Looking for the best MacBook for your needs? I can help with that, as someone who has been using MacBooks for well over 18 years. With use cases from casual productivity, all the way up to multi-layered 4K edits in Final Cut Pro, I’m in a good place to help you pick the right one for you.
Given all the new M4 Mac announcements that have happened this week, I’m going to give you one piece of advice: don’t buy a MacBook Pro right now. To be clear, this doesn’t apply to our best overall pick — the M3 MacBook Air. Apple has upgraded both the M2 and M3 MacBook Air base configurations to start at 16GB of RAM.
But if you need a little extra horsepower, even though getting $300 off the M3 MacBook Pro may be tempting, I need you to wait just a little longer until we have reviewed the M4 MacBook Pro to avoid any buyer’s remorse. That’s because Apple has brought some serious upgrades to the party that make the jump to M4 more than just a spec bump:
- Double the RAM in the base model (RIP 8GB)
- An additional Thunderbolt 4 port on the M4 MacBook Pro
- Thunderbolt 5 ports on M4 Pro and M4 Max MacBook Pros
- Upgraded 12MP Center Stage camera
- 2x faster Neural Engine for AI workloads
- 2x faster ray-tracing
- The “world’s fastest” CPU cores for blazing single-threaded tasks like opening apps
- Up to 24 hours of battery life
So do take the M3 MacBook Pro recommendations below in that context. They are incredible laptops, don’t get me wrong, but they are about to get superseded real soon on Friday, November 8.
The quick list
The MacBook Air M3 is the best laptop for the money. The M3 chip is a seriously strong performer, the display is bigger and brighter, and battery life exceeds 15 hours.
The MacBook Air M1 is aging rapidly, but the ol' M1 still has enough pep in its step for basic productivity work. And its still one of the lightest and longest-lasting laptops you can get — especially at that $649 price.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro nails the sweet spot between portability and performance, giving you the power of M3 with the portability of a 14-incher. It's my pick for the best MacBook Pro for most.
The MacBook Air 15-inch M3 is the big-screen MacBook Air, and one gives you so much screen real-estate with that reliable M3 power, for half the price of the slightly bigger M3 Max 16-inch.
The 16-inch MacBook Pro kitted out with an M3 Max chip is one of the most powerful Macs you can buy, so if you can afford to cram it full of RAM and storage, it's easily the best MacBook for power users.
If you think you need a bit more than the 14-inch M3 but don't want to splurge on a 16-inch M3 Max, the 14-inch MacBook Pro M3 Pro is the best mid-range MacBook Pro.
The best MacBooks you can buy today
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The best MacBook overall
The MacBook Air 13-inch M3 is the current MacBook I recommend to most people. Why? Because it offers a perfect balance of performance and portability at a reasonable price. The lightweight design makes it super easy to carry around, while the power and efficiency of its M3 chip let you power through everyday work without running out of juice. This laptop is also powerful enough to handle video editing and gaming. Every MacBook on this list is great, but for the average person, this is the Apple notebook to get. And, yes, it still fits inside a manila envelope!
Read the full review: MacBook Air M3 (13-inch)
Who is this for?
This is the MacBook for most people. The M3 MacBook Air packs plenty of power and a stellar battery life in its 13-inch aluminum frame, which is super lightweight to take with you to work on-the-go on most of your general productivity needs and multitasking, alongside some small bursts of intensive tasks like photo editing.
Why is it the best overall MacBook?
Three reasons. First, the sleek, lightweight frame makes it super portable to get stuff done while you’re out and about. Second, to complete the mobility, that M3 chip is blazing fast and runs without a fan, while also ensuring you get over 15 hours of battery life. And third, with a gorgeously bright display and stellar ergonomics, you’re guaranteed a top-tier laptop experience.
What do we like?
👍 Impressive M3 performance: In all of our benchmarks, the M3 MacBook Air is definitely no slouch — hitting over 12,000 in Geekbench 6 multi-core to guarantee zippy performance.
👍 Shockingly good battery life: Windows may be touting stellar battery life on Copilot+ PCs, but the Apple Silicon superpower is power efficiency. In fact, in our testing, the M3 Air lasted over 15 hours.
👍 Ultraportable, uncompromised design: Sometimes with something that is super thin and light, you see cutbacks made to the quality of the display or keyboard to do it. That’s not Apple’s M/O, as that sleek aluminum shell holds great ergonomics and a gorgeous, bright display.
