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How to pick
Two things trip people up on a Mac. The first is ports: modern MacBooks have very few, and they are all USB-C, so nearly everyone ends up needing a hub. Buy one from a name you recognise, because cheap USB-C hubs are the single most common cause of a MacBook that will not wake up properly or randomly disconnects a screen. The second is drive formatting. A drive out of the box is usually formatted for Windows, and while a Mac can read it, you want it reformatted to APFS if it is only ever going to be used with the Mac. If you need the drive to work with both a Mac and a Windows machine, format it exFAT instead. On memory and storage inside the machine itself, neither can be changed after you buy on any current Mac, so decide at purchase and buy more than you think you need.
What I recommend
The machine itself
Memory and storage are soldered in on every current Mac, so both decisions are permanent at the point of purchase. That is the single most important thing to know before ordering. Buy more memory than you think you need, because you cannot add it later and it is what makes a Mac feel slow years down the line.
Mac mini
The cheapest way into a Mac by a wide margin, if you already have a screen, keyboard and mouse. Tiny, quiet, and the same chips as the laptops. An excellent second machine or a first Mac for someone curious.
- By far the cheapest route into macOS
- Very small and quiet
- Same performance as the laptops
- Easy to add to an existing desk
- No screen, keyboard or mouse included
- Not portable at all
- Same soldered memory rules
- Apple's own screens are very expensive
MacBook Air M4
This is my daily work machine, with 24GB of memory, so this one is from use rather than reviews. It docks with one cable and drives two external monitors, three screens counting its own, which is what the M4 supports natively. Silent, because there is no fan at all, and the battery genuinely lasts a working day. The 24GB is the part worth copying: the base 16GB is fine today and it is the thing you will wish you had more of in three years, and you cannot change it later.
- Completely silent, there is no fan
- Battery genuinely lasts a full working day
- Fast enough for everything short of heavy video work
- Light enough to forget in a bag
- Holds resale value better than any Windows laptop
- Memory and storage are soldered, decide at purchase
- Base 16GB will feel tight in a few years
- Only two USB-C ports, most people need a hub
- Gets warm under sustained load, since there is no fan
- Expensive to upgrade specification at order time
MacBook Pro
Worth it for video editing, large photo libraries, or anything that runs the machine hard for hours. It has a fan, which means it can sustain speed the Air cannot. More ports too, which for many people is the real reason to choose it.
- Sustains full speed under long workloads
- More ports, including HDMI and a card reader
- Much better screen than the Air
- Excellent speakers
- Considerably heavier than the Air
- Expensive, and rises steeply with options
- Most people will never need the extra power
- Same soldered memory and storage rules
Getting your ports back
Modern MacBooks have very few sockets and they are all USB-C, so nearly everyone ends up needing something here. Buy from a name you recognise. Cheap USB-C hubs cause more MacBook problems than anything else, from screens dropping out to machines that will not sleep.
USB-C hub for MacBook
Adds HDMI, USB-A and a card reader back to a laptop that only has USB-C. Look for pass through charging so you do not lose a port to gain one, and buy from Anker or UGREEN rather than the cheapest listing.
- Gets back the ports Apple removed
- Pass through charging keeps a port free
- Small enough to live in a bag
- Cheap ones cause sleep and display faults
- Can run warm under load
- Another thing to remember to pack
- Adds
- HDMI, USB-A, card reader
- Buy
- A brand you recognise
- Why care
- Cheap hubs cause wake and display faults
- Charging
- Look for pass through
Thunderbolt dock
The proper version. Everything stays plugged into the dock and one cable goes to the Mac, carrying screens, network, drives and charging. Worth it if you dock and undock every day.
- One cable connects everything
- Drives two external displays properly
- Charges the Mac at full speed
- Expensive, several times the price of a hub
- Needs its own power brick
- Only worth it if you dock daily
- One cable
- Screens, network, drives, charging
- Check
- Your Mac has Thunderbolt
- Power
- 85W or more for a MacBook Pro
- Worth it if
- You dock daily
Storage and backup
macOS has Time Machine built in and it only needs a drive plugged in. One thing to know: a drive out of the box is formatted for Windows. Reformat to APFS if it is Mac only, or exFAT if it also has to work with a Windows machine.
External drive for backups
Plug it in and say yes when macOS asks. That is genuinely the whole job. Get one roughly twice the size of your Mac's storage. A spinning drive is fine because it sits on a desk.
- Time Machine needs no setup beyond plugging in
- Cheap per terabyte
- Restores individual files or a whole machine
- Spinning drives dislike being knocked
- Only protects you if it stays plugged in
- Does not help in a fire or theft
- For
- Time Machine, built into macOS
- Size
- Twice your Mac's storage
- Setup
- Plug in and say yes
- Type
- Spinning is fine for this
Samsung T7 portable SSD
Fast, small, and nothing inside to break. Reformat to APFS for Mac only or exFAT to share with Windows. Either takes two minutes in Disk Utility.
- Very fast over USB-C
- Survives being dropped
- Small enough to forget in a bag
- Costs more per terabyte than spinning
- Needs reformatting out of the box
- Easy to lose, being so small
- Type
- Solid state, nothing moving
- Speed
- Up to 1,050 MB/s
- Sizes
- 1 TB, 2 TB, 4 TB
- Connection
- USB-C
Desk setup
What a Mac is nicest to use with.
USB-C monitor
One cable carries the picture and charges the laptop. Check it supports power delivery of at least 65W, or the Mac slowly runs down while you work.
- One cable for picture and power
- Fewer things to plug in each morning
- Usually includes a USB hub built in
- Costs more than an equivalent HDMI monitor
- Power delivery wattage varies, check it
- Some have poor built in speakers you pay for anyway
- One cable
- Picture and charging together
- Power delivery
- 65W or more
- Size
- 27 inch is the sweet spot
- Resolution
- 1440p at that size
Related reading
Moving from Windows to a Mac?
The move is mostly painless if the files come across properly, and that is the part I can take off your hands.