine gives you more than enough power for everyday computing, video editing and even playing video games. Though some Apple Intelligence features might not be for everyone and Desk View works awkwardly, this is an all-around fantastic MacBook Pro—even if it is admittedly pricey.
Read the full review: MacBook Pro M4 Pro (16-inch)
Who is this for?
The MacBook Pro 16-inch M4 Pro occupies the middle spot between the 14-inch MacBook Pro M4 and 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max. To that end, folks who want a large Liquid Retina display of a 16-inch MacBook but don’t want to shell out an extra $1,000 for an M4 Max model should consider this unit.
Why is this the best MacBook for power users?
With performance that rivals (and even beats) the last generation M3 Max in some certain areas, the M4 Pro represents a leapfrog for the power user that means you could save some money. Plus, this is the longest-lasting laptop we've ever tested at Tom's Guide.
What do we like?
👍 Fast M4 Pro performance: Performance is another big selling point for this laptop. Though its M4 Max equivalent will no doubt turn in exceptional performance, the M4 Pro MacBook Pro 16-inch I tested is easily one of the most performant machines out there. It had no trouble handling my everyday workload, and was even able to play Resident Evil 4 Remake at 100 frames a second! Performance is incredible on this device.
👍 Crazy good battery life: As mentioned above, battery life is a major draw of the MacBook Pro 16-inch M4 Pro. With close to 21 hours of battery life, you won’t have to worry if you should leave the laptop’s power brick and charging cable at home. In fact, you can purposely leave them behind if you’re just going out for an afternoon. When you return home, you’ll still have plenty of juice for web surfing, streaming videos and gaming.
👍 Utilitarian design: I know some people might get bored of the MacBook Pro’s practical design, but I’m a big fan. The machined aluminum chassis not only looks great but it also feels good to hold. I also like the generous amount of ports, and MagSafe charging is always a winner. Even if there are more exciting-looking laptops, the MacBook Pro’s practical look makes it ideal for every environment.
What don’t we like?
👎 Pricey as heck: Let’s get the obvious out of the way — this is one expensive laptop. It costs $2,499 to start, which is $900 more than the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro with the base M4 chip. If you mainly use laptops for work or watching videos, you’re better off with the $1,299 MacBook Air M2, which has excellent performance and a large display.
👎 Desk View is weird: Desk View is a new feature for the MacBook Pro’s webcam but it doesn’t work as intended. During my testing, Desk View would show the bottom portion of the touchpad and some of my desk. Placing items in this area so others on a call could see them is very impractical. However, Desk View does work as intended on the new iMac.
Bottom line
The MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro, 2024) is somewhat of a hard sell since it’s the middle child of the MacBook Pro lineup. However, there’s no denying that it’s a fantastic laptop with blazing-fast performance and epic battery life. If you don’t want to splurge for the M4 Max model, this is the machine for you.
How to choose the best MacBook for you
Performance: The transition to Apple Silicon breathed new life into the MacBook lineup — pairing seriously impressive performance with peak power efficiency and downright bafflingly low operating temperatures (even under max load). Of course, the question of how much of that face-melting speed you need comes down to individual use cases. Not really doing much beyond casual productivity? The M1 MacBook Air is perfect. Need a little more? Bump up to the M2 Air. If you're a power user with creative tasks, the M3 MacBook Pros are the way to go.
Graphics and gaming: If you want to work by day and play by night on your MacBook, anything with an M4 chip is the way to go. This 3nm chipset packs what Apple calls a "next generation GPU," which enables huge graphical capabilities such as hardware-accelerated ray tracing. Plus, this additional power means you can breeze through graphically-intense productivity tasks too.
Size and weight: If portability is important to you, the MacBook Airs are a must-buy from this selection. From a weight of just 2.7 pounds for the 13-inch version (and a mere 3.3 pounds for the 15-inch), these are so easy to carry around. If portability isn't the biggest concern, you could go all the way up to 4.3 pounds for the 16-inch MacBook Pro. But as far as dimensions go, all of these models are seriously sleek and carry-able.
Battery life: The 16-inch M4 Pro MacBook Pro is the longest-lasting MacBook there is, posting a Tom's Guide battery test time of 20:46. But the whole MacBook lineup lasts an average of 15-16 hours if longevity is your primary concern.
Which Macs support Apple Intelligence?
Back in 2024 Apple released the initial version of Apple Intelligence for Macs, iPads and iPhones. This is Apple's attempt to build a holistic personal assistance system for your devices that can do things like summarize, edit and rewrite text, generate images, give you ChatGPT input on Siri requests and more.
Many readers write in with questions about what Macs support these features, so I wanted to quickly clear things up. If you want to use Apple Intelligence on your Mac it must have an Apple M-series chip onboard and be running at least macOS Sequoia, which was released in 2024.
Every MacBook on this list meets both of those requirements, so if you buy a MacBook from this page it should run macOS Sequoia and Apple Intelligence just fine. However, older MacBook with Intel chips (i.e. those sold in 2019 and earlier) will not support Apple Intelligence.
How do we test every MacBook?
Outside of putting them through their real-life paces in our day-to-day, we have an advanced suite of lab tests to truly see what performance and power efficiency is like in every single MacBook. Go behind-the-scenes and check out all the lab tests we do!
To get straight to the point of the key reasons people buy a MacBook — speed and battery life — here are all the results from our Geekbench 6 performance testing, disk speed tests, and the speed of transcoding video.
Laptop | Single-core | Multicore | BlackMagic SSD speeds read/write (MBps) | HandBrake video transcoding (mm:ss) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro) | 3,910 | 22,822 | 6,640 / 5,353 | 02:38 |
MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) | 4,288 | 17,986 | 3,318 / 2,899 | 04:27 |
MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) | 3,799 | 14,921 | 3,335 / 3,013 | 04:57 |
MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) | 3,751 | 14,947 | 1,920 / 2,891 | 05:34 |
MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3) | 3,138 | 12,268 | 2,956 / 3,359 | 05:38 |
MacBook Air 13-inch (M2) | 1,932 | 8,919 | 2,692 / 2,897 | 09:15 |
Beyond these, we test the display with a high-end colorimeter and brightness tester — to ensure you're getting a great panel for the price. Then, we move onto professional performance and graphics-intensive tasks like Pugetbench benchmarks with Adobe apps.
And finally, as Apple is now really going hard on MacBook gaming, we have plenty of games benchmarks, including most recently Cyberpunk 2077!
Battery life chart
And our final big test is of the battery life. We run our custom battery test to see how long each MacBook (at 150 nits of brightness) can last browsing the web over Wi-Fi until it runs out of juice. Here's how all of the best MacBooks stack up. Spoiler alert: they're some of the longest-running laptops you can snag right now.
Laptop | Battery life (web surfing hh:mm) |
|---|---|
MacBook Pro 16-inch (M4 Pro) | 20:46 |
MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5) | 18:14 |
MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3) | 17:25 |
MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) | 15:14 |
MacBook Air 13-inch (M4) | 14:52 |
MacBook Air 13-inch (M2) | 14:06 |
