MacBook Air

Steve Jobs pulled the first MacBook Air out of a manila envelope in January 2008, and the stunt worked: at its thinnest point it was thinner than anything else on the market, at the cost of a single USB port and an optional external optical drive. It was a laptop built around a single, uncompromising idea.

The redesigned 2010 model made flash storage standard and dropped the optical drive entirely, setting the template that held for most of the decade. The 2018 refresh finally added a Retina display and Touch ID, and the Apple Silicon Airs from 2020 onward turned what had been a stylish compromise into simply the best all-round laptop Apple makes.