12 Things You Should Know Before Buying A MacBook (New Or Used)

Thinking of getting a MacBook? It's a whole new world, and some don't regret their switch from Windows one iota. There are a raft of reasons to do so: being tired of Windows shoving ads and crapware in your face, foisting unwanted features upon you (like the infamous Windows Recall), having so many annoying updates, zapping your battery in sleep mode – the list goes on. Your reasons are your own, but before diving in headfirst, there are a few noteworthy caveats that come with the territory.

A lot of the reasons to come to Mac are right on the money: Mac "just works" and frees you of most Windows headaches, the devices are sleek and slim, they seem to last longer than most Windows PCs, and they hold their value well. But they also run on an entirely different codebase and set of hardware. The way you get things done, the philosophy behind the OS, everything — especially if you've been using Windows your entire life — will be a night and day difference. Don't go in blind. Let's take a look at 12 things you ought to know before you click buy.

It may be obvious for most, but if it wasn't already, a MacBook isn't a budget choice in any sense of the word. Windows and Linux will always be the best bang for your buck. A MacBook doesn't make it onto our list of best budget laptops for college students, and it probably wouldn't on a list for budget-minded professionals, either. Apple's cheapest entry-level computing device is the Mac Mini, which starts at $599. A baseline MacBook Air starts at $999. Further, unlike Windows and Linux PCs, you can't build a Mac from scratch to save money by going with the best (and most affordable) components.

This problem becomes more pronounced if you require extra RAM and more storage. Apple starts their $999 laptops with only 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and charges you $199 a pop to increase the RAM to 24GB and the storage to 512GB. With Windows, you'd expect double or triple as much for that price. So now the price is $1,399, and that's before considering upgrades to the Apple Silicon SoC, AppleCare+, and any extras like a soft case or peripherals. MacBooks can be amazing, don't get me wrong, but Apple does price them as luxury products. Plus, they're expensive in other ways like software and repairs — more on that later.

Right out of the gate, macOS is going to feel like a foreign country to you compared to Windows and may induce some digital culture shock, as it were. For starters, the close, minimize, and maximize buttons are on the left rather than the right side; instead of the Start menu, there's Spotlight and Launchpad; instead of Windows Explorer, there's Finder; instead of the taskbar, there's the Dock; instead of windows keeping their settings in the title bar, macOS puts them on the top of the screen with the menu bar. The list goes on. It's going to take you at least a couple of months, likely longer, before you really start to get comfortable with macOS.

Lots of features will be missing, such as taskbar previews, a clipboard manager, and app volume sliders. Yet, in other cases, there are features you won't find on Windows, like previewing files with the space bar, sharing things over AirDrop, or looking up words with a single click. You'll also have to reprogram your muscle memory to use new shortcuts. Some adjustments will be easy, such as using Cmd + C/V instead of Ctrl + C/V to copy and paste. Others are entirely different, such as using Shift + Cmd + 5 to take a screenshot.

And then there will be a lot of little changes while you adapt to the philosophy of macOS. It's an OS based heavily on dragging and dropping, and does window management very, very differently from Microsoft. Give it time. Soon enough, you'll see the logic behind it and, ideally, prefer the way macOS gets things done compared to Windows.

Windows and macOS are completely incompatible; the only thing that works between them is common file standards like PDFs. So unfortunately, you may discover that some of the programs you grew to love on Windows aren't available on Mac. Some are major, like Netflix; you'll be limited to watching in a browser, so no offline downloads like you're used to on Windows. Some are minor, like Rufus; if you loved the simplicity of this particular bootable USB creator, you'll simply have to look elsewhere.

To be fair, it's pretty rare for most major applications to not have a Mac version. Even apps you would assume are locked in the Microsoft ecosystem like Microsoft Office and OneDrive are available. In the rare instance there's a program that isn't available on macOS, you can use translation and VM tools like Crossover and Parallels — though, to be clear, these are not ideal.

It really comes down to which apps you absolutely cannot live without. Do your due diligence in advance and find out if a dealbreaker app supports macOS. As a bit of a consolation prize, there's some good news here: There are a ton of amazing Mac apps that you won't find on Windows. Who knows, some of them may become so essential you can't switch back.

