Best MacBooks for 2025: Air or Pro?
How we tested
Mashable staff have submitted all MacBook on this list to various degrees of practical tests. At least, this involved inspecting their quality of construction and using them for a variety of real world tasks for several weeks at a time. This included work in different types of documents, checking emails, searching for videos, taking photos on their webcams, participation in video calls, listening to music (via Spotify ), reading games (if possible) and experimenting with all unique software functionalities or use cases that they claimed to support.
In addition, most of the macbooks presented here have been designed to manage standard reference software. We execute these benchmarks because they reproduce real world tasks to produce scores that we can use to easily compare the performance of different laptops. We have recently started implementing these bearings in our tests, and you can expect to see them in all our new laptops criticism Move forward.
Performance benchmarks
We assess the overall performance of a laptop by performing the appropriate version of Labs Primate Geekbench 6. (It would be macOS for MacBooks; Windows for Windows laptops, including portable computers; and Android for chromebooks.) This test measures processor performance in a handful of current tasks, and we record the multi- resulting core. The higher the score, the better.
Battery benchmarks
We seek to see around 11 to 12 hours of battery life in the MacBook that we are testing, with more than 15 hours exceptional and 9 to 10 hours in the Windows laptops that we spend, with more than 12 hours being ideal. The laptops of the game is another story: they only have to last at least 2 hours per load to obtain our approval, winning additional brownie points to reach the brand of 4 hours. Meanwhile, 8 hours is our reference base for chromebooks, but 9 to 10 hours are the best.
We have evaluated the endurance of laptops in some different ways in the past. To normalize the battery life test methodology, we perform a video dilapidation test on MacBook and Windows laptops that involve playing a 1080p version in loop of loop Steel tearsA short open-source opening film, 50% brightness.
Final reflections
After having evaluated the practical results and results of the reference tests of a laptop, we make our final recommendations depending on whether we think they offer good overall value for money. A too expensive laptop will sometimes get a pass if we think it looks like and works so much that it is worth finding it on sale.
It should be mentioned that these are not the only MacBook that we have tried – we are constantly testing new models in different categories, and many do not make the final cup. In that spirit, you can expect this guide to evolve on a fairly continuous basis. We are always looking for new best candidates.
