One of the best back to school laptop deals comes from Best Buy this week. The retailer's student discount program takes hundreds off Apple's stylish MacBooks.
After the student discount, the MacBook Air with M1 chip costs just $749. Normally, this laptop fetches $999, so that's $250 in savings. This marks the M1 MacBook Air's lowest price ever and one of the best MacBook deals out there. To get this exclusive deal, you must sign up for Best Buy's Student Deals Program.
As an alternative, your Best Buy's student discount nets you the base model MacBook Pro for $1,049.
Back to school MacBook Air deals
Apple's MacBook Air M1-powered ultraportable is one of the best laptops for students. The MacBook in this deal packs a 13.3-inch (2560 x 1600) IPS Retina display, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD.
As we note in our MacBook Air with M1 review, we were floored by its breathtaking performance, and slim, unibody design. We were also floored by its lengthy battery life which tapped out at 14 hours and 41 minutes during testing. We gave the MacBook Air with M1 chip a high rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars and the Editor's Choice award.
In one real-world test, the MacBook Air's M1chip scoffed when we loaded 25 tabs on Google Chrome. Four of them were playing YouTube videos while another pair streamed on Twitch. And when we tried the same workload on Safari, which runs natively, everything loaded instantly — photos, graphics and text blinked onto the screen the moment we pressed Return.
Port-wise, the MacBook Air equips you with two Thunderbolt 3 ports and a headphone jack. If you need more ports, we recommend you invest in a USB-Type C hub. With dimensions of 12 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches and a weight of 2.8 pounds, the MacBook Air M1 is as thin as its competitors. It's on par with the weight of the Dell XPS 13 (11.6 x 7.8 x 0.6 inches, 2.8 pounds), and 13.5-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 (12.1 x 8.8 x 0.6 inches, 2.9 pounds).
Best Buy's back to school Apple MacBook deals end August 1 — as stock permits.
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