MacBook Air M5 13-Inch Drops $200 to $1,099 Ahead of Black Friday

Q: Since Amazon's new M5 MacBook Air deal undercuts Apple's own student pricing, should you buy immediately or risk waiting for actual Black Friday?

Buy now if this is the configuration you want. At $1,099 for the 13-inch M5 MacBook Air with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage, Amazon is matching the best post-price-hike price and beating Apple’s own education price of $1,199. The same discount is also showing up at Best Buy and B&H, which suggests this is a broad holiday-season price, not a one-hour fluke, but it also means stock can move quickly. The case for waiting is weak unless you are comfortable gambling for a very small extra drop. Recent reporting suggests Black Friday MacBook Air discounts rarely beat this by much. Last year, discounts generally topped out around $250 on select models, and some current 1TB configurations are already seeing that larger cut. For the 512GB model, another major drop is possible but not likely to be dramatic. The bigger risk in waiting is availability. Apple products often hold pricing tightly, and after this year’s summer Mac price increases, a $200 cut on a current-generation Air is already meaningful. With no M6 MacBook Air expected for months, there is little reason to delay if you need a laptop now or want this exact setup. If you do not need it immediately, the only sensible strategy is to buy from a retailer with an easy return or price-match policy, then watch Black Friday week. But for most shoppers, this is already a strong buy.

Q: With Apple raising Mac prices earlier this year, is this early Black Friday discount a genuine steal or just a clever retail illusion?

It is a real discount, but not an unprecedented bargain. The key fact is that Apple raised MacBook Air prices by about $200 in June, taking the 13-inch M5 Air with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage to roughly $1,299. Amazon’s $1,099 price effectively cancels out that increase. It also undercuts Apple’s own education price of about $1,199, which only some buyers can access. That makes this a genuine savings opportunity in today’s market, not a fake markdown off an inflated short-term list price. At the same time, buyers should not confuse “lowest price since the summer hike” with “lowest price ever.” Reports indicate the same model sold closer to $950 to $1,000 shortly after launch in May, before the June price increases took hold. So by historical standards, this is more of a return to a better price band than a once-in-a-lifetime steal. What makes the deal meaningful is context. Apple laptops do not get deep discounts often, the M5 Air is still the current generation, no M6 Air refresh is expected for months, and the same $200 cut is being matched by Best Buy and B&H, suggesting a broad holiday promotion rather than a pricing trick. For someone who needs a MacBook Air now, it is a strong and credible buy. For someone focused purely on record-low pricing, it is good, not extraordinary.

3 articles · Updated · WIRED · Nov 12

$1,099 buys the 13-inch MacBook Air with Apple’s M5 chip, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, matching its lowest price since June.
Amazon often discounts this configuration to $1,149, but the deeper $200 cut has mostly been limited to major sales events, most recently October’s Prime Day.
The 15-inch MacBook Air is also $200 off at $1,299, with the larger display and a six-speaker audio system as its main upgrades.
The deal arrives months before an expected M6 refresh, making current pricing unlikely to fall much further in the near term after Apple’s June Mac price increases.