MacBook Buying Guide for the Uninitiated
· 3 minutes read
Ever since their introduction in 2020, the Apple Silicon MacBook line-up has been touted as the finest execution of the laptop. With good performance, solid build quality, pretty display, and exceptional battery life, they are a good one-size-fit-all choice for students and most people who don’t have any specific reason to use Windows or Linux. Some of my friends have asked me for a specific model recommendation on different occasions, so to save everyone’s time, here I compile a list of my choices for different budgets.
Notes
- These are based on education store prices in the US. To my understanding, in general, the prices of Apple products are lowest in the US and Canada.
- CPU specified without core count indicates the entry-level option, i.e. the one with the fewest cores.
Criteria
In general, even the entry-level Air M1 is a very solid laptop for most use cases already. The differentiating factors between the options here are mainly the CPU performance and RAM capacity.
CPU
- I prioritize Pro / Max chips over base chips.
- I recommend M3 over M1 over M2 (M2 is a marginal improvement over M1 for quite a hefty surcharge).
- I don’t recommend MacBook Pro 13-inch: either buy the Air with the same chips, or pay more for the Pro / Max chips.
- Rough ranking: M3 Max >> M3 Pro > M2 Max ≈ M2 Pro > M3 > M1 Max ≈ M1 Pro > M2 > M1.
- The difference between the Max and Pro chips used to lie mostly in the GPU, while the CPUs are near identical. This has changed, with the M3 Max boasting much more capable CPU and GPU compared to the M3 Pro.
- I rank the base M3 higher than the M1 Max as the former has much better single-core performance and only a 10% gap in multicore performance.
RAM
- I prioritize more RAM over more ROM.
- While 8GB RAM is sufficient for most, even with Apple, more RAM is still better, especially for modeling, data analysis, and ML workloads.
ROM
- For each budget bracket, I choose the variant with the most ROM possible. You can adjust to your own budget by choosing less storage. I am using a 256GB MacBook comfortably, and 512GB should be more than enough for most people.
- However, if you need it, feel free to add more storage.
The list
The abridged version
- Budget: MacBook Air, M1, 8GB RAM, 256GB ROM
- Balance: MacBook Pro 14, M3 Pro, 18GB RAM, 512GB ROM
- Boujee: MacBook Pro 14, M3 Max (16-core CPU), 64GB RAM, 1TB ROM
The unabridged version
- Less than USD 900:
- MacBook Air, M1, 8GB RAM, 256GB ROM
- USD 900–1200:
- MacBook Air, M1, 16GB RAM, 256GB ROM
- USD 1200–1600:
- MacBook Air 13, M2, 24GB RAM, 512GB ROM
- MacBook Pro 14, M3, 16GB RAM, 512GB ROM
- USD 1600–2000:
- MacBook Pro 14, M3 Pro, 18GB RAM, 512GB ROM
- MacBook Pro 14, M2 Pro, 32GB RAM, 512GB ROM (second-hand)
- USD 2000–2500:
- MacBook Pro 14, M3 Pro (12-core CPU), 36GB RAM, 512GB ROM
- MacBook Pro 14, M3 Pro, 36GB RAM, 1TB ROM
- USD 2500–3000:
- MacBook Pro 14 / 16, M3 Max, 36GB RAM, 1TB ROM
- USD 3000–3500:
- MacBook Pro 14, M3 Max (16-core CPU), 64GB RAM, 512GB ROM
- USD 3500–4000:
- MacBook Pro 14, M3 Max, 96GB RAM, 2TB ROM
- MacBook Pro 16, M3 Max, 96GB RAM, 1TB ROM
- More than USD 4000:
- MacBook Pro 14 / 16, M3 Max (16-core CPU), 128GB RAM, whatever ROM you want