Which MacBook Should You Buy?

Home or Office Use

If all you’re doing is light tasks like using office applications, video conferencing, browsing the web, and that sort of thing, any MacBook Air is going to be fine for you. Your safest bet is to get one with 16GB of memory and at least 512GB of storage. If you are budget constrained and just can’t afford that, you will be fine with an older model with 8GB of memory and 256GB of storage. Those are now heavily discounted and should be purchased for around $700. The main difference is that 8GB of memory will be restrictive on what you can do on your laptop and it’s not going to give you the same longevity. I’d say an 8GB of memory laptop won’t last you much more than 5 years even for very light tasks.

When it comes to deciding between an Air 13 or 15, this is really up to you. Do you want more portability or more screen real estate for productivity? Almost everything else is the same about these two laptops other than the Air 15 having a slightly larger battery which makes it last a smidge longer.

If you can afford it, an upgraded pick for home or office use would be a MacBook Pro 14 with a base M4 processor. It has a 14.2 inch display that is of a higher quality than the Air’s. It is brighter, it has a fast refresh rate, and you can even upgrade it to a nanotexture display for reduced glare. The Pro also has a more comfortable keyboard, which I appreciate. The Air’s feels low travel, which is why I personally don’t use them. The Pro has a better webcam, better speakers, and better port selection. You get an HDMI port, an SD card reader, and an extra thunderbolt port on the right side, which is convenient as you can charge the laptop from either side. And, on the ports, these new M4 MacBook Pros allow you to hook up two external monitors while using the laptop’s display. Previously you’d have to close the laptop’s lid to do that. Finally, the MacBook Pro is significantly more powerful, of course. It uses a new M4 processor which is a big step up from the processors that are in the Airs. The Pro also has a fan to keep its processor cool during performance tasks. This laptop is going to be a much better bet if you want more flexibility. For example, if you want to try your hand at creating a YouTube channel like ours or perhaps programming a website like this one.

School

For school, I recommend the exact same laptops as home or office users with one adjustment. If you go for a MacBook Air, you’re probably going to want the 13-inch for its increased portability over the 15. If you can afford it, the M4 MacBook Pro 14 is a much better machine and gives you a lot more flexibility. The only students I would recommend something different for are those studying disciplines that require more powerful laptops. For these students, I'd recommend buying the lowest spec’d laptop that I'm going to recommend for the specific discipline you’re studying.

Programming

For programmers, as the saying goes, you can code on any laptop. So any MacBook will work. But, please get one with at least 16GB of memory. Programmers have more applications running at the same time than your average user. At a minimum I'd suggest that same MacBook Pro 14 with the base M4 processor. It comes standard with 16GB of memory and its screen is high quality which makes it fantastic for viewing lots of small code. As I've already mentioned, the rest of the laptop is premium.

Now, I'd prefer to see you with even more memory at 24GB, but before you buy a custom configuration from Apple, remember the following. You can upgrade to the next version with the M4 Pro 12-core processor version and get 24GB standard from a retailer, many of whom offer discounts on these laptops. We track these discounts here on our website with our price tracker. This means you could pay the same as you would for a custom build and get a better processor out of it.

I believe a MacBook Pro 14 or 16 with one of those M4 Pro chips is the most ideal choice for coders right now, if you can afford it. Programmers like better CPU performance and a good amount of memory, and these laptops give you both. Plus, you get 24GB of memory out of the box. That is enough for the vast majority of developers. For example, you can run an 8GB Virtual Machine and keep 16GB for your system. Not to mention, the MacBook Pros with M4 Pro or Max chips have a more robust 2-fan cooling solution. The cheaper 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M4 processor only has one.

If you're deciding between the 12 and 14-core, we did measure the 14-core as performing better and running cooler which is nice. But, we don't think this upgrade is really needed for programmers.

Machine Learning and AI

When it comes to Machine Learning and AI, you will love lots of fast memory and a powerful GPU. The M4 Max MacBook Pros are clearly the best option. The highest end M4 Max chip is the most desirable as it has the fastest memory, comes with 48GB of it, and has the most powerful GPU.

We do not recommend getting the Max chips in the smaller 14-inch chassis, though, as they don't seem to be cooled as well. The 16-inch would be a better option for the more powerful chip.

Video Editing

For video editors, you need lots of fast memory, media encoding engines, and lots of GPU cores. To edit one of the videos on our YouTube channel without dropped frames, Premiere Pro almost completely maxes out the GPU of my M4 Max 16-core MacBook Pro 16 and it uses around 38GB of memory. Media Engines are also important because video editing involves a lot of compressed footage that you need to decode and then re-encode when you export. Max chips have two Media Engines whereas Pro chips only have one. So, they are much faster for this. Putting everything together, video editors should buy an M4 Max equipped MacBook Pro 16 and if you can afford the more powerful variant, get that one. Unless you are editing off a NAS, professional video editors are one of the only people I'd strongly recommend considering upgrading above a stock configuration. 1 TB of storage just isn’t that much for modern footage, and 512GB is a joke. 2TB is much healthier.

If you can’t afford a MacBook Pro 16 with a Max chip get one with an M4 Pro 14-core processor. It did surprisingly well in our video editing tests.

As you may have noticed for video editors, I've been specifically recommending the MacBook Pro 16-inch and not the 14. You really will want that extra screen real estate unless you plug into an external monitor. Although we don't recommend getting the Max chip in the 14-inch, if you do decide to get it just be aware that you may not be getting the full performance out of your processor.

Photo Editing

For photo editing, you really don’t need anything more than an M4 Pro MacBook Pro 16. Again, same deal here as video editors, you’ll likely want that larger display.

