For developers, artists, and creative people, the MacBook Pro is the Mac product line's most vitally important representative. Apple must keep moving it forward with a combination of new features and ongoing performance boosts. The current MacBook Pro design is a few years old, but it doesn't feel stale or boring—it's still excellent. This year, Apple has improved on it by brightening the screen, improving the webcam, making the base model a full citizen of MacBook Pro nation, and, of course, raising the bar for performance with the M4 chip family. Not too long ago, Apple struggled to ensure that the most important Pro Mac was updated regularly and reliably. Thankfully, in the Apple silicon era, that's no longer the case.
The biggest difference this time is that the entry-level MacBook Pro doesn't really feel like a compromise. The base configuration has enough memory and storage to be actually worth considering, and it has all the ports and creature comforts of the higher-end Pros. Even the nano-texture screen upgrade feels worth it. For the first time in a long time, it actually feels like a Pro.
The annual MacBook upgrade cycle means there largely isn't much daylight between this year's model and last's. There's little reason to have FOMO if you have any of the M-series models. The models released over the last four years have been among the best laptops Apple has ever released, owing to a combination of first-party silicon, product design and just general responding to consumer requests and complaints. It's unclear what a 2026 line refresh might hold, but as it stands, the M3 Air is still the best MacBook for most. If money and back pain are no object, however, the M4 series or Pros are a beast.
For most users, the 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro is the way to go. If you need more internal storage than the 512GB, bumping up to the 1TB tier for $200 is not the worst idea. Beyond that, I'd advise picking up an external SSD, which gives you more storage than what Apple does and for significantly less money. If you're after portability and can live without features like the ProMotion display and an SD card slot, you won't miss out on much by opting for the less expensive (but still capable) M3 or M2 MacBook Air, which even support the upcoming Apple Intelligence features.
The latest MacBook Pros remain good for what they've always been good for, but the last generation are still available and if you can find them for less, you may be happier saving the money than paying for performance you don't necessarily need -- especially since rumors say there will possibly be a design overhaul coming in 2026.
Gast
