It’s almost back to school season, and we’re starting to see some great laptop deals trickle in as a result. Walmart continues to sell the M1-powered MacBook Air for $599, but if you want more power and a sleeker design, the 13-inch M2-powered MacBook Air starts at just $699 ($100 off) from Best Buy. That’s its best price to date, and it’s available on the configuration that offers 256GB of storage and 16GB of RAM, double what’s in the base M1 model.
The M2-powered MacBook Air remains an excellent jack-of-all-trades, with more than enough power for work, casual gaming, and even a bit of light video editing. It also brings a few welcome upgrades over the M1 model, including faster performance and a much better 1080p webcam that’s noticeably sharper. Design-wise, it’s thinner and lighter, with slimmer bezels and a brighter, slightly bigger display. It also includes an improved keyboard and a MagSafe port for charging, while retaining features like a long battery life that should last a full work day.
That said, as an older laptop, you’ll miss out on newer features. Apple’s latest MacBook Air runs on a more powerful chip, for one thing, can connect to two external displays as opposed to just one, and offers an even more impressive 12-megapixel Center Stage webcam. But if all you care about is buying a fast, reliable laptop for everyday work and play, the M2-MacBook Air is a great investment to make at this price.