What don’t we like?
👎 Only marginally better than M2: Yes, the switch to M3 has brought the highly-requested support for two external monitors rather than one, but the improvements over M2 are very incremental.
Bottom line
When it comes to the do-all MacBook, the 13-inch Air is the perfect option for that. The M3 chip is a screamer even without a fan, the super thin and lightweight dimensions make this a cinch to carry around, and the battery life is astounding.
The best cheap MacBook
After using the M1 MacBook Air for the past couple of years before upgrading to the M3 Pro model, it’s astonishing to see just how well it continues to keep up. Even in 2024 — you’re getting more than enough performance for casual productivity and entertainment, a nice, long battery life, and even better, you’re getting all this at just $649. If you just want the cheapest way into MacBooks, this is the way to go.
Read the full review: MacBook Air M1
Who is this for?
The M1 Air is for those who want to get into the Apple ecosystem on the cheap. 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?
$649 at Walmart… 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?
👍 Decent M1 performance: Now take into account that this chip is now four years old. When you look at it through this lens, it’s nice to still see how zippy it is for basic productivity and even some simple multitasking.
👍 Supreme battery life: I mean this is the laptop that started it all in terms of shocking the world. With 14 hours and 41 minutes of longevity in our testing, this is an achievement that still stands the test of time today.
👍 Comfortable ergonomics: With a bright display, comfy Magic Keyboard and a slick touchpad, using this for work on-the-go feels great for hours on end. Plus, that low surface temperature on the bottom means you can actually use it on your lap.
What don’t we like?
👎 It’s old: I mean this one is obvious, right? Apple has moved on a lot in terms of design and 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: Just two USB-C ports (one of which has to be used for charging) means you’re stuck if it ever comes to more than one accessory.
The best MacBook Pro overall
I use the MacBook Pro 14-inch as my everyday laptop because the M3 chip can keep up with my multitasking — including lots and lots of Chrome tabs — and it has the power to let me jump between editing photos, streaming video, managing tons of Slack conversations all while offering over 17 hours of battery life based on our testing. It’s a bit heavier than the Air but overall this laptop has a killer combo of performance, endurance and comfort.
Read the full review: MacBook Pro M3
Who is this for?
The base model M3 MacBook Pro is for those with a little heavier productivity needs, and those who are enthusiastic about getting into creative work. There’s enough horsepower under the hood for your simpler 4K edits and even RAW photo editing.
Why is this the best overall MacBook Pro?
Whenever I’ve used the M3 MacBook Pro, you feel the chip inside has been unleashed with the vastly improved display and improved cooling (thanks to the fan which the M3 Air does not have). This leads to vastly improved sustained performance, which is housed inside that gorgeously utilitarian aluminum unibody frame with a Mini LED display to boot.
What do we like?
👍 Zippy sustained performance: With better thermal management, the M3 chip is really able to stretch its legs and show you the full extent of those improved graphics cores in creative tasks and gaming.
👍 Brighter, better display: By moving away from the 13-inch MacBook Pro shell and putting the lower-end M3 into the new standard design of Pro Apple laptops, you reap the benefits of that drop dead gorgeous Mini LED panel.
👍 Super long battery life: At 17 hours and 25 minutes in our testing, you enter worry-free battery life territory — even when you’re away from plug outlets for a long time.
What don’t we like?
👎 Limited ports: You’ve got just enough ports for accessories and connectivity, but the lack of a third Thunderbolt 4 socket will be frustrating if you have more than two USB-C-based additions.
👎 External display support is restrained: You can workaround this with a docking station that sports DisplayLink software support. But out of the box, this can only support two external displays simultaneously (provided the lid is closed).
Bottom line
If you want to go Pro, but don’t need the insane power of the M3 Pro or M3 Max, the standard M3 MacBook Pro is a fantastic option. That 14-inch Mini LED display gives you plenty of brightness and color confidence in your work, pairing a fan with M3 gives you great sustained performance for processor-intensive tasks, and the battery life is mightily impressive for portable working.
The best big-screen MacBook
I really like the MacBook Air 15-inch because it gives you a big-screen experience for half the price of the 16-inch MacBook Pro. No, this is not a video editing workhorse, but this MacBook had plenty of oomph in my testing to tackle my daily workload. I call it the sweet spot laptop in my review, as the M3 chip can take full advantage of Apple Intelligence and the over 15 hours of battery life is pretty impressive. I just wish it had 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 M3 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?