Do you already have an iPhone, iPad, AirPods, and/or Apple Watch? You're in luck. Your devices are going to be thick as thieves together, granting you the full power of the Apple ecosystem. Copied items will sync across devices, thanks to Universal Clipboard; AirPods will switch automatically to the currently active device; Handoff takes a task running on one device and shunts it over to another; Continuity Camera lets you use the far superior camera system of your iPhone as a webcam. The more complete your Apple ecosystem, the more comprehensive these features get. So prepare for some disappointment if the MacBook you buy is the only Apple device you have.

If you have an Android phone, Windows PC, and non-Apple Bluetooth earbuds, your MacBook won't extend a finger to cooperate with these devices the same as the ecosystem mentioned above. Simple things, like AirDrop, have to be done with third-party software like NearDrop or LocalSend; AirPods will have to be connected manually if you use them on more than one non-Apple device; iCloud and most Apple apps — with the exception of Apple Music — aren't available on Android, and the Windows version is a pain to use. If you want an easy, convenient experience across devices, you'll have to either flesh out your Apple ecosystem or try something more affordable like the Samsung ecosystem instead.

If you are an avid PC gamer, we recommend sticking with Windows for the time being. Credit where credit is due, the state of gaming on Mac is in a great place, much better than it's ever been. The M1 MacBook Air and up (fanless devices, mind) can play modern AAA games. Apple's Game Porting Toolkit helps developers bring their games to Mac, and there's a new Game Mode that improves performance and reduces Bluetooth latency. A select few major AAA titles like "Assassin's Creed Shadows" are coming to the platform on day one, not months or years later. This is all great news, but make no mistake, Mac still ranks dead last for gaming.

For starters, it's not a good value proposition; a $999 MacBook Air simply can't compete with a gaming PC at the same price point. Second, there are very, very few native macOS titles compared to those on Windows. Sometimes you may need to repurchase games on the Mac App Store, and major developers aren't exactly champing at the bit to bring their games to Mac.

The million-dollar question is whether Apple is going to commit to Mac gaming long-term or pull the plug on what it views as a failed investment. If you are a casual gamer who'll play just about anything as long as it's fun, you'll be plenty happy with Mac gaming. Anyone else should stick to PC or get a Steam Deck.

Whether talking about the Mac Mini, Mac Studio, or MacBook, one thing remains true: plug-ins are few and far between. Looking at the M4 MacBook Pro, you have three Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports, one HDMI port, a headphone jack, and an SDXC card slot. That's it. No extra USB-A, no additional HDMI for dual monitors, no Ethernet, nothing else on a device that starts at $1,600, not even if you get the larger 16-inch version. Coming from PC, you may be used to having a much wider variety and number of plug-ins. If you are the sort of person who has a million things to plug into your USB ports on the go, then maybe stick with Windows.

Regardless, you're probably better off with a dock or dongle if you want to keep this thing docked in clamshell mode the majority of the time. Still, the MacBook can leave something to be desired even once you bypass the I/O limit via a dongle; for example, the MacBook Pro will only support up to two external displays, or four if you purchase the M4 Max chip. If you need a specific Thunderbolt or USB standard, then you should absolutely take a look at the specs for the model you want to buy. The last thing you want is to buy a brand new Mac only to discover it supports Wi-Fi 6E, not the new Wi-Fi 7 you have.

Surprising absolutely no one, Apple devices aren't cheap to repair. For years, you've likely heard the horror stories of Apple keeping an iron grip on independent repair shops it authorizes or disabling certain features on your iPhone if you don't use authorized parts during Self-Repair. The same goes for Macs, where even simple fixes can cost so much you might wonder if buying a new device would be better.

For example, some users with cracked displays have had to pay at least $500 to get it fixed. It's still $99 with AppleCare+. So even after paying that extortionate insurance rate, you may still want to brace yourself. Don't think you can outwit the system by going to a more affordable repair service that hasn't gotten Apple's blessing; that's a straight shot to voiding your warranty and potentially bricking your device.

With all that said, here's some good news: It seems the tech giant is slowly walking back many of its over-the-top repair policies. Recently, it greenlit genuine parts to make iPhone repairs cheaper and easier. As for Macs, Apple has been expanding its self-repair service for those who would rather save some money over paying a professional. It's a developing situation, one that may well improve in the coming years. Regardless, keep that knowledge in the back of your mind as a MacBook user.

