Apple MacBook Pro 15 with Retina Display. Potent processing, graphics and storage options make for a high-performance laptop.

Apple has no options for touchscreen or convertible designs. The Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch with Retina combines high-performance components with unique advanced features and industry leading support, making it one of the best laptop computers you can buy.

Great performance and a sleek design make this one of the best laptop computers on the market. The all-metal design is sturdy, but heavy.

The Asus ZenBook Pro UX501 offers a potent mix of capability and advanced features, with powerful components, an impressive 4K touchscreen display and Thunderbolt 3 support.

The LG Gram 15 is a good laptop computer in its own right, with decent components and a useful feature set, but when you compare laptops side by side, it's also the best lightweight laptop in our lineup of top 15-inch models. The magnesium-alloy design and narrow-bezel display make for an impressive thin and light laptop that offers better portability than the best laptop computers in our review.

As such, the Apple MacBook Pro 15 is outfitted with an Intel Core i7-4770HQ, a 4th generation processor from 2014 that nonetheless offered the highest PassMark score (8,914 points) of any system on our lineup. You can also upgrade to other Intel Core i7 processors, offering slightly faster clock speeds–up to 2.8GHz as compared to the standard 2.2GHz.

The MacBook Pro also offers better-than-average graphics processing with Intel Iris Pro Graphics.

On the right side of the Apple MacBook Pro 15 laptop you'll find one USB 3.0 port, an HDMI output and an SD memory card slot. On the left is Apple's MagSafe power connector, along with two Thunderbolt 2 ports that do double duty as both miniDisplayPorts for external displays and high-speed data transfer ports for Thunderbolt-equipped peripherals.

A second USB 3.0 port offers connectivity for flash drives and other accessories. You won't find any USB-C ports, however, as Apple only offers those on the smaller 12-inch MacBook at the time of this writing.

The Apple MacBook Pro 15 inch with Retina display is Apple's entry in the laptop computer category, and it earns the Top Ten Reviews Silver Award. It's one of the top-rated laptops on the market thanks to blend of high-performance components, a deep feature set and a good display.

Apple traditionally lags behind the rest of the industry when it comes to using the latest processors in its laptops. However, it makes up for this slow adoption by using top-performing components, which softens the impact of older hardware by offering similar overall performance.

The Apple MacBook Pro 15 inch with Retina display is on the expensive end of the scale, but it's still one of the best laptops for the money thanks to an impressive combination of high-performance parts, a very good display and unique features like Thunderbolt 2 support and the Force Touch trackpad. Praiseworthy customer support adds peace of mind, but the MacBook Pro earns our recommendation based purely on its premium design and performance.

The Apple MacBook Pro 15 all-metal unibody design is accented with a glowing white Apple logo on the lid and a backlit chiclet-style keyboard with black keys. The slim chassis measures 14.13 x 9.73 x 0.71 inches, making it thinner than most comparison laptops.

It weighs a modest 4.49 pounds, so it isn't the lightest laptop we compared, but it's still quite portable for a 15-inch system.

But that's not to say there is no touch input on the Apple MacBook Pro 15. A recent update to the laptop added Apple's Force Touch trackpad, which has pressure sensitivity in addition to multitouch gesture support.

The new trackpad design doesn't physically move when you click, but with pressure sensitivity and haptic feedback, it doesn't feel that different from a standard clickable touchpad. It still offers all of the usual cursor control and clicking functions, but by sensing varying levels of pressure, it lets you trigger secondary functions with a deeper click.

The Apple MacBook Pro 15 display uses a panel with in-plane switching (IPS) technology, which offers wide viewing angles and good color clarity compared to the older twisted nematic (TN) display technology. The one drawback of the display might be the glossy glass surface, which may be more reflective than you want.

It's also worth pointing out that the MacBook Pro has no touchscreen support. This is a key difference between many Mac and Windows systems, and if you want a touchscreen on your laptop, you'll need Windows.