Our new pick is the 13-inch MacBook Pro (2019, two Thunderbolt 3 ports), and the MacBook Air (2019) is our new budget pick.
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Your guide
Andrew Cunningham
The best Mac laptop for most people is the 13-inch MacBook Pro (2019, two Thunderbolt 3 ports). It’s more than fast enough for the things that most people use a computer for—Web browsing, working on documents, and photo and video editing—and it has an excellent high-resolution screen, a great trackpad, enough battery life to get most people through a day of work, and a (relatively) reasonable price.
The entry-level MacBook Pro has a fantastic screen, a fast quad-core processor, and a reasonable price, though we wish it came with more ports and more storage.
The entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro includes a quad-core processor and much faster integrated graphics than in the Air, both of which will make your work go significantly faster—2019’s 13-inch Pro is almost as fast as 15-inch models from past years. The laptop does have some shortcomings, but they’re almost all shared by other modern Apple laptops: the low-travel keyboard, a small number of homogenous ports (in this case, two Thunderbolt 3 ports) that may require the use of USB-C hubs or new cables, and a high price relative to Windows laptops with similar performance and features, especially if you need more than 128 GB of storage. But the Pro’s light weight, solid construction, and industry-leading support make it a good laptop, especially if you also own an iPhone or other Apple devices.
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The Air includes most of the good stuff from the Pro, such as the great screen, the solid construction, and the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, for a bit less money. But its dual-core processor is noticeably slower.
*At the time of publishing, the price was $1,100.
The 2019 MacBook Air is a couple hundred dollars cheaper and a quarter-pound lighter than the 13-inch MacBook Pro. It also has slightly better battery life, and it’s functionally an identical laptop in most of the important ways: screen, memory and storage, ports, keyboard and touchpad, construction. But its dual-core processor and slower integrated graphics make it a worse choice if you plan on doing much photo and video editing or programming, or if you plan on connecting it to high-resolution external monitors. It also skips the Touch Bar in favor of a row of physical function keys and a standalone Touch ID fingerprint sensor, though depending on how you feel about the flashy but superfluous Touch Bar, you might prefer this.
The 15-inch MacBook Pro has a larger screen and the fastest, most powerful components Apple ships in a laptop, and it’s still relatively thin and light. But you pay a lot for that extra speed.
The 15-inch MacBook Pro is our top Mac pick in our guide to laptops for video and photo editing. You won’t notice a huge speed boost in everyday computing tasks, but our recommended configuration’s six-core Intel Core processor can give it a speed boost of around 30 percent over the 13-inch Pro when rendering video or compiling code, and its discrete AMD Radeon GPUs provide better performance when running 3D drafting programs or games.
Because you can’t upgrade Apple’s current laptops later—the memory, storage, and processors are all built in—you need to make sure to buy the right configuration. We’ve listed our recommended configuration for each of our picks in the sections below.
If you aren’t wedded to macOS, we have a separate guide dedicated to helping you find the right laptop.
The entry-level MacBook Pro has a fantastic screen, a fast quad-core processor, and a reasonable price, though we wish it came with more ports and more storage.
The Air includes most of the good stuff from the Pro, such as the great screen, the solid construction, and the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, for a bit less money. But its dual-core processor is noticeably slower.
*At the time of publishing, the price was $1,100.
The 15-inch MacBook Pro has a larger screen and the fastest, most powerful components Apple ships in a laptop, and it’s still relatively thin and light. But you pay a lot for that extra speed.
Andrew Cunningham spent more than six years testing, reviewing, and otherwise writing about PCs, Macs, and other gadgets for AnandTech and Ars Technica. He has been building, upgrading, and fixing PCs for more than 15 years, and he spent five of those years in IT departments buying and repairing laptops and desktops as well as helping people buy the best tech for their needs. He has also used just about every Mac laptop that Apple has released in the past two decades.
The best reason to buy a MacBook is if you need or prefer macOS instead of Windows. The operating system is stable and easy to use, but more important, it integrates well with iPhones and iPads—iMessages and SMS messages sent from your Mac also appear on your iPhone and vice versa, and features such as AirDrop and iCloud make it easy to share notes, pictures, videos, reminders, contacts, passwords, bookmarks, and other data between your devices.
Macs are also a good choice if you want great support. Apple’s tech support is routinely rated above that of all other PC and phone makers, and Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers offer accessible in-person tech support and repairs in many locations.