👍 Same solid M3 performance: The M3 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 over 12,000 in our Geekbench multi core testing, and lightning quick SSD read/write speeds of 3,068 MBps and 3,050 MBps respectively.
👍 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 503 nits and a lot of color so this is great for both work and binge watching.
👍 Same Air design, but bigger: 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 — especially when you take into account that 3.5-pound weight.
👍 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?
👎 Just 2 Thunderbolt ports: We know that Apple is always a little stingy on ports, but just having two Thunderbolt sockets does restrict how much you can actually do with external accessories.
👎 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 M3 chip affords impressive power and battery life, and Apple has made the thinnest big screen laptop you can buy right now. Oh, and you’re getting all the benefits of Apple Intelligence real soon!
The best MacBook for power users
The MacBook Pro 16-inch M3 Max is for power users who need a 16-inch laptop that can edit 4K videos and play graphically demanding games without breaking a sweat. Despite its size, this beastly laptop is still relatively easy to carry around — allowing you to work wherever you want. The large size also allows for more ports, including HDMI and an SD card slot. Plus, M3 Max isn’t just for pure horsepower as it also lends this laptop excellent battery life. Though expensive, the MacBook Pro 16-inch delivers the goods for those who need the ultimate MacBook.
Read the full review: MacBook Pro M3 Max (16-inch)
Who is this for?
This one is for the professionals who need the maximum horsepower for their workload, and a big screen to see it all. It has the additional kick of M3 Max to really power through intense animation work, edit so many streams of 4K video, and even run full arena-level live productions.
Why is this the best MacBook for power users?
It’s the best chip in the biggest laptop — simple as that! This is the monster MacBook that can crush any task with its ludicrous M3 Max chip, and make it look sexy on that huge 16-inch Mini LED display.
What do we like?
👍 Insane performance: This thing is so fast, it even puts some desktop computers to shame. With a Geekbench multi-core score well over 21,000 in our testing, SSD write speeds of 7,594 MBps, and the ability to transcode a full 4K movie to 1080p in just over 2 and half minutes, this more than earns its Pro moniker.
👍 Crazy good battery life: Normally, the Max chips are huge drains on the battery life. In the 16-inch Pro, we managed to hit over 17 hours on one charge. You’ll be hard pressed to find many laptops that top or even come close to this.
👍 A delicious display: Screen real-estate is important with pro creativity, and the 16-inch screen gives you more than enough on-the-go. Plus, the 563-nits of brightness makes it usable outdoors, and that 83.2% DCI-P3 color gamut gives you confidence in your edits.
👍 Space Black looks mean (in a good way): Everyone on the TG team knows the running joke that I love matte black gadgets. Space Black gives me exactly that — there’s something powerful-yet-utilitarian to this frame and its demanding presence.
What don’t we like?
👎 Pricey as heck: Oof — $3,499 for the base M3 Max MacBook Pro!? That is a steep asking price for a laptop. If you are in the pro creative space, this is still a tall order in terms of value for money, but you do get a future-proofed system for a long time to come.
Bottom line
If you want the best of the best (no matter the cost) the M3 Max MacBook Pro is the way to go. This is a serious speed demon, whatever intense task you throw at it, which manages to sip that battery oh-so slowly. The display is stellar, the speakers are the best on any laptop I’ve ever used, and this aluminum block inspires confidence in its durability — wherever your creative travels take you.
The best mid-range MacBook Pro
If you don’t need the bonkers horsepower of the M3 Max, but still have some creatively demanding tasks like me, the M3 Pro MacBook Pro 14-inch is the best way to go. That Pro chip is a mini wonder in terms of complex 4K edits and large audio mixing jobs, while also being a beast with gaming too. And on top of all that, its battery life of over 17 hours makes it mightily efficient too!
Read the full review: MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3 Pro)
Who is this for?
This is for the pro and enthusiast creatives out there — those who don’t need to donate a kidney for the blistering M3 Max and can settle with the more than solid mid-ranger in M3 Pro. For context: I’ve been able to edit 4 streams of 4K video and apply over 20 preset edits onto a giant RAW image with no problem!
Why is this the best mid-range MacBook Pro?
