It has been an interesting season on the Apple front. These last few days have been a whirlwind of Black Friday ad leaks and excellent deals from all the major players in the business, but Apple themselves have been more than a little quiet regarding their prices this Friday. Not too much of a surprise, going to the store and finding out yourself is part of the fun of Black Friday, but I prefer a little more transparency. As it stands there are plenty of other firms willing to pick up the slack and discount their Apple products.
Apple have never been an inexpensive firm. Their Macbooks line has always boasted excellent features, and extremely easy to use interfaces, but never have they been able to say the price is affordable. Even now, with Black Friday round the corner, the prices of the products have dropped, some by as much as 50%, and still we are looking at a fair few hundred dollars for the privilege. And an older model to boot. So I have made it my mission today to scour the web for the best black friday deals for Macbooks, and I have been able to find a few I quite like.
So Let’s get to it, itemize the deals for ease of use.
Best Macbook Deals Black Friday 2016
Navy Exchange Black Friday: Apple MacBook Pro 13.3″Â $879.99 – Far from the most powerful option in the Mac stable, but a solid computer. An older model, which is why it is under a grand, and the resolution could be better, a mere 1280 x 800, but the ram is robust and the processor is pretty good too. A decent option as a discount gift.
Best Buy Apple – MacBook Air® (Latest Model) – 13.3″ $799.99 – Now we are onto the present line up. The Macbook Air is a sublime creation, light as a feather, and powerful enough to boot. Aesthetically you cannot fault an Apple product. This is the 128GB version, which might explain the price point, but if you do go for this one you better buy yourself some decent external storage.
Best Buy Apple – MacBook Air® (Latest Model) – 13.3″ $999.99 – Another Macbook Air, this time the 256GB model. All the internals match the one above, and if you must have more internal storage you will have to go for the more expensive model. Personally, 128GB is fine for running programs, and regardless of which one you buy you will likely need to invest in an external HDD anyway. Still a good option though.
ABT Apple Macbook Pro 13.3″ $1198 – This is actually a pretty good buy. The price is fairly high, sure, but without the discount you can expect to pay at least an extra $200. The resolution is higher than all the other machines on this list, at an impressive 2560 x 1440, making it one of the most clear. On the inside we have a full 8GB of Ram and a powerful i5 processor. the GPU is intel, so don’t expect it to run the latest games, but for work and editing it is fine.
Newegg Apple Macbook Air 11.6″ $379.99Â – A much older model, no doubt about it, but the price here makes this an extremely attractive purchase. Make no mistake, this is a refurbished item, meaning you lose that Apple warranty, but the warranty from Newegg is nearly as good. On the inside it isn’t much to write home about, but again, we are not buying Apple products for the hardware, but for the software, and the full suite is here.
So there we are, honestly, it is slim pickings this year. Black Friday is usually a force to be reckoned with. it rushes to the walls of price, and crushes the fortifications, bringing even the most expensive items to heel. But not Apple. Perhaps it is a result of being so highly priced during the year, but the biggest discounts seem to be on the Macbooks that are a few years out of date. If you have been biding your time, waiting for hardware that is a few generations old to come down to a reasonable price, then you are in luck, but even when it was released the hardware was years out of date. You are more likely to find great deals on iPhones and iPads this season.
My issues with the hardware aside, the software on older Macbooks is still great, and well worth the entry price. So happy hunting people.
