The Apple laptop to get right now is the latest MacBook Air M1 and the base model is back down to an all-time-low price. The 13-inch MacBook Air M1 with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage has dropped to $899, or $100 off its normal price.
Currently the gold and silver models are in stock (although they will take a few weeks to ship), and if you simply must have more storage, the silver model with 512GB of storage is down to $1,100 thanks to a sale combined with an automatically applied coupon that shaves an additional $49.01 off the price.
We gave the latest MacBook Air a score of 94 in part because it keeps everything we know and love about previous Air models but injects a serious performance boost into the mix with the M1 chipset.
The hardware is familiar — you’re getting a thin-and-light laptop with a lovely Retina display, a solid trackpad and a comfortable keyboard. Unfortunately, Apple did not expand the port selection on this machine, so you’re stuck with just two USB-C ports and your favorite dongle to connect all the peripherals you use.
However, the internal improvements make up for that small inconvenience. The MacBook Air running on the M1 chipset is blazing fast — sites load almost instantly, scrolling feels effortless and native apps like Safari launch just as quickly as their iPad counterparts. And all of this is done on a machine that has no fan, so you’ll get a much quieter computing experience than you had on your current, years-old laptop.
We also appreciate the MacBook Air’s sold 16.5-hour battery life — it’ll last an entire workday and then some, so it won’t be a big deal if you forget your charging cable at home. It’s an easy upgrade for those with aging MacBooks or old Windows laptops, especially when you can get the M1 machine for $100 less.
