My Friends Always Ask Me What MacBook to Buy. Here’s What I Tell Them

We all have This friend who is warned in technology that everyone turns to get advice, especially before large sales events like Amazon Prime Day. Well, it’s me. I am this guy.

When people discover what I do in life, everything went to 11. I review laptops for my work, and almost everyone needs it. If people do not know where to start, here is how I guide them throughout the selection process of the right MacBook Apple – where I recommend that you start.

Start with the MacBook Air

You might think that shrinking your laptop to a MacBook would help, but these days, the choice of an Apple laptop is not as simple as it should be. You have two sizes of MacBook Airs, two sizes of MacBook Pros and all the chip configurations, ranging from M4 to M4 Max. This does not even include the plethora of older models that flood the search results of online retailers.

That’s why I like to stay simple. When someone comes to me, asking me which MacBook to buy, I start with the 13 -inch 13 -inch MacBook Air M4. This is the laptop that most people should buy, that’s why it is at the top of our best laptops and best macbooks guides. The retail price is $ 999, but it is almost always on sale for at least $ 899, and when writing the editorial’s time, it fell to $ 849. Although it is not delivered with a lot of storage (only 256 GB), it starts with 16 GB of RAM (or unified memory, as Apple calls it).

From there, I gave them Me reasons why they should get something larger or more powerful. I don’t want my friends and family to spend more than they should, and I know some think They need to go to the MacBook Pro, even if it is only the M4 model.

Let’s be real. You probably don’t need additional performance of M4 Pro or M4 Max chips. Unless you change the video, produce music or take photos to liveIt is not worth spending hundreds (or thousands) more to accelerate video rendering. The M4 MacBook Air is capable of much more than people think. The upgrade to M4 Pro and M4 Max mainly consists in improving the graphics and performance of the multi -core processor, but this is only something that creative professionals will hold a lot.

Upgrade reasons

Part of the problem is that we always operate as if it was in 2015. Ten years ago, it was not only that certain tasks were faster on a 16 -inch MacBook Pro; The old MacBook Airs could not perform them at all. If you were a musician, artist or amateur programmer, you were forced to save for a MacBook Pro or to give up these hobbies at the moment. Apple Silicon has completely changed this equation and generation after generation, its chips in the M series become more capable. Now we are to the point where the M4 is quite capable, even in the body without fan of the MacBook Air.

Photography: Brenda Stolyar