Macbook Air 15 pricing guesses

[fisherking]

I really can't see a market for this if it's more than a +$200 modifier over the 13.6" spec for spec. While Apple likes to make the next model up appealing, they're just going to cannibalise the sales of both this machine and the 14" if the pricing overlap is too great, rather than encouraging those looking at the M1/M2 machines to maybe pay a bit more for the larger display which would be optimal if they want to actually sell units and maybe bump the Mac line's ASP up a little.

if you read thru the posts on this forum, or google a bit... a lot of people would love an air with a larger screen. and am sure apple has a plan,has done some research on this. seems pretty reasonable (to me, despite my preference for a smaller macbook, not a larger one)...

 

[Falhófnir]

if you read thru the posts on this forum, or google a bit... a lot of people would love an air with a larger screen. and am sure apple has a plan,has done some research on this. seems pretty reasonable (to me, despite my preference for a smaller macbook, not a larger one)...

Yes, I'm one of those people. The chance of Apple making a larger Air or MacBook was the first post I made here over 5 years ago. I have only ever owned a 15" MacBook Pro, and have no interest at all in anything smaller, a 15" Apple Silicon MacBook Air is exactly the computer I want to replace this ageing 15" Pro.

The point I was trying to make is if Apple does price it from $1,799 as some are suggesting, that's going to really squeeze the market for this product. That's already stepping into MacBook Pro territory, and you'd lose out on mini LED/ HDR and ProMotion, you'd lose out on storage and RAM, you'd lose out on performance, ports, sound quality. I don't see Apple trying to sell you a 15" MacBook Air that works out as more expensive than a 14" MacBook Pro when you equalise RAM and storage. While they are anything but generous with pricing, there is a sort of internal logic behind the value of their products. They don't just slap as high a price tag as they want on at the end, even if sometimes it seems like they do. This product will have been balanced to appeal to those who might pay a *little* bit more for a larger screen, so they can sell a $1,399 15", rather than a $1,199 13". Go too high and you'll just cannibalise 16" Pro sales for no benefit.

 

[vgolfoz]

One thing to keep in mind...laptop sales in the past 12-18 months have fallen off a cliff. Apple would want to think long and hard about intoducing this at the upper level of estimates.

 

[ls1dreams]

8gb these days is for kids and oldies /theend

Even for kids/oldies I think people are just being Apple apologists at this point. It's fricking 2023 and there's no reason machines should still come with 8gb of RAM. (especially PCs since NAND is dirt cheap right now). I realize Apple's memory is built into the SoC so it's a bit different but.... come on. This is a joke.

 

[ls1dreams]

Yes, I'm one of those people. The chance of Apple making a larger Air or MacBook was the first post I made here over 5 years ago. I have only ever owned a 15" MacBook Pro, and have no interest at all in anything smaller, a 15" Apple Silicon MacBook Air is exactly the computer I want to replace this ageing 15" Pro.

The point I was trying to make is if Apple does price it from $1,799 as some are suggesting, that's going to really squeeze the market for this product. That's already stepping into MacBook Pro territory, and you'd lose out on mini LED/ HDR and ProMotion, you'd lose out on storage and RAM, you'd lose out on performance, ports, sound quality. I don't see Apple trying to sell you a 15" MacBook Air that works out as more expensive than a 14" MacBook Pro when you equalise RAM and storage. While they are anything but generous with pricing, there is a sort of internal logic behind the value of their products. They don't just slap as high a price tag as they want on at the end, even if sometimes it seems like they do. This product will have been balanced to appeal to those who might pay a *little* bit more for a larger screen, so they can sell a $1,399 15", rather than a $1,199 13". Go too high and you'll just cannibalise 16" Pro sales for no benefit.

I hope that's true and generally agree. The value prop goes way down when a 14" with all those nice features would be within $100-$200. Not sure how many people would take the trade-off for only 1" more of screen size or whatever.

Gut feel is Apple does what they can to keep price down which also means they'll continue to skimp out on ram/ssd unfortunately.

 

[ls1dreams]

Guess / hope = $1599

How about the 512 or even 256 and storing photos in the cloud. One spilled cup of coffee away from losing a thousand photos is a horrible thought. One emergency evacuation due to flood or tornado and losing a thousand photos is equally frightening. How about a MacMini ($599US) and a 27" 4k ProArt monitor (~$450).

She pays $3/mo plan right now for the 200gb plan, but I'm really trying to avoid going to $10/mo since that's the next step up for 2tb.

