Current Events > Do Macbooks ever go on sale?

(+) Yeah! (+)

My wife needs a new one and I'm not finding any deals for black friday. With how expensive they are I might look into a refurbished one if I can't find any good deals.

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I got my Air for $100 off a couple months ago, plus free airpods. Heard only good things about Apple refurbs though.

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yes but it's usually like $100 or $200 at best

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Romulox28 posted...

yes but it's usually like $100 or $200 at best

damn $200 is $200. I'd take something like that.

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You can get a discount buying them from Apple's student discount store or through Unidays. And you really don't want to get a refurbished one right now unless the new M1 Macbooks can't do something you need it to (running Windows, certain apps not working through Rosetta 2). The performance advantage of the new M1s is enormous.

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Son Of Spam posted...

You can get a discount buying them from Apple's student discount store or through Unidays. And you really don't want to get a refurbished one right now unless the new M1 Macbooks can't do something you need it to (running Windows, certain apps not working through Rosetta 2). The performance advantage of the new M1s is enormous.

Note that the new M1s run on an entirely different chipset so a lot of programs aren't actually going to run on them for quite a while (ex. Photoshop is advertised for mid-2021 IIRC).

If this MacBook is needed to actually do program-specific work, I'd actually suggest steering clear for a few years. If its just stuff like web browsing and Office, there's no problem though.

Occasionally you can find good deals through Best Buy. I got mine a few years ago for $899 and it was originally $1200 iirc

Proto_Spark posted...

Note that the new M1s run on an entirely different chipset so a lot of programs aren't actually going to run on them for quite a while (ex. Photoshop is advertised for mid-2021 IIRC).

If this MacBook is needed to actually do program-specific work, I'd actually suggest steering clear for a few years. If its just stuff like web browsing and Office, there's no problem though.

A lot of programs run surprisingly well on the M1's since they can emulate x86 Mac programs that haven't been ported yet. The M1 is so powerful it often actually beats other laptops even when it's using emulation. Adobe's apps in particular run very well through Rosetta 2. And some professional stuff has already been ported, like Apple's pro apps like Final Cut Pro.

So it really just depends on your use-case. Anybody buying one right now should check on all the programs they use to make sure they have either been ported to ARM or run fine through Rosetta 2.

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