The Best Apple MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Laptops for 2023
Below are our choices for the best MacBooks for each user, from the generalist to the power-hungry creative professional. Each laptop has gone through the full PCMag testing process, and following our picks is a detailed buyer’s guide that answers common questions.
The $999 MacBook Air uses Apple’s original M1 processor , which promises speedy performance on everyday tasks. Meanwhile, the most current 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops come with your choice of M1 Pro or M1 Max chips for serious content creation needs. Finally, the latest MacBook Air (2022) and 13-inch MacBook Pro (2022) come with the newest M2 processor.
With the powerful Apple MacBook Pro now available in three screen sizes—and the slim, efficient, and one-size MacBook Air—there are two Mac laptop families to choose between. With similar specs and exterior styling across both the Air and the Pro, deciding which one is best for you largely comes down to which size screen you need and how much processing power your typical computing tasks require.
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Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
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Apple MacBook Air (2022, M2)
Best Mac Laptop Overall
4.5 Outstanding
Bottom Line:
The 2022 version of Apple’s MacBook Air gets a fresh look and the more powerful M2 processor, making it Apple’s best ultraportable laptop yet.
PROS
- Stunning, slim design
- Larger, more vibrant 13.6-inch display
- Multiple color options
- M2 chip delivers excellent performance
CONS
- Shorter battery life than 2020 M1 MacBook Air
- Camera notch encroaches on display panel
- Limited to two USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 ports (though mitigated, in part, by MagSafe connector)
Sold By
List Price
Price
Amazon
$1,199.00
$1,049.00
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Apple MacBook Air (M1, Late 2020)
Best Budget Mac Laptop
4.5 Outstanding
Bottom Line:
The M1-equipped MacBook Air now packs far better performance than its predecessors, rivaling at times the M1-based MacBook Pro. At $999, it’s the best value among macOS laptops.
PROS
- Good value, especially for a MacBook
- Much-improved performance, thanks to Apple’s new M1 processor
- Exceptional battery life
- Sleek, portable metal design
- High-quality keyboard, touchpad, and display
- Multiple color options
CONS
- Port selection limited to two USB Type-C connections
- Still no touch-screen option
Sold By
List Price
Price
Amazon
$755.99
$695.00
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Best Buy
$999.99
$799.99
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Read Our Apple MacBook Air (M1, Late 2020) Review
Apple MacBook Pro 14-Inch
Best Mac Laptop for Content Creators
4.5 Outstanding
Bottom Line:
The 14-inch Apple MacBook Pro occupies a new sweet spot among pro content-creator laptops: far more capable than consumer-class alternatives, yet much less expensive than its 16-inch sibling and bulkier Windows workstations.
PROS
- Seriously powerful M1 Pro CPU
- HDMI output and SD card reader
- Impressive audio performance
- High-quality 1080p webcam
- Eye-catching HDR display
- Marathon battery life
- Luxurious keyboard and touchpad
CONS
- Expensive
- Camera notch may be obtrusive for some users or applications
Sold By
List Price
Price
Amazon
$2,499.00
$2,099.00
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Best Buy
$1,999.00
$1,599.00
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Read Our Apple MacBook Pro 14-Inch Review
Apple MacBook Pro 13-Inch (2022, M2)
Best Mac Laptop for Extreme Battery Life
4.0 Excellent
Bottom Line:
The 2022 reboot of Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Pro gets points for its peppy new M2 processor, which delivers a raw-performance uptick, and remains an iconic design. But we’d have liked to see more daring innovation on the rest of the laptop.
PROS
- Performance tops M1 predecessor and Intel competitors
- Tried-and-true design
- Fantastic 22-hour battery life
CONS
- Dated physical design
- Lackluster 720p webcam and 2,560-by-1,600-pixel display
- Supports just one external display
- Touch Bar has its proponents, but feels like a design throwback
Sold By
List Price
Price
Amazon
$1,299.00
$1,099.00
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Best Buy
$1,299.00
$1,149.00
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Read Our Apple MacBook Pro 13-Inch (2022, M2) Review
Apple MacBook Pro 16-Inch (2021, M1 Max)
Best Mac Laptop for Professional Creative Work
4.0 Excellent
Bottom Line:
The new ultimate Mac laptop, the 2021 Apple MacBook Pro 16-Inch is a finely engineered, high-octane workstation that will thrill content creators. The pumped-up M1 Max silicon in our tester, though, is beyond mere bragging rights—it’s reserved for creative pros with specialized needs.
PROS
- Seriously powerful components
- Exceptional battery life
- Impressive audio performance
- HDMI output and SD card reader
- High-quality 1080p webcam
- Gorgeous Mini-LED display
- High-quality keyboard, huge touchpad
CONS
- M1 Max CPU option, as tested, represents poor value for most workloads
- Configuration upticks are expensive
- Obtrusive camera notch
- Weighs nearly 5 pounds
Sold By
List Price
Price
Best Buy
$2,499.00
$1,999.00
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B&H Photo Video
$2,499.00
$2,499.00
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Amazon
$3,649.95
$3,649.95
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Read Our Apple MacBook Pro 16-Inch (2021, M1 Max) Review
Buying Guide: The Best Apple MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Laptops for 2023
The MacBook Air
Apple’s smallest laptop is the MacBook Air, newly redesigned for 2022. It’s a slim, sleek machine that measures just 0.44 inches across and weighs just 2.7 pounds. The latest MacBook Air heavily adopts the newest MacBook Pro design, with uniform thinness, an improved Magic Keyboard, a larger 16:10 screen (thanks to the display notch), MagSafe charging, and more.
