Apple's New 15-inch MacBook Air Is a Beast for Travel, and It's on Sale for Its Lowest Price Yet

You can save on the biggest air with 256GB or 512GB of storage.

Author:
Jacob Krol
Sep 11, 2023

You can save on the biggest air with 256GB or 512GB of storage.

Apple’s entire Mac family is pretty unstoppable, especially since the company transitioned to using in-house chips. The result is more speed and better efficiency for even the most advanced tasks, in addition to the MacBook Airs and Pros offering some extremely long battery runtimes.

One of the models that manages to punch above the rest is the most recent. At its annual World-Wide Developer Conference (WWDC), Apple unveiled the 15-inch MacBook Air. It’s the biggest Air ever, with a 15.3-inch display with plenty of power from Apple’s M2 chip, but it keeps an ultra-portable design.

Right now, though, it’s never been cheaper, with a sharp $200 discount on Amazon for the entry-level and slightly more souped-up configuration.

15-inch MacBook Air with M2, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD, $1,099 (was $1,299) at Amazon

Apple's biggest MacBook Air features a 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display. — Jacob Krol/SI

Just how portable is the 15-inch MacBook Air? Well, it weighs in at just 3.3 pounds, and when closed, it’s just 0.45 inches thick. That means it can easily slide into a backpack, purse, or other bag without weighing you down and is light enough to be held with just one hand. For folks who commute, it’s comfortable enough to rest on your lap or fit on airplane tray tables—though, fair warning, it might hang off the edges.

Like any other MacBook Pro or Air, the 15-inch fully aluminum design comes in four shades: Starlight, Midnight, Space Gray, or Gold. You’ll also find four ports: two USB-C/Thunderbolt 4, a MagSafe 3 connector, and an audio jack.

The real star is the 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display that reaches a super high brightness of 500 nits, which is more than enough to comfortably use under super intense artificial lights or outside on a bright, sunny day. It can also produce over a billion colors and supports the P3 color gamut standard, making this an excellent choice for creatives.

Thanks to the display, it’s ideal for photo or video editing, and Apple’s M2 chip is equipped to handle even more extreme, intense tasks. It’s a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU with a 16-core Neural Engine that truly blazes through tasks. Suffice it to say, you likely won’t experience any slowdowns. The audio experience has been upgraded here, and unsurprisingly, the largest MacBook Air sports the widest soundstage with a significant amount of bass.

Faithful to Apple’s in-house chip promises, the 15-inch MacBook Air has enough juice to last for at least full work days and longer when in standby mode. That makes it a true workhorse for travel and a dependable larger-screen laptop for on-the-go work.

Act fast, though, as there is no telling how long Amazon will keep the 15-inch MacBook Air at the lowest price ever. The entry-level model costs $1,099—$200 off—and comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of solid-state storage. You can also save $200 on the 15-inch Air with 512GB of storage, which is down to $1,299 from $1,499.

15-inch MacBook Air with M2, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage, $1,099 (was $1,299) at Amazon
15-inch MacBook Air with M2, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage, $1,299 (was $1,499) at Amazon

Prices are accurate and items in stock at time of publishing.