Forget the MacBook Pro, Apple has something better

It should come as no surprise that the Black Friday season has countless discounts and special offers on laptops in general and Apple’s MacBook Air and MacBook Pro in particular. This is not something Tim Cook and his team regularly participate in; 2022 is very much an anomaly, as Apple is offering nice discounts on the current “professional” 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops.

You won’t find them in the Apple Store—not a good time to dilute the public perception of the hardware’s high value—but they’re being quietly offered to business customers. Mark Gurman reports:

“The company is offering discounts of up to 10% on its 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros with M1-based chips, according to companies and Apple retail employees. This exceeds the typical discount for small and medium-sized businesses.” This tactic is unusual for Apple and suggests it is stepping up efforts to revive sales.”

Entrepreneurs may still be swayed by new designs and the “you have to have the latest model” feeling, but not nearly as much as consumers who walk into a retail store. We will focus much more on the practical benefits of the hardware. Since Apple dramatically increased the basic specifications of the Mac hardware in the transition to Apple Silicon, the MacBook Air is a satisfying experience for those who need an all-round laptop.

The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops have new looks, smooth screens, fast-charging batteries, but their real value – and the key factor that makes them attractive to businesses – is their ability to offer a powerful laptop. focused on demanding computing tasks such as development, multimedia creation and specific computing intensive tasks.

If you’re not looking for maximum performance, then the MacBook Air has proven to be more than adequate; even if you opt for the entry-level version of the M1 Air from 2020, you’ll have a MacBook with reliable performance; and the M2 Air offers around 20 percent more power if you feel the need to back up a bit.

If power is the requirement, then the MacBook Pro becomes the better answer. The current professional-focused MacBook Pro models listed above were released in 2021 and need to be replaced. While there was hope that it would arrive in Apple’s October launch window, all indications now point to Apple opting to delay it until the first quarter of 2023.

Business customers on a budget looking for a cost-effective transition to Apple’s new Silicon platform may look at Apple’s discount and be tempted to buy what will soon be an older and less capable model, knowing that the M1 Max and M1 Pro system- on-chips will bring in terms of performance…

But Apple has something much better planned. Any laptop investment will last for many years, so you want to have the best possible starting position. Are you settling for an older model with lower specs right now, or are you waiting for Apple to release a new generation of MacBooks that will clearly deliver a better experience?

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