Best MacBook Accessories Under $50 That Are Actually Worth Buying

The Predicament, Painted in Particularly Poignant Prose

Perhaps, perspicacious penny-pincher, you have procured a pristine, practically perfect MacBook -- perchance by heeding the prodigiously prudent counsel proffered upon this very publication. Perhaps, perversely, you paid the preposterously plump full price, in which case we implore you to peruse our prior pieces at your most proximate opportunity. Regardless of the road that delivered your resplendent rectangle of aluminum to your doorstep, there it sits: a shimmering slab of silicon sophistication furnished with precisely two USB-C ports and absolutely, categorically, cosmically nothing else.

You require accoutrements. Accompaniments. Accessories most audacious.

The boundless bazaar of the internet shall bombard you with a bewildering blizzard of baubles, bangles, and bits. Most are meaningless. Many are mediocre. Some are magnanimously magnificent. The BuyGetRewards Loquacious Staff -- armed with ambition, adorned with analytical acumen, and altogether too available on a Tuesday afternoon -- acquired thirty-four MacBook accessories under fifty dollars, subjected each to a fortnight of fastidious field-testing, and furiously flung twenty-five of them into the figurative furnace of failure. Behold, the nine survivors of our spectacularly selective slaughter.

The Sovereign of Connectivity: USB-C Hub

Anker 341 USB-C Hub, 7-in-1 -- $33

Friends, fellow frugalists, and fiscally fastidious folk: this is the hub. The hallowed, the heralded, the honestly rather handsome hub. Seven ports -- one HDMI (4K at 30Hz), two USB-A, one USB-C data, one SD card reader, one microSD reader, and one USB-C power delivery pass-through -- all crammed into a compact contraption that costs a mere thirty-three dollars.

It does everything. It does everything without erupting into an inferno of heat. It does everything without disconnecting at dramatically inconvenient intervals, a quality we came to cherish with considerable conviction after three competing hubs committed that cardinal crime of connectivity: the random, ruthless, inexplicable disconnect. Those three hubs were dispatched to the dustbin with dispatch. We did not recycle them, for we deemed them morally and mechanically moribund.

Cheaper hubs exist, certainly -- cut-rate, corner-cutting contrivances that crumble, combust, or confound. We tested four. Two died within a week, their spirits and their circuits simultaneously spent. One grew so grotesquely, grievously hot that we genuinely grew concerned. One functioned fine but featured ports so frightfully, frustratingly close together that plugging in a cable required the dexterity of a diamond cutter doing delicate work in a dimly lit den. The Anker costs ten dollars more. It is ten dollars better in every measurable, meaningful, and magnificent dimension.

The Pillar of Posture: Laptop Stand

Rain Design mStand -- $43

A single, stately, sumptuous slab of aluminum that elevates your MacBook to the altitude of your eyeballs -- those precious, perpetually strained orbs that deserve better than to gaze downward at a flat screen for eight harrowing hours. The mStand matches the MacBook's finish with fetching fidelity. It features a cable hole in the back. It weighs 3.3 pounds, which means it remains where you rest it, resolute and reliable.

The ergonomic argument for a laptop stand has been established by scientists and sufferers alike: staring southward at a supine screen summons neck strain, that sneaking, sinister saboteur of spinal serenity. We are not medical mavens. We are, however, a merry band of beings who experienced excruciating neck nonsense, then purchased stands, then experienced notably less neck nonsense. We consider this empirical evidence of the most eloquent kind.

Budget stands in the $15-$20 bracket exist, certainly -- slender, sliding, shivering things that wobble when you type and wander when you work. The mStand does neither. Forty-three dollars for a daily driver you will deploy for the entire duration of your laptop's lifespan computes to roughly four pennies per day over three years. Four pennies! For posture! A pittance for a practically priceless postural prescription.

The Protector of Precious Property: Laptop Sleeve

tomtoc 360 Protective Laptop Sleeve -- $26

Five sleeves were summoned to our testing tribunal. Three provided passable protection. One was so sinfully snug that sliding the MacBook inside demanded a degree of force that frankly frightened us -- we feared for the fragile fate of the display. One was so lamentably loose that the laptop lurched about like a lonely hockey puck on a ludicrously large lake of ice. The tomtoc, in the treasured tradition of a timeless tale about porridge temperature, was just right.

It boasts a rigid front panel that bravely bears the brunt of bumps. A soft, sumptuous interior lining coddles your computer. An accessory pocket provides a place for your paraphernalia. It fits the 13-inch MacBook Air even with a case installed, a feat not all sleeves find feasible. We dropped it from desk height -- thirty inches of terrifying, tumbling, teeth-clenching descent -- with a MacBook nestled within. The MacBook emerged unharmed, unblemished, utterly unfazed. We did not dare drop it again, for we had proven our proposition and saw no sense in tempting the temperamental hand of fate.

The Overlooked Oracle of Ocular Comfort: Screen Protector

MOSISO Matte Screen Protector -- $9

The MacBook's glossy display dazzles delightfully in controlled conditions and reflects ruinously in every other. A matte screen protector massacres glare at the modest cost of approximately 5% display sharpness -- a bargain so bountiful, so brilliantly balanced, that the Loquacious Staff considers it an absolutely acceptable accord.

