I'd recommend the M3 MacBook Air at full price – but this new deal makes it a no-brainer

I’ve been covering Macs for over a decade and my preferred Mac is the M3 MacBook Air. So I was thrilled to see that this year Best Buy is running a fantastic Presidents’ Day sale for the laptop. Right now, you can purchase the 13-inch M3 MacBook Air for $899, an $100 discount off the $999 retail price. If you want save even more money, the 15-inch model is instead seeing a $200 discount going from $1,500 to $1,300.

Also: The 60+ best early Presidents’ Day tech deals live now

Apple almost never puts its laptops on sale. At best, you can get a 10% educational discount and get this model for $999. If you’re lucky, you might be able to catch an older model at a 10-20% discount from another third-party seller like Amazon. So this price is nearly unprecedented for a current MacBook Air model. With that in mind, I’d recommend snatching up this deal if you’ve been seriously considering an M3 MacBook Air. 

There’s also a hidden factor that makes this an even better deal than it looks like on paper. That $1,099 price tag is slightly deceiving. When Apple launched the first M4 Macs in Octobe 2024, it also quietly upgraded the base models of both the M3 MacBook Air and the M2 MacBook Air from 8GB of RAM to 16GB — without increasing the price. So that means that the configuration of the M3 MacBook Air you can now buy for $899 would have actually cost you $1,299 just a couple months ago. 

Also: The 55+ best early Amazon Presidents’ Day tech deals live right now

All in all, the M3 MacBook Air is a terrific machine. In fact, I’m writing this article from it right now. It weighs 2.7 pounds and is less than a half an inch thick — and the dimensions are only slightly bigger than a sheet of 8.5 x 11 inch paper. So you barely even notice it when you slip it into a bag or backpack.

And for all its svelteness, it also packs a ton of power. Ever since the M1 Apple Silicon chips arrived, these MacBook Air models have felt snappier and just as powerful as the old Intel-based MacBook Pros. In fact, there are a lot of people who used to need a MacBook Pro for things like basic photo-editing and other forms of multimedia and work-based tasks that can now easily get away with using a MacBook Air. That’s especially been true since the M2 MacBook Air arrived in 2022 and it’s even more true with the M3 version. Because of these machines, the number of people who need a MacBook Pro has shrunk considerably in the last couple of years.

Also: Apple’s iPad 10th Gen is $70 off ahead of Presidents’ Day weekend at Amazon

The only drawback to this $899 configuration is that it only comes with 256GB of storage and it would cost you $200 to upgrade to 512GB. My unit had a 512GB drive, and even after six months of continuous usage, I had plenty of unused space — about 366GB at the time. 

I bought the 512GB version in early 2024 and I frequently used the M3 MacBook Air for six months straight. And in that time frame, I still had about 366GB of unused space. If you’re worried about having extra storage space you could always carry a fast external drive like this 2TB Seagate drive that’s on sale for $69 (13% off) for Presidents’ Day.

Amazon also has the M2 MacBook Air on sale for $718, which is a great deal for someone with a little bit lighter computing needs. Either way, there’s never been a better time for buying a MacBook Air.