When you buy a new Mac, you will spend a decent stack of cash. So, whether you’re shopping for yourself or someone else, ensuring you choose the best Mac is key. While every modern Mac can handle casual computing with ease, some are a much better fit for certain use cases.
In our Mac buying guide, we’ll look at all of the models offered by Apple today, as well as some of the best Mac accessories you can get to go with them.
Apple’s late 2023 MacBook Pro lineup has been frequently on discount since its debut. And while Black Friday is over, the deals continue.
Amazon is knocking $200 off the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Pro chip, dropping its price to an attractive $1,800.
A software engineer drives a Studio Display with an M2 Pro MacBook Pro in their enviable computer setup. And while some folks questioned the use of Apple’s pricey 5K display because of its relatively low refresh rate, the setup’s user praised the monitor highly.
Check out the advice the engineer got about setup improvements and see all their gear in the list below.
As we ring in the first day of December, let us toast winter. More specifically, let us toast what a user calls their “winter edition” computer setup in Berlin, Germany, featuring a powerful MacBook Pro, a gorgeous 5K display, a cool mechanical keyboard and the best tool of all for toasting — a bottle of extremely good, peat-forward scotch from Islay, Scotland.
Missed out on buying the 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro during Black Friday or Cyber Monday? You are in luck, as the laptop is now available for an even lower price.
Best Buy is taking up to $250 off the M3 MacBook Pro, making it a great time to buy one.
MacBook Air performs well without a MacBook Pro’s cooling fan, but now a tiny cooling chip can bridge the difference between the two laptops, according to a new report.
The thin membrane-based AirJet chip fits in Apple’s lightest laptop and boosts its performance when needed. Too bad you can’t just buy it and install it.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If you’re not elevating your laptop, iPad and displays on mounts and arms, you’re limiting your computer setup. Today’s feature MacBook Pro and iPad setup illustrates the point well by putting those devices and dual displays on four separate mounts, some with moveable arms.
That makes all of those devices more flexible, and much easier to move around than they would be on stationary stands. It also frees up space on the desk.
Amazon bargain site Woot! would never miss out on giving you discounted gift options on Apple gear for the holidays, and so it offers a sale right on the heels of Cyber Monday.
iMacs, Mac minis, MacBooks, iPads, Studio Displays — the list of 18 items at up to 51% off is well worth a look. Sale goes through December 5, but these deals likely will sell out early.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday provide an excellent opportunity to buy a new MacBook, iPad and other Apple products at heavily discounted prices. This year, we saw some hefty discounts on Apple gear during the shopping marathon.
But what if you missed buying the MacBook or Apple Watch you wanted? While Black Friday and Cyber Monday might be over, the deals are not all gone. Check out the five best Apple deals that are still live below.
Some home computer setups go extra-large on visuals, others pump up quality sound — and some go nuts with both in equal measure.
Today’s featured Mac Studio and MacBook Pro setup features not only six exceptional displays — including Apple’s vaunted, $5,000 Pro Display XDR — it also adds a bonus sound system to its complete Sonos home-theater audio array.
Today’s featured setup packs two powerful MacBooks Pro — an M1 Max for work and an M3 Pro for play. To give them hassle-free equal time with peripherals, including a big, beautiful OLED smart TV serving as a display, the user employs a Thunderbolt 4 dock bristling with ports for maximum connectivity options.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Tests performed on the M3 MacBook Pros reveal the performance-crushing effects of thermal throttling and skimpy RAM. Erfon is not impressed!
Also on The CultCast:
Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.
One thing we love about Apple is the staying power of its beautiful displays. We see the Studio Display maker’s much older Cinema Displays and Thunderbolt Displays used in modern computer setups pretty regularly.
Today’s MacBook Pro setup recently added a docking station to charge the laptop while connecting it to a classic LED Cinema Display.
Apple’s M3 Pro MacBook Pros are available with up to $200 off in Amazon’s pre-Black Friday deal. This drops Apple’s latest laptops down to their lowest price within days of launch.
