
The display is incredibly sharp and gets brighter, enough for use outdoors in broad daylight. This new model sports a new design with thinner bezels, a better 1080p webcam (up from 720p), and a faster M2 SoC with media engines to handle more demanding tasks like video editing. If you only perform light tasks like text processing, web browsing, and video playback, get the Apple MacBook Air 13 (2022) instead, one of the best MacBook Airs Apple has ever made and the successor to the very popular Apple MacBook Air 13 (M1, 2020). You can probably find a good deal on an M1 model through third-party sellers and marketplaces, but know that they usually only offer the base configurations. Also, Apple no longer sells the M1 models on their website. At this point, it's better to just go with the M2 models since they start at the same price as their predecessors. They're identical in almost every aspect to the M1 models you just get slightly better performance, HDMI 2.1, and increased memory support (up to 96GB). The only downside is that it's more expensive.Īpple has released the new MacBook Pro 14 and 16 with their M2 Pro and M2 Max chips. It's almost identical to its 14-inch sibling but with better-sounding speakers and longer battery life. If screen space is more important than portability, the Apple MacBook Pro 16 (2021) is the obvious choice. The battery lasts around 12 to 13 hours of light use, although it's much shorter if you perform intensive tasks. Performance-wise, Apple's M1 Pro and M1 Max SoCs have more than enough processing power to handle demanding tasks like video editing and 3D animation. Port selection is outstanding you get three USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI (2.0, sadly), a full-size SD card reader, and a high-output headphone jack for difficult-to-drive cans. It's also a ProMotion display, meaning it can dynamically adjust the refresh rate up to 120Hz to make motion smoother or lower it to extend battery life. Its factory calibration is superb, so you likely won't need to calibrate before doing color work.


The display produces deep blacks, gets incredibly bright, and covers the entire DCI P3 color space, making it suitable for viewing and producing HDR content. The best Apple laptop we've tested is the Apple MacBook Pro 14 (2021), the smaller of the two 'Pro' laptops with Apple's new design, Mini-LED display, and in-house SoC.
