For this week’s giveaway, we teamed up with SwitchEasy, maker of one of the finest MacBook cases around. Two lucky winners will bag a SwitchEasy Urban MacBook Sleeve.
Made of water-resistant threaded polyester material, these laptop cases will protect a MacBook from scuffs and scrapes. And they look good while doing so!
In a world of shockingly expensive Apple products, one magnificent items stands supreme — Pro Display XDR. If you’re among the legion of Apple fans who can’t quite crack open their wallets wide enough for a $1,600 Studio Display, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Today’s MacBook Pro setup sports a Pro Display XDR that came at a shocking price, too — shockingly good, that is, all things considered.
Any conversation about “perfect” displays might just start and end with Apple’s Pro Display XDR. But not everyone is rich enough to buy one of those 6K monitors, which cost $5,000 or more. So the popular 5K Studio Display might have to do, along with something complementary.
One option graces today’s featured MacBook Pro setup. It recently swapped out ultra-wide and 4K monitors for a Studio Display and and the eccentric LG DualUp. They seem especially well-suited to certain types of workers.
Update: We hope you jumped on this MacBook Pro deal as soon as we posted it, because it looks like it evaporated.
Apple’s 14-inch MacBook Pro is down to its lowest price on Amazon. You can get the machine with a discount of as much as $250.
The entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro is listed with a $250 discount, bringing its price down to $1,749. This is the cheapest the machine has been available for since its launch earlier this year.
What’s better than having two MacBook Pro laptops in your computer setup? Having the two powerful machines wrapped in cool-looking skins that confound and excite onlookers, of course.
Such is the case with today’s dual-MacBook Pro, dual LG-display workstation that the user depends on for coding and videoconferencing.
A humble light strip can have a huge impact on a computer setup and even the room it’s in, providing functional lighting as well as setting a mood with white or colored lights at different temperatures (cool, warm, etc.). Today’s featured MacBook Pro setup uses nothing but a Nanoleaf Essentials light strip behind the desk and a Xiaomi monitor lamp to light its way. And they do so to great effect.
Read more about the lighting below, plus the setup’s use of a Sonos Bluetooth speaker for audio and an iPhone with Continuity Camera for effective videoconferencing.
People love their “minimal” computer setups, but everyone has a different idea of what that means. Today’s featured M1 MacBook Pro setup is on the spare side — not to mention beautifully photographed — but it actually has a lot going on.
From the powerful laptop and 4K display to the big-time external storage, backup power and extensive smart lighting, the setup’s more than a match for its owner’s photo editing work.
New computer displays tend to get not just better over time, but bigger — within reason. Unlike TVs, they’re designed to be viewed from just a few feet away at most. But increasingly, we see people using smart TVs as external monitors to get that extra size into their desktop setups.
Today’s featured setup sports an M2 MacBook Pro driving a 42-inch LG OLED smart TV that the user describes as “perfect.”
Apple’s 2023 MacBook Pro lineup is available with a massive $150 discount on Amazon. The deal applies to all configurations of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros.
This fantastic deal is unlikely to last long, so buy the MacBook you want before stocks run out.
Attractive or fun decor can really give a computer setup an edge. Real plants. Vintage Apple gear. Epic Lego sets. Today’s featured MacBook Pro setup sports a detailed replica stormtrooper helmet from Star Wars.
It overlooks a Darth Vader-worthy 49-inch Samsung curved gaming display and an Elgato Stream Deck, which is associated with video streaming tasks but can also do a lot for productivity in general through shortcuts.
Amazon bargain site Woot! is pushing M1 Macs at low prices through April 3. You can get up to 46% off some machines, which include MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and iMac from 2020 and 2021, plus a handful of Intel-powered Macs.
We often see big upgrades to setups we’ve covered here in the past. But they’re not usually comprehensive, where everything from the daily-driver Mac to the input devices to the audio gear gets made over (and in some cases greatly expanded).
Let’s just say today’s featured MacBook Pro setup looked a lot different 2 years ago. It’s more evidence that a setup is never, ever “done.”
Apple’s 2023 14-inch MacBook Pro is available with massive discounts of up to $200. The entry-level model is available with a $100 discount on Amazon, bringing its price down to $1,899 from $1,999.
