Apple’s refreshed Mac line went on sale last week – it included brand new devices with the efficient M4 chip, as well as some models that were updated to support Apple Intelligence (which works better when there’s more RAM available).
This meant that the MacBook Air laptops – which are 2024 models, even though they use the M3 chip instead of the M4 – now have 16GB of RAM in the base configuration, up from 8GB. Naturally, retailers that had 8GB models stocked up dropped their prices to clear them out of their inventory.
But now even the 16GB versions are discounted – the MacBook Air (2024) has a $200 discount for both the 13” and 15” variants. Base storage is still at 256GB and the jump to 512GB is a pricey $200 upgrade. These are lightweight (2.7lbs/3.3lbs for the 13” and 15” models, respectively), with great battery life and plenty of performance for light to medium tasks.
If you don’t need quite so much performance, the older Apple MacBook Air (2022) with an M2 chip is still around and also got bumped up to 16GB of RAM. It’s $150 less than its M3 successor.
The Apple Mac mini (2024) has a choice of M4 and M4 Pro chips – the latter outperforms the M3 Max. The base M4 model is $575 on Amazon and there is a $25 coupon for a total of $50 off. The M4 Pro model is a pricey upgrade as it also includes more RAM and storage.
The Apple iMac (2024) can only be configured with the M4 chip, but should be enough for most people. Amazon has it at $100 for select colors. The iMac is equipped with a 24” 4.5K Retina Display and a 12MP Center Stage camera. If your desk is in a bad spot that gets a lot of light on the display, you may want to consider the nano-texture glass to cut down on the reflections – it’s a $100 upgrade, though.
The Apple iPad Pro (2024) 13” and 11” is $100 off right now and uses the same M4 chip – all the power of a MacBook, though iPadOS isn’t as capable as macOS. Still, these are more portable than even the MacBook Airs.
The Apple iPad Air (2024) is $100 off for the larger 13” model and $50 off for the smaller 11” one. These feature the older M2 chip, but are still powerful enough to run Apple Intelligence.
There’s also the vanilla Apple iPad, which hasn’t seen any upgrades since 2022. The base 64GB model is pretty cheap, but that’s quite limiting. The 256GB model is too expensive at $450.
At that point, you might as well consider the refreshed Apple iPad mini with the Apple A17 Pro chipset (to run Apple Intelligence) and 128GB base storage. And this one doesn’t even have any discounts yet.
We will wrap up with some accessories. The Apple Watch Series 10 might be the best watch that Apple has made yet – it’s thin and stylish, while offering similar features as the Watch Ultra like a depth gauge and water temperature for diving (this only goes down to 20ft, not 130ft like the Ultra, but would that be an issue for you?). It also has a larger display than the Ultra and is thinner too.
The Apple Watch SE (2022) is still around as the cheaper option. It’s a lot less capable than the Series 10, it doesn’t even have ECG, which has been around since the Series 4. Still, you can save quite a bit of money, especially if you need the LTE version.
The Apple AirPods Pro 2 are not new, but they have new features – they can act as hearing aids. And they are $60 off right now, making them only slightly more expensive than the AirPods 4 with ANC.
If you just need some cheaper buds and don’t care about the hearing aid mode or ANC, you can just grab the basic AirPods 4. Note that only the ANC model has wireless charging.
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