2024-07-17 17:43:04| Engadget
Next to Black Friday, Prime Day is a great time to buy hardware from Amazon and Apple. On the latter brand, were seeing some of the best prices to date for the latest models of iPads, AirPods and AirTags, to name a few. And if youre in the market for a new laptop, its also a great time to buy a MacBook, with prices starting at a record low $849 for the latest MacBook Air. It's currently Engadget's top pick on our best laptop list.
But Im here to argue that you should spend $1,249 for that MacBook Air instead.
Heres why: They get you in the door for that sub-$1,000 price, which is an enticing $250 less than youd spend at the Apple Store. But Apple is notoriously stingy on memory and storage for its devices: The baseline model only has 8GB of RAM and a 256GB drive. Thats fine if youre only using your laptop for the basics say, social media, streaming video and light document creation. But even with cloud storage, that SSD will fill up very quickly with photos, audio and video if youre doing anything creative. (Yes, you can get external USB drives, but they're slower and ruin the lines of Apples sleek laptop.) And while Apple does a great job of managing software resources on the Mac, that 8GB of memory feels like a low ceiling.
So heres what I did when Amazon ran a version of this same deal a few months ago: I paid to double both specs. For $1,249 (after clipping that same $50 on-screen coupon), you get 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. Yes, a terabyte or more would be even better, but you pick your battles. And this configuration still saves you a cool $250 off the Apple Store price for the same configuration, while being a lot more future-proofed. For instance, if youre laptop shopping for a high school or college student, this stepped-up model will survive a 4-year academic stint with more comfort than that $849 version.
If thats still too steep, you can split the difference with the 512GB MacBook Air M2. It doesnt have the extra RAM, but the otherwise identical slightly older model still gets you a very capable, modern Apple laptop with decent storage for just $999. But dont wait: these laptop deals end today, and we dont know if well be seeing them again before Black Friday.
Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for Prime Day tech deals. Hear from Autoblogs experts on the best Amazon Prime Day deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/this-prime-day-macbook-air-deal-is-already-great-but-spending-more-makes-it-an-even-better-value-154304978.html?src=rss
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