The best deal is on the 1TB configuration of the machine. After a $200 off, you can get the M2 MacBook Pro for $2,299.
Today’s featured setup carries a strong vibe of minimalism — so much so it appeared to lack even a computer, at least at a glance at the photograph. But then we realized the laptop was stashed away in unusual (and questionable) fashion.
We recently featured a setup with the MacBook Pro and iPad hidden on a little shelf mounted under the desk. This time the laptop is stashed in a case sitting directly under the monitor stand’s base (not recommended).
Apple’s 2021 16-inch MacBook Pro might not be the latest MacBook around. But it is still more than powerful for almost any task you can throw at it.
If you don’t mind going for the 2021 model, you can save a whopping $500. The deal brings the price of the entry-level 16-inch MacBook Pro down to just $1,999 from $2,499.
If there’s one thing computer-setup fans on social media value above all else, it’s a “clean” workstation. The best ones — neither messy nor cluttered with cables — place everything just so. Today’s featured MacBook Pro setup does a nice job with that.
And it even hides the laptop as well as an iPad. See how fast you can spot them. One commenter noted it took longer than it should have.
Just two months after its release, the 16-inch MacBook Pro is down to its lowest-ever price after a $200 discount
Right now, you can get the entry-level 16-inch MacBook Pro for $2,299, down from $2,499. A similar deal is available on the 1TB and M2 Max models.
We recently talked about what a boon to computer setups stands and mounts usually are — but not when they cause problems. Today’s featured M1 MacBook Pro setup is an interesting example. The bass player who runs it said the gas-powered arm of the mount where the laptop sits is so hair-trigger it can “randomly launch it into the air.”
That’s not ideal when you have $2,000 laptop not designed for flight. The user also has a PC laptop for work, a massive 4K display and a compact mechanical keyboard and badass speakers we haven’t seen elsewhere.
Do you dream of ditching your mouse? Maybe you have the wrong one. Or maybe you’re onto something, like the software developer who works sans rodent with today’s featured M2 MacBook Pro setup featuring dual external displays in different orientations.
Instead of a mouse for input, she relies on a radically split keyboard with a trackball, plus a macropad. See those and all of the other gear in the cool setup below.
If you have a compact, portable stand, you can turn your MacBook or iPad into a proper workstation almost anywhere. Function101 offers the Elevate stand, now on sale in the Cult of Mac Store.
It folds flat to store or carry and folds out to four positions more maximum typing comfort, with or without an external keyboard.
The sometimes-overlooked heroes of computer setups are stands and mounts. They make a big difference. They free-up space on the desk. They bring screens to eye level for better ergonomics. And they can even help turn a one-display setup into a three-display workstation, as they do in today’s featured MacBook Pro and iPad mini rig.
The user relies on one main external monitor — a Studio Display — but raising the MacBook and the iPad up to eye level and using Universal Control gives him three prominent screens. And that’s without having to buy and make room for multiple external monitors.
Even a small desk can’t keep you from having a powerful computer setup — if you get the right gear and not too much of it. All it takes is a great laptop — like a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air — a vertical laptop stand, a not-gargantuan display and a minimal amount of other gear, as shown in today’s featured setup.
Oh, and consider a monitor arm rather than a stand. That helps keep the external screen out of the way.
With all the computer setups showcased on social media, it takes something special to earn the description “dream setup.” Today’s featured Mac Studio Ultra and M2 Max MacBook Pro setup, which hails from Australia, could be a contender.
Why? Well, when you combine two of Apple’s newest and most powerful computers with a Studio Display and put them in a beautifully laid out workstation with great cable management and premium audio, you’ve got a real ripsnorter (to put it like an Aussie might).
Apple bumped how much it will pay for trading in used products. An iPhone 13 series model now brings in as much as $600, a previous-generation iPad Air is worth up to $320, while the trade-in value for a MacBook Pro is as much as $730.
The payouts have increased up to $160 when compared to what Apple was offering last week.
Google said Tuesday it’s making several changes to the Chrome browser to make it less of a MacBook battery hog. Modifications include adjusting timers to wake the CPU less often, tuning memory compression and further optimizing Energy Saver mode.
The company’s tests using a 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro suggest the tweaks may help folks browse for 17 hours or watch YouTube for 18 hours on a single charge.