My favorite laptop has hit its lowest price in Amazon’s big spring sale

After reviewing hundreds of laptops over the years for CNET, the MacBook Air is still my favorite Favorite general laptop. Specifically, the 15-inch model, because it strikes a balance between a large multitasking display and the kind of thin, lightweight design you can throw in a bag every day without having to worry about it. This MacBook lets you get a big screen without spending the extra hundreds to thousands of dollars for a MacBook Pro.

Apple launched the M5 MacBook Air earlier this month, but last year’s M4 models are still around — and they’re currently available at deep discounts on Amazon. Big spring sale. The best deal is for my favorite MacBook Air, the 15-inch.

the MacBook Air M4 15-inch It retails for just $949, ​​which is $250 less than its full price and the lowest price I’ve seen for it. That’s also $300 less than new The M5 MacBook Air is currently sold on Amazon With $50 discount.

To make a comprehensive comparison between the M4 and M5 MacBook Air models, you need to consider storage capacity. Apple has raised the minimum storage space from 256GB SSD on the M4 model to 512GB on the M5 Air. Fortunately, the 15-inch M4 MacBook Air with 512GB SSD upgrade is also on sale at its lowest price ever. You can get it for $1099 at Amazonwhich is $300 lower than its original price and still $150 below its baseline The M5 MacBook Air costs at Amazon.

With the same design, performance, and battery life as the M5 Air, the M4 MacBook Air remains a great choice in 2026 for laptop shoppers.

MacBook Air M4 13-inch

the The 13-inch M4 MacBook Air is also on sale for $899 As for the Amazon Big Spring Sale, it’s $100 off its original price but nowhere near its lowest price of $749. And if you want it with the 512GB SSD upgrade, that’s expensive $999 on Amazonwhich is about $200 less than what Apple previously charged for it — but only $100 less than the current baseline M5 13-inch MacBook Air with a 512GB SSD. For sale on Amazon. I’m not sure that’s enough of a price break to ditch the newer model.

If you want a 13-inch MacBook for less, you should consider the new one MacBook Neo. He – she It costs only $599 It is an incredible value. It’s $500 less than the M5 MacBook Air, and I’m willing to live without most of the features it lacks due to its lower price. The Neo is almost perfect for students and others who want an inexpensive MacBook that still offers enough performance and battery life for everyday use.

MacBook Air M4 vs. M5 performance

CNET tested two sizes of last year’s M4 MacBook Air and a 13-inch M5 MacBook Air model that Apple just released.

The MacBook M5 Air offers the evolutionary performance gains you might expect from generation to generation rather than revolutionary leaps over last year’s model. It was approximately 9% to 13% faster in Geekbench 6 tests and 12% to 18% faster in Cinebench 2024 tests compared to the M4 Air.

The battery life also remains almost the same. The 13-inch M5 Air lasted about an hour longer than the 13-inch M4 Air in our battery test, but both can run for a long time on a single charge. The 13-inch M5 Air ran for just over 17 hours, and the 13-inch M4 Air ran for about 16 hours in the same test. Meanwhile, the 15-inch M4 Air fell between the two 13-inch models, lasting about 16.5 hours in our test.

Other differences between this year’s MacBook Air and last year’s

Starting memory remains at 16GB, but the M5 chip supports faster unified memory – 153Gbps bandwidth compared to 120Gbps on the M4. Storage has also become faster. Apple says the SSDs in the M5 models deliver twice the read and write speeds of the previous M4 model.

The M5 Air also offers improved networking. Includes Apple N1 wireless chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.

For more, check out my comparison of M5 MacBook Air versus previous M4, M3, M2 and M1 models And for more deep discounts, check out our website A roundup of deals under $25.