 

[dmr727]

I think it'll be $200 over the same spec 13" MBA. Of course this is just a WAG, but I agree with the others that there's just not a lot of wiggle room before you're at the price of a 14" MBP.

 

[ignatius345]

I just don't trust 8gb of ram:

1. My laptop in 2011 had 8gb of ram. We're 12 years past that now. Who knows what new software pops up where it might be needed. On a $1600 machine I'm spending that $200 all day long.
2. Likely more SSD wear with less RAM. The original M1''s had issues with SSD's writing tons of data as well with macOS which made things even worse. Less concerned about that now though.

Storage I do think I could cut down. I just find it frustrating to come up with a good solution for backing up an iPhone regularly but not exceeding storage. Her iPhone alone has 256gb of storage, and she probably has 100gb+ of old photos. Don't really want to spend $10/mo to icloud for 2tb of storage - not to mention it's not a true backup solution.

I've been thinking about just using photosync app + a b2 backup of some sort but it's kind of complicated.

8GB of RAM goes a lot further than it used to, for sure. I think some of that is the way RAM is integrated in the M-series chips, and some of it is the fact that disk swap is so fast with modern SSDs that you don't get the brutal performance hit we used to get on older Macs. Anecdotally, I'm able to juggle a whole lot and work on huge Illustrator files on an M1 Air with 8GB of RAM.

On the other hand? Totally agree it's good to spec for more than you think you need today. Tomorrow's software will find a way to be more demanding and nothing sucks more than being 2 years into owning a Mac and wishing you could travel back in time and spend that extra money on the spec upgrade. I'm the same boat with my SSD -- I opted for 256 because I thought I'd be using the Air for only a few light things, and now that's biting me in the ass because I'm syncing a gigantic folder full of design documents.

 

[ls1dreams]

8GB of RAM goes a lot further than it used to, for sure. I think some of that is the way RAM is integrated in the M-series chips, and some of it is the fact that disk swap is so fast with modern SSDs that you don't get the brutal performance hit we used to get on older Macs. Anecdotally, I'm able to juggle a whole lot and work on huge Illustrator files on an M1 Air with 8GB of RAM.

On the other hand? Totally agree it's good to spec for more than you think you need today. Tomorrow's software will find a way to be more demanding and nothing sucks more than being 2 years into owning a Mac and wishing you could travel back in time and spend that extra money on the spec upgrade. I'm the same boat with my SSD -- I opted for 256 because I thought I'd be using the Air for only a few light things, and now that's biting me in the ass because I'm syncing a gigantic folder full of design documents.

Exactly. My mom will likely use this laptop for 8-10 years.

 

[Tagbert]

Even for kids/oldies I think people are just being Apple apologists at this point. It's fricking 2023 and there's no reason machines should still come with 8gb of RAM. (especially PCs since NAND is dirt cheap right now). I realize Apple's memory is built into the SoC so it's a bit different but.... come on. This is a joke.

Many PC vendors offer 8GB in their base machines. It allows a low price for someone with simple needs and a small budget. Of course most of them don’t charge as much for RAM upgrades as Apple.

 

[ignatius345]

Exactly. My mom will likely use this laptop for 8-10 years.

My grandmother is using a 2010 base model MacBook Air . She uses it strictly for web and email. I'm about to replace it for her, but only because it's not getting security updates anymore and that makes me nervous. Otherwise, it's still working just fine. It's not exactly fast, but it seems to be handling modern websites well enough and we don't see tons of beachballs or anything.

 

[brandoman]

$1799 or $1899

 

[henry72]

Probably start at $1,599 for the base 8/512 model since it is expected to serve as an intermediate between the Air and Pro terms of performance and size.

I highly doubt the base model will start at 512GB sadly...

 

[henry72]

What do you think pricing will be like on the Macbook Air 15" model?

I'm looking for a machine for my 70yr old mom, and mostly just need the bigger screen and storage for her photos.

I'm likely to look for a 15", 16gb, 1TB model, but Apple is just brutal on the pricing for this now. I could consider going with a 512gb SSD and using external storage but that is kind of a pain. Not really considering 8gb ram. No need for the 10 core gpu but not sure what the M3 will bring and how many cores it will have.

Current 13" M2 air pricing:

- 13" air w/ 16gb/1tb (standard pricing): $1799 / (edu pricing): $1659
- 14" pro 10-core/16gb/1tb (standard pricing): $2199 / (edu pricing): $2029

Going from the 14"->16" screen size adds $200 with the pro displays and also gets better speakers & cooling. Really for a non-mini-LED screen I would hope that it's more like $100 to bump up screen size, but Apple might bump this even more.