Macs aren’t a great choice if you have less than $1,000 to spend on a laptop, if you want to get the most performance for your money, or if you want to run high-end games. Windows ultrabooks provide as good or better performance, more kinds of ports, and more storage at or below the price Apple charges for the MacBook Air. Budget Chrome OS and Windows laptops are a better choice if you have only $500 to spend. And Windows gaming notebooks, while larger and bulkier than any MacBook, usually have newer and faster dedicated graphics processors than Apple’s laptops do (and you can buy some of them for less than half of what a 15-inch MacBook Pro costs).
From budget-friendly options to thin-and-light ultrabooks to powerful gaming laptops, we’ve spent hundreds of hours finding the best laptops for most people.
Starting at $1299
Up to 32GB of memory for running multiple pro apps.
Stunning Retina display with True Tone technology.
Touch Bar and Touch ID for increased productivity.
MacBook Pro elevates the notebook to a whole new level of performance and portability. Wherever your ideas take you, you’ll get there faster than ever with high‑performance processors and memory, advanced graphics, blazing‑fast storage, and more.
Retouch, edit, and work with high-resolution photos in Photoshop at lightning speed.
Build code, run multiple virtual machines, and see your work take shape — faster than ever before.
Edit multicam clips in Final Cut Pro X using up to 11 streams of Apple ProRes RAW 4K video on the 15-inch MacBook Pro.1
Experience smooth real-time performance when rendering 3D models in Cinema 4D.
Play a graphics-intensive game like Fortnite and enjoy responsive performance and vivid detail.
Quad-core MacBook Pro
Dual-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
8-core MacBook Pro
Quad-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
Quad-core MacBook Pro
Dual-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
8-core MacBook Pro
Quad-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
Quad-core MacBook Pro
Dual-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
8-core MacBook Pro
Quad-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
Quad-core MacBook Pro
Dual-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
8-core MacBook Pro
Quad-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
Quad-core MacBook Pro
Dual-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
8-core MacBook Pro
Quad-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
Quad-core MacBook Pro
Dual-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
8-core MacBook Pro
Quad-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
Quad-core MacBook Pro
Dual-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
8-core MacBook Pro
Quad-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
Quad-core MacBook Pro
Dual-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
8-core MacBook Pro
Quad-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
Quad-core MacBook Pro
Dual-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
8-core MacBook Pro
Quad-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
8-core MacBook Pro
Quad-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
Quad-core MacBook Pro
Dual-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
8-core MacBook Pro
Quad-core MacBook Pro (Baseline)
MacBook Pro features a Radeon Pro discrete GPU in every 15‑inch model, combining impressive power with remarkable power efficiency. And now we’ve paired each discrete GPU with 4GB of GDDR5 memory standard, giving you fluid, real‑time performance for pro tasks like rendering 3D titles in Final Cut Pro X. The 13‑inch model features powerful integrated graphics with 128MB of embedded DRAM — twice as much as the previous generation — which accelerates graphics tasks. That means more time for what matters most: creating amazing work.
The 15-inch MacBook Pro offers Radeon Pro Vega GPU options — the first discrete mobile Vega GPUs in a notebook. Vega, the same graphics architecture found in iMac Pro, delivers an enhanced compute engine and utilizes High Bandwidth Memory (HBM2). HBM2 doubles the memory bandwidth to the GPU while doing so at considerably lower power, so more of the graphics power budget can be used by the GPU itself. The result is significantly faster graphics performance — up to 60 percent faster than the Radeon Pro 560X13 — for tackling demanding video, 3D, rendering, and compute workloads.
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro Vega 20
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro 560X (Baseline)
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro Vega 20
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro 560X (Baseline)
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro Vega 20
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro 560X (Baseline)
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro Vega 20
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro 560X (Baseline)
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro Vega 20
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro 560X (Baseline)
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro Vega 20
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro 560X (Baseline)
Blackmagic Design has created two external GPUs (eGPUs) ideal for MacBook Pro.19 So you can have desktop-class graphics performance without giving up the portability of a notebook. Housed in an all-in-one aluminum enclosure, Blackmagic eGPUs are powerful yet quiet, charge your Mac using Thunderbolt 3, and have built-in I/O connections to drive both a Thunderbolt 3 display and VR accessories simultaneously. Choose the Blackmagic eGPU to accelerate pro apps and enjoy supersmooth gaming or the Blackmagic eGPU Pro for the ultimate workstation-class graphics performance for your pro app workflows and VR content creation.