The M3 MacBook Pro is great for creative enthusiasts, but it can only go so far. The additional CPU and graphics cores on-board the M3 Pro do give it a serious turbo boost in Photoshop and FInal Cut word, alongside doubling that SSD loading speed over its base model sibling.
What do we like?
👍 Insane performance: This thing is so fast, it even puts some desktop computers to shame. With a Geekbench multi-core score well over 21,000 in our testing, SSD write speeds of 7,594 MBps, and the ability to transcode a full 4K movie to 1080p in just over 2 and half minutes, this more than earns its Pro moniker.
👍 Crazy good battery life: Normally, the Max chips are huge drains on the battery life. In the 16-inch Pro, we managed to hit over 17 hours on one charge. You’ll be hard pressed to find many laptops that top or even come close to this.
👍 A delicious display: Screen real-estate is important with pro creativity, and the 16-inch screen gives you more than enough on-the-go. Plus, the 563-nits of brightness makes it usable outdoors, and that 83.2% DCI-P3 color gamut gives you confidence in your edits.
👍 Space Black looks mean (in a good way): Everyone on the TG team knows the running joke that I love matte black gadgets. Space Black gives me exactly that — there’s something powerful-yet-utilitarian to this frame and its demanding presence.
What don’t we like?
👎 Expensive: With a starting price of $1,999, you have a serious decision to make about how far your creativity will go. That’s because you can actually do a lot on the cheaper M3 model, in spite of that reduced power potential.
👎 Configuration prices are steep: Want extra CPU and GPU cores? That’ll be another $200. All fair and good, but when you get into paying $400 for 36GB of RAM and spending nearly four grand to get 4TB SSD storage, you start to realize how costly speccing this machine can get.
Bottom line
The M3 Pro MacBook Pro can easily get lost in between the M3 and M3 Max, but this is a great intermediate system for those starting to stretch their legs into pro creative territory. In its 14-inch stature, you’re getting plenty of horsepower and battery life in a slim, lightweight package.
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 M3 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 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro is the longest-lasting MacBook there is, posting a Tom's Guide battery test time of 17:25. But the whole M3 lineup hangs around that 17-hour mark if longevity is your primary concern.
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. Only then are we comfortable recommending them (or not) for your purchase.
We use a Klein K-10A colorimeter to test each MacBook's screen to find its average brightness and color quality (so we don't just assume Apple's ratings are correct). When it comes to general performance, we use the Geekbench 6 (CPU performance) benchmark, and time how long the Macs will take to transcode a 4K video to 1080p.
We also run the BlackMagic storage speeds test to see how fast these MacBooks' SSDs are (spoiler alert: they're all pretty fast). Then, 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.
| Laptop | Single-core | Multicore | BlackMagic SSD speeds read/write (MBps) | HandBrake video transcoding (mm:ss) |
| MacBook Pro 16-inch (M3 Max) | 3,200 | 21,562 | 5,561 / 7,594 | 02;34 |
| MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3 Pro) | 3,154 | 13,226 | 4,211 / 5,069 | 04:26 |
| MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3) | 3,138 | 12,268 | 2,956 / 3,359 | 05:38 |
| MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) | 3,093 | 12,025 | 3,050 / 3,068 | 06:30 |
| MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) | 3,082 | 12,057 | 3,039 / 2,981 | 07:51 |
| MacBook Air 13-inch (M1) | N/A | N/A | 2,692 / 2,897 | 09:15 |
Then, we move onto professional performance and graphics-intensive tasks. This revolves mainly around the likes of PugetBench benchmarks with Adobe Creative Cloud apps. This mix of CPU and GPU tasks is reflective of how it will handle your standard creative workload.
We've also tested various computer games on MacBooks, with Civilization VI: Gathering Storm being one of our current favorites to run because it runs well on both macOS and Windows, giving us a good point of comparison.
Battery life chart
And our final big test is of the battery life. Apple silicon has been a marvel for longevity, so we run our own proprietary battery test that involves loading a bunch of websites to simulate general usage. Here's how long every MacBook lasts. The numbers are, frankly, mindblowing!
| Laptop | Battery life (web surfing hh:mm) |
|---|---|
| MacBook Pro 16-inch (M3 Max) | 17:11 |
| MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3 Pro) | 17:22 |
| MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3) | 17:16 |
| MacBook Air 15-inch (M3) | 15:03 |
| MacBook Air 13-inch (M3) | 15:13 |
| MacBook Air 13-inch (M1) | 14:22 |