My guess:
- 15" air 16gb/1tb: $1899 or $1999 standard pricing. The problem with $1999 is that it's awfully close to the 14" pro pricing.

The specs you are after is too close to the MacBook Pro pricing. Have you considered a refurbished 16" MacBook Pro? $2079 M1 Pro 1TB/16GB. However, the MacBook Pro 16" is pretty heavy so I don't know if that would be an issue for your mum.

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/FK1F3LL/A/refurbished-16-inch-macbook-pro-apple-m1-pro-chip-with-10‑core-cpu-and-16‑core-gpu-silver?fnode=a51a8f166de7a079ec2299d380705c8d57de3a48d374dc04929bba79fe4141e084e1f3e04c9790ad8371e544e2d8932fa940aa7781aedf0e98c80423d7d8c358cf54588313dd9adc2f47c7a96506eaaa

Personally I wouldn't wait for the 15" Air, the 1TB/16GB specs you want will cost more than 2K.

Anyway, my guess for the MacBook Air 15" base model (M2 256GB/8GB) is $1599.

 

[PieTunes]

What if Apple discontinues the M1 Air, drops the 13" M2 Air to $999, and makes the 15" Air $1199. Assuming the base model still comes with 8/256, upgrading to 16/512 would bring it to $1599, $400 cheaper than the base 14" Pro, keeping the respective machines at more palatable price points.

 

[Tagbert]

What if Apple discontinues the M1 Air, drops the 13" M2 Air to $999, and makes the 15" Air $1199. Assuming the base model still comes with 8/256, upgrading to 16/512 would bring it to $1599, $400 cheaper than the base 14" Pro, keeping the respective machines at more palatable price points.

That would be really sweet but I find it hard to believe that Apple would do it. Let’s all pray for a miracle!

 

[Funny Apple Man]

That would be really sweet but I find it hard to believe that Apple would do it. Let’s all pray for a miracle!

What if Apple discontinues the M1 Air, drops the 13" M2 Air to $999, and makes the 15" Air $1199. Assuming the base model still comes with 8/256, upgrading to 16/512 would bring it to $1599, $400 cheaper than the base 14" Pro, keeping the respective machines at more palatable price points.

I think it'll be like before with how the previous generation of MBA dropped its price.

M3 will be $100 cheaper at $1,099, and then by M4 it'll drop another $100, that's where we get the very cool $999 price.

I'm hoping they do a price drop even if it's a little, Mac sales have been in the decline lately and a price drop may help a bit.

 

[JustAnExpat]

I would expect a $200 or $300 price difference between the 15" and the 13" machine, for the equivalent features.

 

[Tagbert]

I would expect a $200 or $300 price difference between the 15" and the 13" machine, for the equivalent features.

If you spec the 14” and 16” MBP the same other than screen size, there is only a $200 difference in price. That is for the more expensive miniLED display. I would not expect a 15” Air to be more than $200 higher than the equivalent 13”.

 

[Anglagard]

8GB is a mistake, if you are short, you rather be using credit instead, 8gb on unupgradeable machines is going to cost you in due time.

 

[playtech1]

I think it will be a $200 increase for the larger model - but otherwise same (poor) base specs as the M2 Air.

 

[960design]

I think it will be a $200 increase for the larger model - but otherwise same (poor) base specs as the M2 Air.

Poor? Compared to what you would consider good? I'm going to purchase one for testing.

 

[playtech1]

Poor? Compared to what you would consider good? I'm going to purchase one for testing.

The base spec M2 Air is a good 2023 CPU/GPU held back by 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD - I view 16/512 as a bare minimum for a £1,250 laptop.

 

[turbineseaplane]

The base specs Apple are choosing has become an embarrassment

It reminds me of how they held on way too long to 16GB storage for entry model iPhones

 

[tstafford]

I wonder how many people who are saying the base M2 Air is bad have actually used it.

I also wonder how many people who bought one have found it didn't meet their needs. Seems to me the folks who know they need more RAM or storage know that and should buy a different config. My bet is most people with the base machine are pretty happy with it.

From personal experience (I have a base M2A, base MBP 14 M1P and base Studio) - they all run great. The M2A might be the fastest for Safari. I am never in the swap on the M2A because I am careful to manage number of browser tabs (and I don't use Chrome). The M2A is just for email/web/video and it is terrific. Paid $999 new on sale at BBY. Might be one the best price/performance machines I've ever bought - superior to an iPad Pro for sure.