The Best Laptop in the World

The Apple Silicon-era MacBook Pro series has universally been touted as one of the best professional laptops in recent times and has been the machine I rely on to do my work and study since 2022. With the M4 chipsets finally coming to this Mac, while I don’t believe it warrants an immediate upgrade from an existing Apple Silicon Mac user, I do think for its performance, battery life, and overall experience parity, the base M4 MacBook Pro is the best laptop you can pick up right now.

Apple 14-inch MacBook Pro (M4) (2024)

$1399 $1599 Save $200

The M4 MacBook Pro combines Apple’s new M4 chipset, a stunning 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display, and up to 22 hours of battery life, making it a powerhouse for professionals and students alike. It adds practical upgrades like an extra USB-C port and a 12MP ultrawide camera with CenterStage, enhancing usability without overhauling the design.

While the improvements may not justify an upgrade for current Apple Silicon users, the base M4 model offers unmatched performance, battery life, and build quality, solidifying its place as the best laptop you can buy right now.

Pros

• Brighter SDR display with nano-texture option is great for outdoor use
• Battery life is stellar with consistent 12-hours of screen-on-time
• 16GB of base RAM across the board

Cons

• Upgrade options are pricey
• DeskView is not very good

Price and Availability

The M4 MacBook Pro starts at $1,599 in Space Black and Silver, and it’s sold through most electronics retailers, including directly from Apple, Best Buy, and Amazon.

Although I’m evaluating the 14-inch base M4 model in this review, know that the overall experience will be nearly identical to that of the higher-end 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Pro and M4 Max chips aside from the performance of the more powerful chipsets and battery life for the larger laptop.

What’s Different This Year?

Unlike the M3 MacBook Air, which only received a chip upgrade this year, the M4 MacBook Pro gets the new silicon and some other quality-of-life improvements that marginally make a great experience better. The new base M4 14-inch MacBook Pro finally gets an additional USB-C port, matching the higher-end M4 Pro and M4 Max variants. However, you are limited to Thunderbolt 4 on the base chipset compared to Thunderbolt 5 on the more expensive models.

Across the board, the M4 series MacBook Pro gets a new 12MP ultrawide camera that supports CenterStage like on the iPad, but it also supports Desk View without needing to use Continuity Camera on your iPhone, which is pretty great to see. In practice, the quality of the camera is a negligible difference compared to previous M-series MacBook Pros, but I do think having CenterStage is quite convenient when you’re on a Zoom call or FaceTime and need to be able to walk around without having to adjust your laptop.

As for Desk View, it’s not the same story—under appropriate lighting, it manages to output an acceptable image, but because of the angle of the laptop camera, it looks a bit odd. Once you start to lose good lighting, the whole experience falls apart into a grainy mess. Desk View is a convenient feature to have built-in, but I would definitely use Continuity Camera as it props the camera at a higher angle and uses a much better sensor from the iPhone compared to the Mac.

Finally, my favorite new addition to this generation of MacBook Pro is the display, which now gets even brighter at 1,000 nits of peak brightness for SDR content, and, of course, goes up to 1,600 nits for HDR. The display also now has a nano-texture panel option to cut back on glare, and together with the brighter SDR mode, it makes for an excellent upgrade when using the laptop outdoors or under harsh lighting. Everything stays visible and cuts back on the glare from harsh lighting, which is great to see.

Directly comparing the M4 MacBook Pro to my M1 Pro base 14-inch MacBook Pro, it’s abundantly clear that this new laptop isn’t one made to be upgraded from prior Apple Silicon Macs—the best scenario I see someone upgrading to this new Mac is either they’re coming from a previous Intel-based machine or something went wrong with their current laptop that warrants them to pick up the new one.

That said, this generation of the base model MacBook Pro does feel different. It’s finally on par with the more expensive M4 Pro and M4 Max models in every other aspect of its design and experience, and at $1,599, it’s an incredible value prosumer laptop.

What Remains the Same?

The M4 generation MacBook Pros largely stick to the familiar blueprint that has defined its predecessors for the last three generations, and that’s largely a good thing. These new laptops maintain a design and feature set that feels reliable and consistent.