Picking which specific Mac you want becomes a lot more stressful when you learn that the Mac you buy is the one you're getting for life. With current M-series MacBook models, you cannot upgrade a MacBook's RAM or storage. So you'll need to be exactly sure how much you'll require in advance, since you'll be crap out of luck if it turns out it isn't enough later on. In the interest of fairness, this isn't just corporate greed; it's due to how M-series machines work. RAM is built into the SoC processor, and SSDs are soldered to the board, which improves performance at the expense of upgradeability.

There may be some good news, at least for future MacBooks. The brand new Mac Mini M4 appears to have a removable SSD storage drive. Perhaps this change will trickle down to the rumored 2026 MacBook Pro redesign, but for now, current MacBooks are non-upgradable. Also, there's nothing stopping you from using an external SSD if you need more storage. Some users have tested external SSD performance and found it to be fast enough for their needs, although you'll have to deal with a fair bit of added latency. Long story short: If the inability to upgrade RAM or storage is a dealbreaker for you, stay far away from MacBooks for the foreseeable future.

You've probably heard the old statistic that iPhone users spend seven times as much as their peers do on Android. This is true, at least according to one analysis. So what about Mac? It's hard to come by data for this, given that Mac users can source their software from beyond the App Store. Anecdotally, there does seem to be some truth to this assumption. On Windows, software tends to be free. It's part of the culture; Windows is a lot more open-ended and customizable, and that freedom comes with an expectation of cost savings. People simply will not pay for something unless the price really justifies itself. The culture on macOS is very, very different.

This is primarily because Apple has much stricter standards for Mac software, both in terms of how it looks and what it can do. As a result, macOS apps tend to be a bit more carefully and thoughtfully made, a bit more polished, and — since this is a user demographic that's OK with spending more money — often aren't totally free. From niche writing apps to general-purpose productivity apps, often the only app that does what you need either requires payment or offers only a limited freemium version.

If there's anything Apple does well, it's dragging its feet with the features. The iPad famously went 14 years without a native calculator app. Expect similar delays if you switch to Mac; macOS 15 only just introduced window tiling, something that had been on Windows 7 since 2009. Some features you have on Windows that you might assume are standard these days are missing on macOS. For example, take thumbnail previews when you alt-tab through windows. Mac doesn't have these, so you'll need Alt-Tab to get a similar result.

In some cases, macOS itself lacks needed features. For example, there is no native way to sort menu bar items, forcing you to get an app like Bartender. The clipboard also lacks an app, so you'll need something like Maccy to manage it. This state of affairs may not bother you, though, if you are a software enthusiast and enjoy customizing and tweaking your system.

Windows has a lot of issues, but one thing you can say about it is that it's pretty easy to install on older devices. Even when Windows 11 gave everyone a scare (that whole debacle where many capable PCs were suddenly "unsupported"), users found a way around it. It's less about how old your device is and more about whether it has the hardware grunt to handle a modern OS. macOS is a different situation.

Unfortunately, Apple relegates its devices to the vintage scrap pile a lot sooner than you might think. For example, the recent macOS Sequoia update only works for the MacBook Pro from 2018 (or MacBook Air from 2020) and above. You still get updates on older versions, but every year, devices that would seemingly be perfectly capable of running the latest version of macOS go obsolete; the MacBook Air from 2018 is one surprising example.

Granted, there are ways around this. OpenCore Legacy Patcher may be able to help you get a supported version of macOS on a Mac as old as 2007. Plus, you can always install Linux. In any case, it's an important consideration if you prefer macOS and want to keep getting security updates in the long term.

If you've had your eye on all the cool new Apple Intelligence features and want them on a Mac, make sure you buy a device that supports them. Even simple things like Note transcriptions and Writing Tools don't work on just any macOS device. The cut-off starts with M-series macOS devices, so any Mac before the year 2020 is off the table. Apple Intelligence is supported on the following: M1 MacBook Air, M1 MacBook Pro, M1 iMac, M1 Mac Mini, M1 Mac Studio, and M2 Ultra Mac Pro. Keep in mind that this is a hard limit; you won't be able to use OpenCore Legacy Patcher to trick macOS into letting you in the door.

While that means you'll need to purchase a Mac released in 2020 or later, that may not be such a bad thing. You can grab an M1 MacBook Air off Amazon for about $600, a device that is still plenty capable and gets rave reviews from both early and recent buyers. The Apple Silicon revolution was a huge improvement in high-efficiency, high-performance computing, and the battery life on modern Macs is mind-bending. opting for older Intel Macs to save money isn't worth it unless you have very, very minimal expectations for your computer.