in 2020, by Apple MacBook enters a new era. The company announced that it has moved stay away from Intel chips it’s been in use since 2006 and it launched the first Macs with M1 designed by Apple. Cut to 2022 and the company added father more chips to the lineup — the M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 Ultra — two of which power the latest MacBook Pro.
Just like Apple’s iPhone, these chips run on ARM architecture and make the company bigger control its hardware and software. They make its laptop more powerful and more energy efficient, which means vastly improved performance and battery life. Plus, you get other perks, such as the ability to run original mobile apps for iOS. However, choosing a MacBook has now become more difficult. Apple no longer sells Intel-supported models, but you can find one at a third-party retailer with just a few more years of support. Is it worth buying one? Or should you use Apple silicon? Here’s what we think you should spend your hard earned money on.
Update March 2022: We’ve added more information about the new M1 Ultra chip.
Special Offer for Gear Readers: Get One 1 year subscription for WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you will). Sign up to help fund the work we do every day.
Is it a good time to buy?
It depends. If you’re a power user looking for a powerful MacBook, now’s a great time to get a 14- or 16-inch MacBook Pro, as Apple just released them last fall. However, most people don’t need that much power. The cheaper M1-powered MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro from 2020 are still good to buy, but they could be refreshed later this fall.
Apple MacBook Air (M1, 2020)
The best people around
MacBook Air (9/10, Recommend with WIRE) with the M1 chip from 2020 is one of the most powerful laptops you can get for the price, beating the benchmarks of Intel’s highest-end PC models. This is especially true when you use apps that are natively designed for the new processor, such as the Safari web browser.
You can still download and install apps for Intel x86 chips (apps in every PC you may have ever owned). That’s because Apple has a converter called Rosetta 2 that will automatically ask for a download with these apps. That’s what allows them to work well with the M1, often better than the Intel Mac. But over the past year and a half, many apps — like Adobe Lightroom and Google Chrome — have now had versions of M1, so you shouldn’t have problems. If you’re worried your favorite app might not work, do some research and search the forums to see if there’s an M1 version or an x86 version that will run fine.
The MacBook Air lasted me more than a workday, with the battery hitting 22% after I ran it almost non-stop from 9am to 7pm using Safari and work apps like Slack. (I had to plug in previous Intel models before 4 p.m.) The M1 can also instantly wake up from sleep whenever you tap the keyboard or trackpad or lift the screen, just like when you tap your iPhone or iPad to type awake. That’s a stark difference from older MacBooks that took a few seconds to light up. The MacBook Air is also fanless, which means it’s quiet even under the heaviest loads. Over there To be a radiator dissipates heat to dissipate heat, but it also never gets also warm.
It comes with 256 gigabytes of storage, but you can upgrade to another model with extra graphics cores and 512 gigs. Unless you need more storage, the extra cores aren’t worth the price increase. Instead, spend an extra $200 for 16GB of RAM, which will allow you to run more apps simultaneously without slowing down. My biggest relationship with this machine? The 720p webcam isn’t great, and the Mac M1 only supports one external monitor.
Apple MacBook Pro (14-inch and 16-inch, 2021)
For power gate lovers
If you’re looking for the most powerful MacBooks with Apple’s silicon, look no further than the 14-inch (8/10, Recommend with WIRED) and the 16-inch MacBook Pro (if you can accept the $2,000 starting price). You can choose to equip it with Apple’s M1 Pro or M1 Max processor.
