Best MacBook in 2022: Which Apple laptop is best?

The best MacBook for each person will differ, but there's a great option for virtually anyone in Apple's laptop lineup in 2022. The introduction of its ARM-based M1 chip in 2020 kicked off a new era for Apple laptops. Apple's in-house SoC has brought massive performance and battery life improvements to the entire MacBook range. Now joined by the M1 Pro, M1 Max and M2, Apple has you covered regardless of your needs. The M2 MacBook AIr and Pro aren't likely to see any deals yet, but if you are in the market for any of the rest of Apple's laptops keep an eye on the best Amazon Prime Day MacBook deals for likely the lowest prices we'll see until Black Friday this fall. While you still aren't going to want to pick an Apple laptop for your gaming laptop, they are an outstanding choice for virtually any other use case, including as college laptops or business laptops. What is the best MacBook? Transforming its once underpowered laptop to one of the fastest thin-and-lights on the market, the MacBook Air with M1 is the best Mac for most people. It turbocharges that familiar design with record-setting performance and all-day battery life. Along with speed and endurance boosts, the M1 chip brings iOS and iPadOS apps to Mac for the first time ever. While the M1 model is sticking around at its $999 price point, the redesigned MacBook Air M2 gives slightly more performance-hungry portable MacBook fans another option. If you need sustained high-level performance, you might want to opt for the MacBook Pro M2 13-inch with two Thunderbolt 4 ports. While the MacBook Air is fanless, the MacBook Pro has a traditional cooling system to run demanding programs for hours without worrying about overheating. Most people will be fine with the Air, but power users should consider stepping up to the Pro. The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros are powered by the M1 Pro or M1 Max processor. Either option is overkill for most users, but they feature other tantalizing upgrades. These laptops walk back some of the controversial decisions Apple made with the MacBook Pro in 2016 with the return of an SD card slot, HDMI, MagSafe charging and still boast three Thunderbolt 4 ports. The gorgeous 120Hz displays are the best Apple has ever offered in its laptops. Starting at $1,999 you are paying a premium for Apple's top-tier laptops, but if you need all this power or hate some of the hardware changes they are worth it. Our advice? If you do basic productivity work even with a smattering of more taxing software, stick to the M1 or M2 Air and use the savings to upgrade your storage or RAM. Unless you need the extra screen real estate or frequently are using demanding software for video work, 3D modeling, animation or engineering tasks, the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros are beyond what most people need.