Save $300 on this M2 MacBook Air from Best Buy
The lowest it's ever been.
Apple has just announced the new M4 MacBook Air, which has sent prices tumbling on older models. The M2, for instance, remains a capable machine for everything from casual computing to even high-res video editing, and simply by being a slightly older model, Best Buy has slashed its price by $300 to the lowest price we've ever seen it at. $699 for a laptop of this class and power is fantastic value.
As much as the M2 may have only represented an incremental upgrade over the M1 that preceded it, it cemented the power of Apple Silicon MacBooks over the older Intel chips with a true night and day difference. This chip comes with eight CPU cores and 10 GPU cores that allow for fantastic performance for even some rather intensive workloads, such as video editing, with performance that'll outruns even the fastest Intel-based Mac desktops and laptops.
This model also benefits from the increased RAM headroom for base model Macs that Apple began to offer with the introduction of the M4 Mac Mini a few months back. As much as 8GB of RAM wasn't too much trouble with the M2 chip, Apple has bumped it up to 16GB to give you more headroom for those intensive tasks and multi-tasking with lots of Chrome tabs open. You are stuck with the base 256GB of SSD storage though, which is sufficient for or your programs and a reasonable amount of data, but we'd recommend getting a fast portable SSD or other external or network-attached storage if you'll be doing video editing or storing large media libraries which you can have quick and easy access to.
This M2 MacBook Air also comes with a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display that should provide accurate colours as well as an especially vibrant experience, although its port selection of a pair of USB-Cs and one MagSafe port does leave a little to be desired. As someone who was subject to the pain of Apple's minimal options for connectivity in previous times (looking at you, 2020 MacBook Pro), it is a bit of hassle, but you can find plenty of USB-C dongles for reasonable money these days to offer you better connectivity, ranging from options that just add lots of USB-A ports to wider options with an SD card reader, HDMI out and more besides. As for battery life, Apple says this MacBook Air should last for up to 18 hours on a single charge, giving you good endurance for a couple of working days away from the charger.
If you've been after a powerful MacBook Air for especially reasonable money, this reduction from Best Buy on the M2 model is truly excellent.