With Black Friday just around the corner, there are going to be plenty of opportunities to buy a new MacBook over the coming weeks.
There are also going to be plenty of Apple's best MacBooks to choose from, especially now we have the exciting new M2 lineup, including the new M2 MacBook Pro and M2 MacBook Air.
Yet I'm not interested in the M2 MacBook range. I'm not even interested in Apple's heavyweight MacBook Pro, starring the M1 Pro and M1 Max from 2021.
There's only one Black Friday deal I want to see this year, and it is a smashing price on the M1 MacBook Air 2020.
The GOAT
256GB is plenty of space to store documents and a range of different apps. Watch out for the various colors - they sometimes can crop up at different prices.
Right now, the M1 MacBook Air is around $900 at Amazon, and $1,149 at B&H photo with 16GB of RAM. But I think this year, we might be able to do better. Even at $900 the M1 is the steal of the century, but even less than that would be a no-brainer.
Let me tell you why the M1 MacBook Air is so special. This was the first ever MacBook to sport Apple silicon, a brand-new type of processor made by Apple. It's based on Apple's iPhone chips and replaced Intel's aging, decrepit mobile processors that have held Macs back for years.
Just how good is this thing? According to Apple, the M1 boasts 3.5x faster CPU performance and 5x faster GPU performance, as well as 9x machine learning speeds. It's not unreasonable to think that this might be the biggest ever iteration in a product, well ever. If you have an older Intel Mac (even a Pro), the new Apple silicon range will blow your mind. And it's not all just about speed. The MacBook Air doesn't need a fan, and will give you 15 hours of wireless web browsing or 18 hours of video playback, all without overheating or making a sound. It's the perfect tool for study or freelance work. It also comes with Touch ID, Wi-Fi 6, and Thunderbolt 4. And the good keyboard.
The original M1 is one of the greatest mobile chips ever made for computing. Yes, it's not quite as good as the M2, but it's also cheaper.
In October, the M1 MacBook Air briefly fell to $799, this is the magic number, the lowest price it's been seen at according to price trackers. Lower than that would be unprecedented territory, and worth buying even just to sell on to someone else.
M2 may rule the Apple silicon roost now, but don't sleep on the original M1 MacBook Air, the greatest MacBook of all time.
If you aren't minded to pick the M1, then check out the rest of these Best Black Friday MacBook deals. Don't forget to pick up one of the best MacBook Air cases too - don't want to get your new laptop dented or scratched.
