Apple’s MacBook Air M1 returns to record low of $850 at Amazon | Engadget

Apple’s MacBook Air M1 combines power and portability into a sleek package, making it one of the best laptops we’ve tried for most people. It normally starts at $999, but Amazon has, once again, knocked the price down to $850. That’s for the 256GB model, but the 512GB model is also $150 off, bringing it down to $1,099. We’ve seen this discount come and go pretty quickly over the past couple of months, so now’s a good time to grab the laptop if you’ve wanted to upgrade to a daily driver.

Buy MacBook Air M1 (256GB) at Amazon – $850
Buy MacBook Air M1 (512GB) at Amazon – $850

The Air M1 earned a score of 94 from us when it came out about one year ago, thanks in part to its thin-and-light design, lovely Retina display, comfortable keyboard and trackpad and impressive performance. The former comes from Apple’s M1 chipset and you’ll immediately notice the performance gains if you’re coming from an older MacBook. The laptop wakes almost instantly when you open the lid, native apps run smoothly and the machine is, on the whole, quite responsive. The GPU performance is better as well — while we still wouldn’t run intense games on the Air M1, it can handle Apple Arcade titles and even Fortnite easily.

We also appreciate how quiet the MacBook Air M1 is because it lacks a fan inside. You won’t hear constant whirring when you’re putting the laptop through its paces, and you’ll be able to do so for up to 16 hours since the machine has an excellent battery life. The biggest hassles you’ll deal with on the Air M1 are its paltry 720p webcam and its two USB-C ports, the latter of which means you’ll be living the dongle life for a little while longer. But if you can deal with those minor infractions, you’ll still get a solid laptop that can go with you almost anywhere in the MacBook Air M1.

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