Apple begun selling the M1 MacBook Air for $699 through Walmart last year, and at the time, it was a great deal. I’ve personally been a big advocate for the M1 MacBook Air, especially as its slowly come down in price. In more recent history, it’s gone on sale for $599, and this week for Black Friday – you can grab one for $549.
While that’s still certainly an appealing price point, I’d recommend you think twice about that purchase before you make that jump. Here’s why.
Why you should reconsider M1
Ultimately, while the M1 MacBook Air at Walmart is going to be the cheapest Mac you can buy new, there’s still one big elephant in the room: it’s a 5 year old computer. It’s still a brand new device, so you’ll have great battery life. It’ll still feel new, no doubt about it.
However, you can’t get around one big issue, that being that it might lose macOS support in just a couple years. Apple has typically supported Macs for around 5-8 years, so we’re definitely heading into the final stretch for the M1 MacBook Air. Granted, Apple’s yet to set precedent for software support on Apple Silicon Macs, so we’re in uncharted territory here. Maybe it’ll last longer than anticipated.
Another downside to the M1 is the fact that it comes with 8GB of unified memory. That wasn’t a lot when the M1 MacBook Air released in 2020, and it certainly isn’t a lot now. This may be an alright amount of RAM if you (or whomever you’re gifting it to) isn’t a heavy computer, but it’s something to keep in mind. On device AI models utilize a lot of RAM, and that’s increasingly becoming a common need for desktop computing.
Alternatives
$549 is certainly an appealing price point for buying a new MacBook. Ultimately, MacBooks generally start at $999, so that’s a considerable savings.
Luckily though, the M1 MacBook Air isn’t the only discounted MacBook you can buy during Black Friday.
You can get the latest M4 MacBook Air for $749 on Amazon this week – offering 16GB of unified memory (double what M1 will offer), a newer design with a larger (and brighter) display, support for MagSafe, and a much improved 1080p webcam.
If that’s a little outside of your budget, Best Buy also offers the M2 MacBook Air for $649. It’ll offer all of the same benefits that I listed with the M4 MacBook Air, just with an older chipset.
All that said – if you think you still want an M1 MacBook Air, go ahead and buy it. $549 is still a nice price point, and $100-200 in savings isn’t anything to scoff at. It may be an old computer, but it isn’t necessarily bad.
If you have extra room in your budget though, I’d strongly recommend an M4 MacBook Air at $749, or an M2 MacBook Air at $649 if that fits you better. Having 16GB of unified memory will likely pay off in the long run.
The best Black Friday discounts for Apple products:
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