Installation requires patience, precision, and a prodigiously particle-free environment. We installed ours in a bathroom after running the shower for five full, steamy, somewhat surreal minutes to suppress airborne specks. This technique was borrowed from screen protector forums -- those peculiar, passionate parishes of perfectionism that we visited without a whisper of embarrassment. The protector has zero bubbles. The bathroom has recovered from its impromptu tropical transformation.

At nine dollars -- nine! -- this is the highest value-per-dollar accessory on this entire list, a resplendent return on a remarkably restrained investment.

The Unrivaled Upgrade: External Mouse

Logitech MX Anywhere 3S -- $49

The MacBook trackpad is excellent -- exquisite, even. We shall not dispute this demonstrable declaration. It is the best trackpad bestowed upon any laptop in the known universe. And yet, and still, and nevertheless: it remains a trackpad. For extended, elaborate work sessions involving precise, pixel-perfect cursor choreography -- photo editing, spreadsheet spelunking, design deliberations -- a mouse is superior, sovereign, and supremely sensible. This is not mere opinion; it is an ergonomic edict endorsed by decades of human-computer interaction research, the summaries of which we read with ravenous, rapturous attention.

The MX Anywhere 3S is small enough to schlep across the globe, precise enough for painstakingly particular pixel work, and connects via Bluetooth without the bothersome burden of a dongle. It charges via USB-C. Its battery perseveres for approximately seventy days on a single charge -- a figure we verified over the course of seventy actual, calendar-confirmed days, during which we checked the battery level daily and dutifully documented it in a spreadsheet we shall never, ever publish.

The Cautionary Chronicle: Keyboard Cover

The Loquacious Staff does not -- cannot, will not, shall not -- recommend keyboard covers. They impede the key feel, trap treacherous heat, and Apple explicitly, emphatically advises against their application. We tested two anyway, confirmed our creeping, crawling suspicion that they are categorically counterproductive, and moved on. We mention this merely so you need not test them yourself. You are most magnanimously welcome.

The Surprisingly Splendid: Webcam Cover

CloudValley Webcam Cover Slide -- $7 (3-pack)

A 0.7mm thin, terrifically tiny sliding shield that stations itself over the MacBook's webcam. Slide it shut when surveillance seems suspicious; slide it open for video calls when you have combed your hair. The Loquacious Staff deploys these on every laptop we possess -- not because we are paranoid, but because we are prudent. Paranoia and prudence share a considerable behavioral border, but they remain, we insist, distinct sovereign states.

At seven dollars for three -- three! -- you can outfit your MacBook, your beloved's laptop, and a friend's device with one fell, frugal, fantastically affordable swoop. Or keep two as spares. The Loquacious Staff keeps spares of most things. This habit is hereditary, habitual, and wholly related to the prudence professed above.

The Surprisingly Sorry Selection We Sacked

A brief but brutally honest bulletin of accessories tested and terminated:

$40 USB-C docking stations with 12+ ports: Underpowered, unreliable, and ultimately unworthy. Devices disconnected with distressing, dispiriting regularity. The $33 Anker outperformed every sub-$50 dock with casual, confident superiority.
$35 "premium" USB-C cables: The cables that accompany the MacBook are fine. Buying a $35 cable to replace a perfectly functional included cable is a decision we cannot, in any corner of our collective conscience, condone.
$45 portable monitors: At forty-five dollars, the display quality was insufficient to justify the desk space it demanded. Portable monitors become worthwhile at $120 and above, which exceeds our fifty-dollar threshold and therefore exceeds our present purview.
$30 laptop cooling pads with fans: The MacBook Air possesses no internal fan by deliberate, philosophical design. Strapping an external fan beneath it reduces surface temperature by a measly 3-5 degrees Celsius -- measurable, yes, but negligible, nugatory, and not worth narrating further.

The Grand, Glorious Grand Total

Our recommended kit, curated with care, conviction, and considerable consternation over the twenty-five rejects:

| Accessory | Price |
|---|---|
| Anker 341 USB-C Hub | $33 |
| Rain Design mStand | $43 |
| tomtoc Laptop Sleeve | $26 |
| MOSISO Screen Protector | $9 |
| Logitech MX Anywhere 3S | $49 |
| CloudValley Webcam Cover | $7 |
| Total | $167 |

One hundred and sixty-seven dollars! A sum so satisfyingly sensible, so staggeringly sane, that it practically sings. Each item stands solo under the fifty-dollar ceiling. Together, they transfigure, transform, and thoroughly transcend a mere MacBook into a magnificently muscular, marvelously majestic workstation worthy of the most demanding, discerning, dollar-conscious devotee of digital productivity.

Several of these accessories are available through links on our deals page. We earn a small commission -- a slender, modest morsel that does not influence our recommendations but does influence our capacity to continue purchasing thirty-four accessories and dramatically discarding twenty-five of them in the dogged, devoted, deliriously dedicated pursuit of truth.

-- The BuyGetRewards Loquacious Staff