Apple’s seem to ripen more quickly these days. The MacBook Air M5 hasn’t even been on shelves for a month since Apple introduced it last month, and yet here we are highlighting a sale for $949, a meaty discount of $150 off its regular $1,099 retail price. Apple itself rarely discounts its Macs, but Amazon has no qualms about it.

better for light work

Apple’s March 2026 introduction of the $599 MacBook Neo, the sort of entry-level laptop that Apple hadn’t attempted in decades, stole the MacBook Air’s 20-year reign as Apple’s entry-level laptop. Apple had, from 1999 to 2006, sold the iBook G3 as an entry-level “student-model” laptop until Steve Jobs introduced the original MacBook with a flourish in 2006.

Since then, the MacBook Air has been the cheapest way into Apple laptop ownership. But it had always remained more of a mid-range laptop in performance and price. When Apple replaced the Intel line of processors with its own Apple-designed M-series chips in 2020, the MacBook Air gained a significant performance boost, even as the price remained the same.

Having owned the last model of Intel-powered MacBook Air, bought in early 2020, I marveled firsthand at how much faster and more responsive the M-chip-powered MacBook Airs have been. Each year Apple releases an updated MacBook Air with the next evolution of the M-series chip. As of March 2026’s introduction, we’re on to the MacBook Air M5.

The budget MacBook Neo, introduced simultaneously with the MacBook Air M5, meanwhile stole the latter’s thunder. Apple hasn’t said a peep about how the Neo has sold since its introduction, but the chatter online has been Neo, Neo, Neo. Perhaps that’s why Amazon feels compelled to knock $150 off the Air so soon.

The MacBook Neo, even with no sale, is a cheaper entry point into the Mac ecosystem if your needs exist solely of lightweight tasks, such as writing term papers, surfing the internet, wading through an email inbox, and watching TV online.

But the MacBook Air M5 is a stronger laptop. Its M-series chip is more capable than the Neo’s A-series chip when it comes to slightly heavier-duty tasks, such as working within a CMS (like WordPress) or editing videos. Buy the MacBook Air M5 instead of the Neo if you want to use your laptop for light work tasks (or the MacBook Pro M5 Pro for heavy work tasks), especially if you’re somebody who values Apple’s latest features, such as a MagSafe port, P3 wide color True Tone display, and Wi-Fi 7.