The backlit keyboard and trackpad remain world-class, delivering the precision and tactility that Apple has perfected with this generation of MacBook Pro. It’s hard to describe the MacBook Pro typing experience, but it has the perfect amount of travel and audible response I haven’t really seen outside of Microsoft’s Surface line on the Windows side, and I think it continues to be the best that I’ve tested for both accuracy and speed.

With the display, aside from the nano-texture option, the MacBook Pros continue to sport the same resolution, slim borders, and smooth 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate. However, having spent considerable time with OLED laptops like ASUS’ Zenbook series, I feel the MacBook Pro could gain a noticeable benefit by embracing OLED.

While I think the MacBook Pro display is still a flagship panel by all regards, edge cases like blooming are still apparent when reviewing high contrast, extreme HDR scenes on the laptop, and I think it was a missed opportunity for this generation’s MacBook Pro to not get the new tandem OLED technology present on the M4 iPad Pros.

The speakers also carry over unchanged but still set the benchmark for laptop audio quality, delivering room-filling sound, which I think remains unmatched in this category. Even without drastic changes, bass, separation, and overall fidelity at high volumes are strengths of the current speaker system of the MacBook Pro that I haven’t seen in any other laptop in any category.

Overall, while the M4 MacBook Pro’s familiar package is reliable, incremental updates like OLED displays could enhance its legacy as a leader in premium laptops. Apple’s decision to hold back on such innovations may feel conservative, but for now, its formula still delivers.

Excellent Performance with Even Better Battery

The M4 generation MacBook Pro brings a fairly competent leap in performance, especially for those coming from older Intel-based models, and in some instances, even the M1 chips. Apple’s latest silicon handles a wide range of demanding tasks even with this base chip, and it does so by maintaining responsiveness and reliability.

My review unit is equipped with a base 10-core CPU and GPU, 1TB of SSD storage, and 16GB of unified memory, and it absolutely crushes everything else in its price bracket.

In my testing, the M4 chip performs really well across multiple workflows, and directly comparing it to my M1 Pro Mac, I think this base M4 provides a decent boost.

Coding in Java through IntelliJ was a breeze, with no noticeable lag even when running complex builds and simultaneous tests. When it comes to a more substantial project, like coding Swift UI projects on Xcode and running the iPhone simulator, I think that’s where I saw a more noticeable difference with the M4 chip building faster compared to that of the M1 Pro chip.

For creativity-oriented tasks, I rely heavily on photo editing in Photoshop and Lightroom to edit multiple photos at the same time, and I encountered zero issues in things like adding a lot of effects, changing blending modes, or batch exporting.

I find it a bit silly comparing this laptop to my M1 Pro laptop, because on paper, while the new M4 chip is 65% faster in single-core and around 47% faster on multi-core for Geekbench 6, scoring 3,674 and 14,846 respectively, in reality for more than half of my day-to-day usage, the performance isn’t that noticeable. This, of course, isn’t to discredit what is arguably very good gains across the board on the M4. However, it means that the M1 series of computers are more or less still just as capable as they were three years ago. For anyone choosing to upgrade to these new laptops solely based on performance, I would recommend holding off on it unless you absolutely need a new laptop.

That said, where the M4 MacBook Pro outshines its predecessor is the battery life, because without a doubt, this is the best battery life I’ve ever seen on a 14-inch laptop, period.

In my testing, the M4 MacBook Pro consistently delivers up to 12 hours of screen-on time during basic to moderate usage. Whether browsing, writing, or streaming, I could rely on the MacBook to last through a full workday and carry through to the next day without needing to recharge.

Best of all, this efficiency doesn’t come at the cost of performance because the laptop wasn’t on any low-power modes, or needed to turn down the resolution or refresh rate of the display or anything— it performed as it would if it was either at 100% or at 40%. The M4 sustains excellent performance even on battery power, and it makes this laptop a dependable workhorse that doesn’t compromise under pressure.

