Walmart now selling M1 MacBook Air, debuts at lowest-ever price of $699

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By Andrew E. Freedman
published

The wedge lives on at a discount.

M1 MacBook Air on black background
(Image credit: Walmart/Apple)

While the MacBook Air with M3 may be the latest and greatest, the M1 MacBook Air lives on. Apple stopped selling the M1 Air with its newest release, but now Walmart is carrying the torch, selling new M1 Airs for $699. The systems can be purchased from Walmart.com, though a press release says the discounted Air will be available in "select Walmart stores."

Walmart only has one configuration available: the former base model. This model has an 8-core CPU, 7-core GPU, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD. It's admittedly not the most powerful (it was released in 2020) or the most roomy. While many Mac fans would like to see 16GB of RAM become the standard, it's hard to argue against 8GB at this price. 

M1 MacBook Air

M1 MacBook Air is $699 at Walmart
The M1 MacBook Air has 8GB of RAM and 256GB in its starting configuration, but is powerful enough for basic tasks and lasts a long time on a charge.

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The M1 MacBook Air served as Apple's entry point to Mac laptops for a while after its 2020 launch and was only just replaced by the M2 MacBook Air in that role. This new $699 price beats plenty of deals we had seen for the M1 Air, like a drop to $749 over the holidays. It's an especially good price considering Apple is still selling the laptop for $759 refurbished, and this one is new in the box.

The M1 is a few years old, but should still be solid for basic productivity tasks. More importantly, the battery life should still be impressive. There are definitely more powerful machines out there from just about every vendor, but if you're set on a Mac and are on a budget, this may be an enticing starting point.

This is the first time that Walmart is selling the Mac directly, but it's unclear exactly how long it will last. Perhaps Walmart bought the last of Apple's stock, or maybe Apple is still quietly making them but letting Walmart take the lead on selling them.

When the MacBook Air M1 slipped off Apple's webpage, some fans said they would miss the iconic wedge design. While Apple has clearly moved on with its most recent, more rectangular MacBook Airs, wedge fans can still get that design a bit longer—and, for a Mac, on the cheap.

Andrew E. Freedman

Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and Mastodon @FreedmanAE.mastodon.social.

6 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    The M1 is a few years old, but should still be solid for basic productivity tasks.

    The M3 version is only 32% and 39% faster in Geekbench than the M1, and the M1 isn't exactly a slouch, so it's like comparing a Ryzen 2000 series to a 5000 series, and I wouldn't call a Ryzen 2000 series incapable or fit only for basic productivity tasks.
    Reply
  • atomicWAR
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    The M3 version is only 32% and 39% faster in Geekbench than the M1, and the M1 isn't exactly a slouch, so it's like comparing a Ryzen 2000 series to a 5000 series, and I wouldn't call a Ryzen 2000 series incapable or fit only for basic productivity tasks.
    Not a fan of Apple in the slightest but your not wrong here. No the M1 is not the fastest SOC they make but it is still very capable SOC for the Apple eco system.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    atomicWAR said:
    Not a fan of Apple in the slightest but your not wrong here. No the M1 is not the fastest SOC they make but it is still very capable SOC for the Apple eco system.

    I don't own any Apple devices, never have (likely soon to change when I swap my FireTV for AppleTV), but I -really- want a Windows laptop and Android tablet and phone that are as fast and energy efficient as Apple's iPhone, M powered iPad and Macbook Air.

    And Microsoft needs to get serious real quick about it. Compare an M powered iPad to a Surface, if your software runs on Apple then there's no reason to get a Surface if you're a business. Also compare a typical $1100 Windows laptop to a $1100 M3 Macbook Air, if your software runs on it (which Office 365 does), what's the draw to get a Windows laptop with shorter battery life?
    Reply
  • George³
    Hmm, how much has the battery degraded, just because it was made like 4 years ago, even though the laptop has been sitting (maybe) unused?
    Reply
  • Notton
    An unused Li-Ion battery shouldn't degrade that much, unless it got completely drained while sitting on the shelf. It's a bit difficult to say how drained it would be in 3~4yrs.

    I could live with a 8GB/256GB M1 MBA for $700. The only thing I didn't like about the M1 MBA was the price, otherwise it has an excellent set of features for a general purpose laptop.
    Arguably, it was too good and eating into sales of the boring incremental upgrade of M2 and M3 MBA.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    The M1 Macbook Air was only officially discontinued on March 4th 2024, it's not like these are units which were sitting on the shelf for 4 years, so battery life loss should be minimal.

    Also, BestBuy seems not too pleased about this and has lowered their base M1 Macbook Air to $650.

    https://www.bestbuy.com/site/macbook-air-13-3-laptop-apple-m1-chip-8gb-memory-256gb-ssd-gold-gold/6418599.p?skuId=6418599
    Reply