In the Apple Silicon era, MacBooks have become more affordable than ever – with brand new models starting as low as $649. With looming global tariffs, these great deals could potentially be coming to an end soon – so if you’re in the market for a new MacBook for any reason, now may be one of the best ever times to purchase.
Apple’s upcoming macOS 26 update is also rumored to drop support for some additional Intel Macs, so if you’d like to stay on the latest and greatest Apple software, nows a fitting time to upgrade.
M1 MacBook Air
Apple has launched 4 MacBook Airs since entering the Apple Silicon era, with the M1, M2, M3, and M4 chips. The M1 MacBook Air still utilizes a more familiar wedge design from the Intel era, although a lot of users might prefer that.
The M1 MacBook Air, despite being four years old, remains an excellent laptop for its price. It boasts blazing fast performance thanks to the M1 chip, a stunning retina display (though with thicker bezels compared to the newer MacBook Airs), a great keyboard, up to 18 hours of battery life, and it doesn’t sound like an airplane that’s about to take off when you open it in public.
Since the M1 MacBook Air is the oldest on this list, it’s also the cheapest. One caveat with the M1 MacBook Air is that it’s harder to find new ones with more than 256GB of storage, so if you need a lot of storage, you’ll have to buy a newer Air. On the bright side, it does remain to be the only Apple Silicon MacBook to come in a proper Gold color.
You can buy the M1 MacBook Air for as low as $599 at Walmart in all 3 colors: Silver, Space Gray, and Gold.
13-inch MacBook Air (M1) with 256GB of storage, 8GB of memory: $599 at Walmart
M3 MacBook Air
In 2022, Apple introduced the redesigned MacBook Air with a thinner design, a bigger display with slimmer bezels, and reintroduced MagSafe. It also came in new Starlight and Midnight colors in addition to Silver and Space Gray, although Gold was no longer. This fresh new design was introduced with the M2 chip, and it’s lived on since.
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