Quad-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU Pro
Quad-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU
Quad-core MacBook Pro with Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655 (Baseline)
6-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU Pro
6-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro 560X (Baseline)
Quad-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU Pro
Quad-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU
Quad-core MacBook Pro with Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655 (Baseline)
6-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU Pro
6-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro 560X (Baseline)
Quad-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU Pro
Quad-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU
Quad-core MacBook Pro with Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655 (Baseline)
6-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU Pro
6-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro 560X (Baseline)
6-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU Pro
6-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro 560X (Baseline)
Quad-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU Pro
Quad-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU
Quad-core MacBook Pro with Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655 (Baseline)
6-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU Pro
6-core MacBook Pro with Blackmagic eGPU
6-core MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro 560X (Baseline)
Now on every MacBook Pro, the Touch Bar replaces the function keys that have long occupied the top of your keyboard with something much more versatile and capable. It changes automatically based on what you’re doing to show you relevant tools that are intuitive to use — system controls like volume and brightness, interactive ways to adjust or browse through content, and intelligent typing features like emoji and predictive text, just to name a few.
Familiar gestures make it easy to use the Touch Bar. Tap to expand the Control Strip, flick to adjust volume and brightness, or slide to rewind while watching a movie.
Tap to move between tabs in Safari.
Touch and hold to see original versions of your photos while editing.
Flick your finger to adjust brightness and volume.
Slide to choose a font color in your Keynote slides.
Many of the built-in apps on your MacBook Pro have Touch Bar controls that make common actions like sending an email or formatting a document even easier. The Touch Bar changes to match the app you’re using, bringing these shortcuts front and center. And third-party apps can take advantage of the Touch Bar as well.
Slide through the timeline while editing. The Touch Bar will change to match what you’re working on and bring up the tools you need from deep within the app.
Select a photo as a favorite, use auto-enhance, or quickly add your photo to an album. The Touch Bar brings editing tools out, too — like cropping and applying filters.
Jump to a location, fine-tune sounds, or turn your Touch Bar into a drum, piano, or audio recording control panel.
Type a message faster with predictive text. The Touch Bar can suggest frequent recipients and emoji when composing a message, too.
You can create shortcuts right in your Control Strip and in apps like Mail, Pages, Safari, and Final Cut Pro X to help you work faster and be more productive.
With Touch ID, you can unlock your MacBook Pro in an instant. You can also use Apple Pay to make secure online purchases, quickly access system settings and locked notes, and even switch between users — all with the touch of a finger.
Buy with Apple Pay
Every MacBook Pro is equipped with the Apple T2 Security Chip — our second‑generation custom Mac silicon designed to make everything you do even more secure. It includes a Secure Enclave coprocessor that provides the foundation for secure boot and encrypted storage capabilities. It also consolidates many discrete controllers, including the system management controller, audio controller, and SSD controller, into one. And the Apple T2 Security Chip brings a familiar voice to MacBook Pro — Hey Siri is always ready to open apps, find documents, play music, or answer your questions.
MacBook Pro includes a solid-state drive that’s blazing fast, with sequential read speeds up to 3.2GB/s. The 15‑inch model is available with up to a 4TB SSD, and the 13‑inch MacBook Pro is available with up to a 2TB SSD — enough space to take even your biggest files with you, like large photo libraries or video projects. So you can boot up, launch multiple apps, or import huge files in a flash. And with the Apple T2 Security Chip, everything is automatically encrypted on the fly.
Thunderbolt 3 combines ultra‑high bandwidth with the ultra‑versatility of the USB‑C industry standard to create one revved‑up universal port. It integrates data transfer, charging, and video output in a single connector, delivering up to 40Gb/s of throughput for twice the bandwidth of Thunderbolt 2. Both sizes of MacBook Pro are available with up to four ports, so you can do all of that from either side. Existing devices are easily connected with a cable or adapter. And Thunderbolt 3 is reversible, so no matter how you plug in, it’s always right side up.
The Retina display in MacBook Pro is the best ever in a Mac notebook. It features bright LED backlighting and a high contrast ratio, delivering deep blacks and bright whites. It supports P3 wide color for even more vibrant greens and reds than with sRGB. And every MacBook Pro features True Tone technology. The white balance automatically adjusts to match the color temperature of the light around you — for a more natural viewing experience. MacBook Pro has a dynamic soundstage that feels and sounds much wider than its physical dimensions imply. Movies are more immersive. Music more room-filling. And three built-in mics form directional beams that capture your voice more clearly for FaceTime calls and talking to Siri.
25% more
colors than sRGB
Wide stereo
sound
The MacBook Pro keyboard has a butterfly mechanism — providing four times more key stability than a traditional scissor mechanism, along with greater comfort. Every MacBook Pro now features a keyboard with a quieter typing experience. And the spacious Force Touch trackpad gives your fingers plenty of room to gesture and click.
Featuring Dark Mode, new pro-inspired features, four new apps, and a redesigned Mac App Store.
Just trade in your eligible computer. It’s good for you and the planet.