The MacBook Air line is also Apple’s cheapest, starting with the 2020 model (M1 processor) at $899 for students and teachers or $999 for the general public. The lowest-cost and most portable entry point into the macOS ecosystem obviously has enormous appeal. Read our fully-tested MacBook Air (M1, 2020) review for more information.
(Credit: Molly Flores)
Apple’s 2022 MacBook Air takes every advancement in the 2020 model that much further—for an additional $200 to start at checkout. That extra $200 gets you the latest Apple silicon for computers, the M2 processor, which measurably improves performance over the M1 model while maintaining its storied, long battery life. It also brings with it many of the features found in the latest MacBook Pro design revision, including the aforementioned 16:10 display, improved keyboard, MagSafe charging, and an improved FaceTime webcam.
(Credit: Molly Flores)
The MacBook Air is an ideal travel companion and, given its sleek styling and Apple’s cachet, a bit of a status symbol to boot. It’s the Mac laptop we recommend for most people. But since you’ll spend at least $999 on it, you’ll want to make sure to look at the other, larger Apple portables that offer more connectivity and—in some cases—more computing power.
The MacBook Air vs. the 13-inch MacBook Pro
The closest Apple alternative to the MacBook Air is the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro, which is just as light as the MacBook Air. In return for a slightly higher starting price ($1,299), the entry-level MacBook Pro has a slightly more powerful version of the M2 chip in the 2022 MacBook Air at the start. (You can get the same grade of M2 processor in the Air for another $300.)
The performance advantage is small, though, as the main difference is an additional two graphics cores, for a total of 10—along with two more hours of battery life. So, most MacBook buyers will probably be better off with the Air than the 13-inch Pro.
(Credit: Zlata Ivleva)
The 13-inch MacBook Pro comes with an active cooling fan, which is something the MacBook Air lacks. The MacBook Air instead uses passive cooling, which works just fine for basic tasks, like browsing the web, but might hamper the performance of more intensive tasks like video encoding. The memory and storage options of the 13-inch MacBook Pro are the same as those of the MacBook Air.
We don’t recommend the 13-inch MacBook Pro for most people, since consumers will be better off with the MacBook Air, and professionals can take advantage of the computing power in the larger Pro models mentioned below.
But the 13-inch MacBook Pro does have that extreme battery life. Although all Mac laptops last for a long time away from an outlet, the 13-inch Pro lasts for nearly 22 hours in our video rundown test. That qualifies it as the longest-lasting MacBook Pro, though the 2020 MacBook Air has it beat at 29 hours.
14-Inch and 16-Inch MacBook Pro: For Pros in the Know
If you are a video editor, photographer, or software developer who might benefit from more computing power, you should skip the 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air and instead consider either the 14-inch or the 16-inch MacBook Pro. The factors to consider here are more than just the extra screen inches and additional weight. You also need to decide whether you need the extra horsepower that the M1 Pro and M1 Max can provide over the M1. There is a big performance gulf between the M1 and the M1 Pro, and most pros who are doing any type of CPU- or GPU-intensive task will be able to take advantage of the latter chip.
That’s not necessarily the case for the M1 Max, as the difference between it and the already-formidable M1 Pro is limited to specialized macOS workflows such as rendering video using Apple’s ProRes codec. There are two versions of each chip, and all four are available in both the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros. The base M1 Pro comes with eight CPU cores—six of which are suited to resource-intensive tasks such as rendering or compiling code, while two handle light-duty tasks such as video playback or web browsing. You also get 14 graphics cores for image output and GPU-accelerated tasks. The chip is paired with 16GB of memory and a 512GB SSD.
(Credit: Tom Brant)
The upgraded configuration adds two more high-performance CPU cores and two additional graphics cores (for a total of 16). This is what we recommend for most people. Meanwhile, the only noteworthy differences between the top-end M1 Max and the top-end M1 Pro are a heap of extra graphics cores (a maximum of 32) and a doubling of the memory bandwidth to 400GBps.
The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Po models lack any form of touch input, following Apple’s decision on current models to discontinue the thin, touch-enabled screen forward of the keyboard known as the Touch Bar. The 13-inch model still comes with a Touch Bar, however.
While the Touch Bar can be useful in special cases like scrubbing through a video timeline, or switching tool selections, it’s not a substitute for touch support on the device’s main display. An Apple iPad or a Windows laptop is your best alternative for using a digital stylus or other tasks best suited to touch screens. Fortunately, the trackpads on all Apple laptops are excellent, with oversize glass surfaces and virtual “haptic” feedback instead of a physical click mechanism.
One Cool Thing: Apple’s 2021 MacBook Pros Are Here!
One Cool Thing: Apple’s 2021 MacBook Pros Are Here!
The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops are also obvious choices for professionals who plan to connect peripherals like external monitors or transfer data using SD cards. Both include a full-size HDMI port and an SD card reader, setting them apart from the USB-C/Thunderbolt-only MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Apple frequently releases new Mac laptop models and updates old ones. Several new models could hit before the end of 2022, so if you’re fine waiting for the latest and greatest, it might be worth delaying your purchase until the typical fall announcements happen. And if you’re not sure if a MacBook Air or Pro is your thing, also take a look at our roundup of the best laptops overall.
