• Light/Dark

Walmart will begin selling the M1 MacBook Air for $699

Spectromixer

Spectromixer

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
17,214
USA
1710444274892.jpg


Walmart will begin selling MacBook Air with the M1 chip – continuing to deliver premium quality and unmatched affordability for customers. MacBook Air features amazing performance and a long battery life in its thin and light design. This is the first time customers can purchase a Mac directly from Walmart. The MacBook Air with the M1 chip is now available on Walmart.com and will soon be available in select Walmart stores for only $699.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

corporate.walmart.com

Walmart Brings the Popular MacBook Air With the M1 Chip to Its Shelves

BENTONVILLE, Ark., March 15, 2024 — Walmart will begin selling MacBook Air with the M1 chip – continuing to deliver premium quality and unmatched affordability for customers. MacBook Air features amazing performance and a long battery life in its thin and light design.
corporate.walmart.com corporate.walmart.com
 
oakenhild

oakenhild

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,051
That is an incredibly competitive price for a MacBook. The M1 is aging, but still solid for like 90% of tasks (100% for most people).

Approaching iPad territory...
 
DarkSora

DarkSora

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,284
I bought this when it first came out and it still holds up! Amazing deal.
 
Gwarm

Gwarm

Member
Nov 13, 2017
2,377
That's just $30 more than the currently price for a refurb on Amazon. I wonder if those will get even cheaper now?
 

Deleted member 8831

Oct 26, 2017
6,240
That is a fantastic price for a powerhouse of a machine. M1 is still really good today. I rock M1 Pro, and my Wife has Air M1, and none of them are sluggish in the slightest with our many daily tasks.
 
Dest

Dest

Has seen more 10s than EA ever will
Coward
Jun 4, 2018
14,687
Work
I need a device to drag around with my for some writing so this might just be it...
 

Johnny956

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,963
It never get hots too. Ours in the winter is actually too cold to have on my legs if I'm wearing shorts.
 
gozu

gozu

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,442
America
At that price it's a pretty cool deal.

8gb of ram was not enough for me though. Kept getting in the red just for having two different browsers open with multiple tabs.

You need 16gb if you're a power user. Just keep that in mind.

Also keep in mind the ram is shared with the gpu. Similar to ps5. There is no dedicated vram.
 
Faceless_Caesar

Faceless_Caesar

Member
Jul 1, 2020
8,873
Since Apple is no longer selling this product directly, in about 5 years it will be considered vintage and Apple will no longer repair it.

Obtaining service for your Apple product after an expired warranty - Apple Support

Learn about your options for getting service and parts for Apple devices that are past their warranty period.
support.apple.com support.apple.com

The 256GB storage models also have slower storage than their 512GB and up counterparts. 8GB of ram is also not a lot but it's a great laptop for casual use.
 
oakenhild

oakenhild

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,051
I have the 256gb 8gb M1 Mac Mini, and it is absolutely still fast enough for most people. I even run xcode on it (only reason I got it was to compile flutter iOS apps).
 
nsilvias

nsilvias

Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,140
this kinda kills that whole 700 dollar range of laptops. why would you buy a lower midrange windows laptop when you can get a macbook.
 

Johnny956

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,963
Faceless_Caesar said:
Since Apple is no longer selling this product directly, in about 5 years it will be considered vintage and Apple will no longer repair it.

Obtaining service for your Apple product after an expired warranty - Apple Support

Learn about your options for getting service and parts for Apple devices that are past their warranty period.
support.apple.com support.apple.com

The 256GB storage models also have slower storage than their 512GB and up counterparts. 8GB of ram is also not a lot but it's a great laptop for casual use.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


Believe the MacBook Air m1 uses 2x 128gb chips so storage speed isn't affected that much vs the MacBook Air M2 256gb
 
JSRF

JSRF

"This guy are sick"
Member
Aug 23, 2023
1,863
I have one of these that I bought essentially to replace an iPad. For me, it fills the same role but is just way better at it. I use it for media consumption and using services that I host on other machines. The screen isn't as good as an iPad (though bigger) but having a keyboard, 2 USB-C ports, and not needing a case makes it way better for what I need. Plus, it has a terminal and can do a million things that an iPad can't.

If it had more RAM I could do more with it for sure, but as a client to other machines it is awesome.

Just a note on RAM - it really isn't enough to do much. Yes swap gives you some breathing room but once you start using 3-4gb of swap the computer will crawl. There are a lot of things that you just can't even attempt with 8gb. Start up docker desktop with nothing else up, and even when restricting the resources of the docker engine VM you will start using swap.
 

PleaseBeKind

Member
Oct 31, 2023
471
I'm not well versed about macs but ive heard their chips are hot, is this a much superior piece of hardware than say a Samsung laptop at the same price?