This Mac’s Promise of AI

It’s impossible to review the new MacBook Pro without talking about AI, so let’s start with Apple Intelligence. Frankly speaking, right now, there is zero reason to choose this Mac over any of the previous Apple Silicon Macs solely for Apple Intelligence because those older Macs will be able to run all of its services just as competently as this laptop.

To keep it brief, my experience with the current implementation of Apple Intelligence remains largely the same as it did when I looked at the developer beta a couple of months ago: it’s very simplistic right now, and while you can certainly see some utility in its current offerings like Writing Tools, there isn’t much to really warrant any expressive feelings towards it. The promised upgraded Siri doesn’t ship with this new Mac.

Image generation like Image Playground is in developer beta. Lots of the “exciting” Apple Intelligence features won’t ship for months, and even when they do, again, they’ll be available on other older (and cheaper) Apple Silicon Macs, so software and AI-wise, what exactly makes this Mac different?

On the technical side, the M4 chip can perform 38 trillion operations per second or 38 TOPS compared to the previous M3 generation of chips which topped out at 18 TOPS, so there’s certainly a much larger emphasis on NPU-related workflows with this Mac, and it shows. Directly running Llama 3.2 on-device compared to my M3 MacBook Air and M1 Pro MacBook Pro shows significant improvement in output speed compared to that of the older generation chips. But this just left me more confused than anything.

While on-device LLMs are certainly fun to play around with, for the vast majority of non-technical people buying this laptop, they don’t have the time or the effort scope out how to run them or use them, so why isn’t Apple coming out with Mac-specific Apple Intelligence features? The chips can certainly perform, and every new Mac comes standard with 16GB of RAM, so why are we limited to AI features that we can also run on our iPhones?

I don’t have the answer to that, and I wish when Apple announced these new Macs, they would have that key differentiation to showcase what these chips can really do for consumers regardless of their knowledge of LLMs, but we don’t have that here, so M4 remains a very capable AI chip for people that know how to use it.

Should You Buy the M4 MacBook Pro?

The M4 MacBook Pro might not revolutionize Apple’s lineup, but it perfects what was already an outstanding formula. With the new M4 chip, this Mac combines sizable performance gains with remarkable battery efficiency. This model also introduces welcome quality-of-life updates like a brighter, glare-resistant display, an additional USB-C port, and a new camera, making it a well-rounded machine for professionals and students alike.

That said, the M4 MacBook Pro doesn’t offer much to entice current Apple Silicon MacBook owners. If you’re working with an M1 or M2, and especially an M3 Mac, the incremental upgrades—though noticeable—might not justify the investment. For those transitioning from Intel-based Macs or even coming to Apple’s camp for the first time, the M4 base model provides unparalleled value in a professional-grade device.

With a starting price of $1,599, the M4 MacBook Pro is a worthwhile choice for anyone who prioritizes performance, portability, and premium build quality. Whether you’re a student, creator, developer, or someone who demands top-tier reliability, this laptop sets the benchmark for productivity in 2024, and is, in my opinion, the best laptop you can currently buy.

Apple 14-inch MacBook Pro (M4) (2024)

$1399 $1599 Save $200

The M4 MacBook Pro combines Apple’s new M4 chipset, a stunning 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display, and up to 22 hours of battery life, making it a powerhouse for professionals and students alike. It adds practical upgrades like an extra USB-C port and a 12MP ultrawide camera with CenterStage, enhancing usability without overhauling the design.

While the improvements may not justify an upgrade for current Apple Silicon users, the base M4 model offers unmatched performance, battery life, and build quality, solidifying its place as the best laptop you can buy right now.

Operating System

MacOS 15

CPU

M4 (10-Core)

GPU

M4 (10-Core)

RAM

16, 24, or 32GB

Storage

512, 1TB, 2TB

Battery

72.4-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery

Display (Size, Resolution)

14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display; 3024 x 1964, 120Hz, 1,600 nits of peak brightness

Camera

12MP CenterStage camera with 1080p video

Colors

Space Black, Silver

Ports

SDXC card slot, HDMI port, 3.5 mm headphone jack, MagSafe 3 port, 3 x Thunderbolt 4 ports

Network

Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3

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