MacBook Neo

The cheapest way into a Mac, and a properly made one: Apple's A18 Pro chip, a 13-inch screen rated at 500 nits and a weight of 2.7 pounds. It launched at $599, or $499 with Apple's education pricing. Apple rates it for up to 16 hours of video streaming and 11 hours of web browsing, and Expert Reviews' video test ran it for almost 12 hours, enough for a full day of classes without hunting for an outlet. The trade-off is memory. Every model has 8GB, which handles essays, research and video calls comfortably but leaves little headroom for heavy photo, video or coding work later in a degree. The keyboard isn't backlit, and Touch ID comes only with the $699 512GB model, which is also the safer choice for storage over three or four years.