With Amazon’s offer, you can currently get the 14-inch M3 Pro MacBook Pro for $1,849. The 16-inch variant is available with a bigger discount of $200, bringing its price down to $2,299.
The ex-Apple and Beats folks behind the DSLR-like Opal C1 Webcam are back with a tiny new webcam claiming even better picture quality in an ultra-portable package for use with laptops and tablets — the Opal Tadpole.
And unlike the C1, which launched at $300 and dropped to $250, the Tadpole comes out of the gate at $175.
Professionals looking for a more powerful MacBook will get really significantly more performance by upgrading to an M3 Max processor instead of the M3 Pro.
It’s no surprise that the Max version of one of Apple’s new chips is faster than the Pro, but many people might not be aware how very much faster it is.
A New York City-based magazine editor showed off a beautiful computer setup that serves up twice the fun because it boasts two of everything. Well, not everything.
But it doubles up on a lot of the main gear — two M3 MacBooks Pro, two Studio Displays, two sets of Philips Hue smart lights, a pair of Yamaha speakers on stands and, believe it or not, two Magic Trackpads and a Magic Mouse.
Read more about the setup’s whys and wherefores below, and check out that gear list of links at the bottom of the article.
The base model in the new 2023 MacBook Pro lineup comes with Apple’s standard M3 chip. This model, which replaces the discontinued 13-inch MacBook Pro, costs $400 less than the next model up, which runs on an M3 Pro chip.
The two laptops look almost identical. The big question is, will the entry-level M3 MacBook Pro suit your needs? Or should you spend the extra $400 and get the one with the M3 Pro chip? Find out in this comparison.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Erfon breaks down the specs/performance of Apple’s recently released MacBook Pro lineup, and he’s convinced there are only two models any sane person would buy. Listen to found out which models make the grade!
Also on The CultCast:
Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.
From the outside, the new M3 MacBook Pros look the same as their predecessors — except for that gorgeous new space black finish.
How did Apple create this exotic new finish? And what’s changed inside its new laptops, aside from the powerful new M3 chips? The iFixit team posted a detailed teardown Friday that answers all your questions.
Tests show that the 8GB version of the M3 MacBook Pro is significantly slower than the 16GB version when running Photoshop, Blender and other graphics applications.
And there are performance differences for other types of apps, too. But these are not as dramatic. If you’re trying to decide between different configurations, it’s worth considering which models rank among the best Macs for video editing to ensure you get the best performance for your needs.
If you use an M1 Max MacBook Pro bristling with 64GB of unified memory to drive two of Apple’s top Pro Displays XDR as well as off-the-charts audio gear in a Mission Control-looking workstation, can your computer setup accurately be described as “cozy?” That’s what today’s featured setup user said, improbably.
And while the user’s MacBook is still formidable despite Apple moving on to M3 chips, it’s not necessarily the workstation’s star. It almost pales in comparison to the AV components, including two of Apple’s $5,000-plus displays, incredible headphones and mounted KEF speakers that bring massive audio.
Some lucky first-day owners of the new M3 MacBook Pro unboxed their machines Tuesday to discover a reversal of fortune: Their new Macs arrived with a broken version of macOS that can’t install software updates.
Some MacBook Pros shipped to customers with an unreleased (well, more like unintentionally released) build of macOS Ventura 13.5. This version can’t be updated to macOS Sonoma through the standard Software Update feature in System Preferences.
Here’s how to fix the admittedly rare problem.
Apple’s new M3 iMac and MacBook Pros are now officially on sale in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and select other countries. If you live in one of those locations, you can pick up the latest iMac or M3-powered MacBook Pro from your nearest Apple Store.
The new M3 Max MacBook Pro will go on sale later in November.
To paraphrase many of the M3 MacBook Pro reviews coming out Monday, Apple’s new lineup is like new car models that look like the old ones but have much better engines under the hood.
Other than the inclusion of blazing-fast M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max chips, reviewers made note of the new Space Black color for the M3 Pro and M3 Max MacBooks. And some poked a little fun at Apple for even having a MacBook Pro with an option for only 8GB of RAM (the 14-inch M3 MacBook Pro model).