We tend to favor Samsung as an ecosystem at home (phones tablet watch etc), but I could try mac if the hardware is better at the same price.
 
base_two

base_two

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,828
This is all most people need. I bought one to replace a "legacy" 2017 Macbook Pro that went out of OS upgrade support, and it was a substantial upgrade. I've yet to experience any slowdown with 8GB running 30+ tabs using Chrome. Battery life can last a work week under my normal usage pattern. It's insane.
 
zero_suit

zero_suit

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,740
Mine, 16GB version, is still going strong. I won't even consider a new laptop for a few more years still.
 
Kensation

Kensation

The Enlightened "this guy are sick"
The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
7,319
Still one of the absolute best laptops for everyday tasks.
 

Ashhong

Member
Oct 26, 2017
17,277
Great deal but I didn't realize Apple was still trying to sell the M2 as well. Do they always sell two generations? If this was the M2 I'd jump asap
 
TangoTango

TangoTango

Member
Oct 30, 2017
2,037
I was looking to get a new iPad this month, since they're supposed to be coming out with new ones, but maybe I should just buy this instead? My last two iPads only lasted 2 years each and then crapped out.
 
manustany

manustany

Unshakable Resolve
Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,010
The Space
Bought mine in June 2022 and it's still a fantastic machine. Never had a single issue for my everyday tasks.
 
Stencil

Stencil

Mailing Out Their Business
Member
Oct 30, 2017
11,276
USA
BRsomebody said:
I got mine for work about 3 years ago and it's still going strong with regular Photoshop/InDesign/Premiere use. Great price for it
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This is good to know. I'm on a 2017 Macbook Pro and it is STRUGGLING to open Adobe these days. Damn I might bite on this deal, have needed a new laptop for a while
 
ScoobsJoestar

ScoobsJoestar

Member
May 30, 2019
4,071
Kensation said:
This doesn't affect the M1
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I think this gets overstated. As someone who owns one, yeah it's pretty good but you absolutely feel the lack of ram at times if you're doing some more intensive shit. Like don't get me wrong it handles things I did not expect it would pretty well (it can do 4K video editing with...only mild annoyance if you're one of those weirdos that refuse to use proxies, and if you use proxies it handles things fine) but it definitely feels limiting there.
 
onpoint

onpoint

Neon Deity Games
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
16,244
716
Uh… hell of a price and I've been wanting a new kick-around web browsing Macbook. I might have to bite.
 
Futureman

Futureman

Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,911
Faceless_Caesar said:
Since Apple is no longer selling this product directly, in about 5 years it will be considered vintage and Apple will no longer repair it.

Obtaining service for your Apple product after an expired warranty - Apple Support

Learn about your options for getting service and parts for Apple devices that are past their warranty period.
support.apple.com support.apple.com

The 256GB storage models also have slower storage than their 512GB and up counterparts. 8GB of ram is also not a lot but it's a great laptop for casual use.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I don't think you can say that so definitively since I don't believe Apple has ever sold an exclusive computer through a retailer like this before.

I recently upgraded but was using an M1/8GB/256GB Mac Mini doing some pretty intensive stuff. Though the MM does have internal cooling and the MBA does not. Web browsing, email, Word is great on this though.

NaDannMaGoGo said:
So 8GB version and 16GB will cost like $200 more, as per usual?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

there's not going to be a 16 GB version.
 
prophetvx

prophetvx

Member
Nov 28, 2017
5,476
ScoobsJoestar said:
I think this gets overstated. As someone who owns one, yeah it's pretty good but you absolutely feel the lack of ram at times if you're doing some more intensive shit. Like don't get me wrong it handles things I did not expect it would pretty well (it can do 4K video editing with...only mild annoyance if you're one of those weirdos that refuse to use proxies, and if you use proxies it handles things fine) but it definitely feels limiting there.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
For those buying at a $700 pricepoint, no one is going to care. At my work we still have plenty of people rocking the gen 1, apple silicon airs, including devs.

They're still a fantastic unit and at that price, it's a no brainer for casual or even medium professional use. Usually windows laptops at that pricepoint barely last 2 years before the hardware starts falling apart and the battery loses half its capacity.
 
Derbel McDillet

Derbel McDillet

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Nov 23, 2022
17,065
oakenhild said:
Not sure I understand your question.

The M3 is out now. The M1 was released in Nov 2020, which was 3.5 years ago. The M1 was a first generation product of a new CPU architecture (for MacOS). It was solid at the time, but has been improved upon greatly now.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Aging usually implies it may not work as well now, but the M3 existing doesn't make this a worser product at this price. It's just bigger number from my perspective.
 
NaDannMaGoGo

NaDannMaGoGo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,323
Futureman said:
there's not going to be a 16 GB version.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Killthee said:
No, this is directly through Walmart and not apple. They probably only have this 1 config with no customization options.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Aight. 8 GB fixed then. It's a shame that it brings these machines down from basically "absolutely amazing value 11/10" to "kinda great but" territory. Hope we get 16 GB baseline before anything but 32 GB (on even Mac) is deemed a joke.
 
oatmeal

oatmeal

Member
Oct 30, 2017
4,649
If they could just up the base to 16GB this would be incredible. I have the base and it's a solid machine but you really feel the 8GBs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.