3D Art

For 3D content creation, you’ll want lots of GPU cores and lots of fast memory. An M4 Max MacBook Pro is what you should get. If you can’t afford that, get the MacBook Pro with the 14-core CPU and 20 core GPU.

Architecture, Interior Design, or Engineering

For architects, interior designers, and engineers you also do rendering but your rendering tends to be more basic to showcase your designs rather than something photo realistic. For you, any MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro chip is going to be perfect, and if you want a less pricy option, you’ll likely be fine with a MacBook Pro 14 with M4.

Should You Upgrade Your MacBook When You Buy It?

Alright, no matter what you are doing on your laptop, I'm sure you are getting anxious about whether you should upgrade it when you buy, as these can’t be upgraded later on.

Apple's upgrades are extremely overpriced and they do not discount their laptops. So, that’s who you’ll likely be buying from if you customize. Please consider that the true price of an upgrade is its sticker price plus the amount you are missing out on by not being able to take advantage of a sale from a different store.

Assuming you can get $200 off a stock model from a retailer, there are several cases where its better to step up an entire model vs upgrade. For example, if you are upgrading storage in the M4 Pro 12-core, wait for the 14-core to go on sale, and get that instead, as it comes with 1 TB. We track these deals here on our website, check them out below to see what I mean.

Do You Need More Memory?

With this year’s increase to the starting memory of many MacBooks, very few people will need to upgrade from the models I’ve recommended. To correctly determine if you need more, go about your normal day while regularly looking at the Memory Pressure graph in Activity monitor. If that is regularly yellow or even red, then you do need more memory than you currently have.

What About The Nanotexture Display, Is That Worth It?

Our model with the Nanotexture display finally arrived, and we love it. It significantly reduces reflections in direct sunlight. But, before you think you need it, please consider that MacBook Pros already have very bright screens. Not to mention that this year's models get even brighter when they detect direct sunlight. Bright screens are known to help combat reflections. I have used hundreds of laptops in a variety of environments and MacBook Pros already handle reflections pretty well. That being said, after I tried the Nanotexture display, I started to notice reflections on my other MacBook Pros and couldn’t unsee them. Moral of the story, given what I already said about the true cost of Apple’s upgrades, it’s unlikely to be worth it.

That is unless-

• You frequently use your laptop in direct sunlight
• You are planning to customize your laptop with other upgrades anyway
• You have no money worries whatsoever

Should You Save Money By Buying An Older M3 MacBook Pro?

Yes, the M3s are now heavily discounted, but the truth is that the M4 MacBook Pros are substantially better than the M3s. That release was a bit of a dud. In fact, in a couple of ways, M3 MacBook Pros were worse than M2s. I have a video out on that, which I'll link below.

The base M4 MacBook Pro 14 is significantly better than the M3 version. Not only does it have a much faster processor, but it now starts at 16GB of memory instead of 8. It has a 3rd Thunderbolt port on the right side, which is convenient, and it has better external display support.

The M4 Pro MacBook Pros are massively faster than their M3 Pro counterparts. Not only do they have more cores, but more of them are Performance cores. You also get more memory, the memory is faster, the ports are Thunderbolt 5, and they have a brighter display. So, for these configurations, I really feel the M3 MacBook Pros need to be $400 or less than their M4 counterparts.

However, before you dismiss the M3 MacBook Pros, we found something interesting. The older M3 Pro 12-core actually performs around the same in multi-core as the new M4 10-core. But, because the older one is technically from the better Pro range of chips, it comes with that two-fan cooling solution, and 2GB of extra memory. So, that one I'd legitimately consider buying over the MacBook Pro 14 M4 base model. That is assuming they now cost around the same.

When it comes to the more powerful M4 Max equipped MacBook Pro 14s and 16s, far less has changed on paper vs the older M3 Max models. In the real world, I have edited our videos on both. I get noticeably less dropped frames on my new M4 Max MacBook Pro 16, and it doesn’t feel as warm to the touch while I edit. So, again, I'd like to see at least a $400 discount to buy an older M3 Max model.

What About If You Already Have An Older MacBook Pro, Should You Upgrade?

If you are coming from an Intel Mac, absolutely. If you are coming from an M1, you will notice that these new MacBooks are significantly snappier even in daily tasks. If you are coming from M2 or M3, I would only upgrade if you are facing performance problems. In my case, it made sense to upgrade to an M4 Max because I was getting significantly more dropped frames in Premiere Pro than on my older models.

I Want To Keep My MacBook For 5 to 8 Years, What Should I Buy?

I never recommend buying a laptop to keep it that long. People who do this tend to massively overspend on expensive upgrades that they just don’t need and may never need. It’s better to put that money aside and upgrade sooner. You’ll get a ton more for your money. I recommend selling and upgrading your laptop every 3 to 4 years. MacBooks have a higher resale value than Windows laptops, so that helps. Think about how much laptops have improved over the last 6 years. If you had bought a MacBook expecting to keep it for 8 years, right now you’d be on an Intel MacBook with a touch bar and a broken butterfly keyboard.

Should You Buy A MacBook On Credit?

Finally, Apple is heavily pushing you to take out a loan to buy one of their shiny new MacBooks. Do not buy a laptop if you can’t afford it. Seriously, I love Macs but they aren’t worth going into debt over. Being totally transparent, for most people there are so few times where the benefits of a higher spec’d model is going to be noticeable. So, please buy what you can afford. And on that note, I would strongly consider buying a returned model also known as an open box. You can save a ton going that route and those models are normally still covered by Apple's warranty.