Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Deals: Apple's 15-Inch MacBook Air Hits New All-Time Low Price at $100 Off, Starting at $1,199
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I've been buying from the Apple education site for close to 10 years now. I have never had to verify my student status. For Amazom student Prime discount I had to prove student status but Apple doesn't have any sort of verification in place that I'm aware of...not in the U.S. at least.
The first rule of Fight Club is…
It's too bad that adding more RAM isn't an option on Amazon.
I don't have a silicon Mac, is 8GB enough? I guess that depends on what one is doing with it lol
I don't have a silicon Mac, is 8GB enough? I guess that depends on what one is doing with it lol
I have the M1 right now, but it does just about everything I need. But that 15 inch screen would be nice to have.
A larger screen is essential to me. It‘s one of the reasons I waited to buy a laptop Because I didn’t want to spend the money for the 16 inch Pro. This 15 inch Air is perfect for me.
My psychology why I don't want to buy the M2 15 inch Air is related it to being the same 5 NM lithography. It might be a bit more efficient, but at point where we are with Apple Silicon Macs, you really want to upgrade for dramatic performance benefits. In my case, I probably won't see that until M3.
And once M3 comes out, M4 will also be coming soon. So if you need it just get it now. Most of the time the waiting game is futile unless it’s a major change (e.g. Gen 5 iPad Pro was worth the wait because it switched over to M1, which you need for Logic Pro on iPadOS).
Keep in mind, I am on an M1 MacBook Pro which is still fully support. Apple is even still selling the M1 MacBook Air. This is more of a want than a need.
That’s obvious. But Amazon usually doesn’t have this big of a discount on an Apple product two days after release, especially an Apple Laptop.
And you can’t compare EDU pricing.
Yeah I have a base M1 Air, do I want to upgrade? Yes. Do I need to? Not really 😆.
M3 will be an improvement, and I also want Apple to make the base of Air specs 16/512, priced at $1299.99.
Then we can talk.
I haven't been limited by the M1 Air's single external display. It depends on the resolution that you need. With my single 43" 4K UHD TV-as-a-desk-monitor it's equivalent to four 21.5" 1080 displays.
I suppose if you need dual 24" 2K displays or a pair of 32" 4K displays then the MacBook Airs are limiting but it's pretty hard to read anything at native 4K on a 32" panel, you're going to be scaling that up anyways to be more readable. Just saying there are differently ways to accomplish more screen real estate -- either more external displays or a single large higher-res display.
I consider myself a student until all my student loans are paid off… so… student for life!
I tried the base MacBook Air on sale for $800 with 8 GB. I get freezing related to low memory. Getting a Mac that has specs lower than your use case isn't really a good deal. I'll just wait until the M3 beef up memory and storage at full retail.
Oh no, I'm gonna have to return my shiny new MBA 15 that I just picked up today.
I've been running it through some typical photo/video editing workloads and it's just not enough power for what I want to do. I consider myself a beginner at photo/video editing, so nothing crazy. I don't even know how to use masks. I just like to apply some general corrections across collections of family photos and then stitch together some vacation videos with some transitions and mild effects. Admittedly I am doing more nowadays than in the past 2.5 years with my trusty M1 MBA, but I thought the M2 MBA 15 would be more than sufficient.
I just returned an M2 Max MBP 16 earlier in the week. That was definitely the right move though. I guess I'm going back to the Apple Store for a MBP 14, 32GB and either M2 Pro or M2 Max.
The MBA 15 batched processed 306 RAW photos from my Sony RX10m4 in about the same time as my previous M1 Max Mac Studio, but that's because DxO PhotoLab 6 supports the neural engine and both M2 and M1 Max have 16 NE cores. If Final Cut Pro is the only app open then I can get through a 1-minute 4K edit without dropping a frame, consisting of 4 clips and some text effect, transitions, and B-roll (background rendering on, but proxies off, at Better Quality)...but who only makes 1-minute home videos? If I have PhotoLab 6 batch processing photos in the background then I'll drop multiple frames during playback in Final Cut Pro with even the Better Performance setting. If performance is this choppy for my normal use on day 1 with 16GB/1TB then I don't have much faith in the MBA 15 getting me through the next 3-5 years.
I don't consider myself a particularly heavy power user. I'll do some app development, maybe play around with some VMs and Docker containers, but most of that stuff was actually fine with the 16/512 M1 MBA. I'm genuinely sad to take the MBA 15 back but I can't deny the truth that the M2 Air is not enough power for me.
I've been running it through some typical photo/video editing workloads and it's just not enough power for what I want to do. I consider myself a beginner at photo/video editing, so nothing crazy. I don't even know how to use masks. I just like to apply some general corrections across collections of family photos and then stitch together some vacation videos with some transitions and mild effects. Admittedly I am doing more nowadays than in the past 2.5 years with my trusty M1 MBA, but I thought the M2 MBA 15 would be more than sufficient.
I just returned an M2 Max MBP 16 earlier in the week. That was definitely the right move though. I guess I'm going back to the Apple Store for a MBP 14, 32GB and either M2 Pro or M2 Max.
The MBA 15 batched processed 306 RAW photos from my Sony RX10m4 in about the same time as my previous M1 Max Mac Studio, but that's because DxO PhotoLab 6 supports the neural engine and both M2 and M1 Max have 16 NE cores. If Final Cut Pro is the only app open then I can get through a 1-minute 4K edit without dropping a frame, consisting of 4 clips and some text effect, transitions, and B-roll (background rendering on, but proxies off, at Better Quality)...but who only makes 1-minute home videos? If I have PhotoLab 6 batch processing photos in the background then I'll drop multiple frames during playback in Final Cut Pro with even the Better Performance setting. If performance is this choppy for my normal use on day 1 with 16GB/1TB then I don't have much faith in the MBA 15 getting me through the next 3-5 years.
I don't consider myself a particularly heavy power user. I'll do some app development, maybe play around with some VMs and Docker containers, but most of that stuff was actually fine with the 16/512 M1 MBA. I'm genuinely sad to take the MBA 15 back but I can't deny the truth that the M2 Air is not enough power for me.
Last edited:
I also got the new 15" 1499 model during preorder for 10% off (150) with a coupon from Best Buy on top of the offer to finance you mentioned. Of course, Apple gives 150 in gift cards and student pricing too but I think less months to finance if that's the direction someone wishes to go.
Last edited:
Even better, you can do their rent-to-own thing for 36 months and then if you want to keep it at month 37, you pay the final balance which a couple hundred dollars and it's yours! Best part about this is the monthly payment is REALLY low, I just wish they would add the option to upgrade the RAM and I would be in! I was already pre-approved for up to $5,500 for my purchase @ 0% APR.
Best Buy seems to be the best place to buy this thing from, if you're on a monthly budget and don't want to squeeze yourself too tight.
A sale from a third party retailer doesn't devalue Apple's brand. It helps create revenue for Apple. Your feelings couldn't be more wrong.