NEW YORK, April 17, 2026, 11:41 EDT
- Amazon, along with several other U.S. retailers, dropped prices on Apple’s latest laptops: the 13-inch M5 MacBook Air now sits at $949, while the 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro with a 1TB drive comes in at $1,580.
- Less than five weeks out from launch, those discounts landed, wiping out the new Air’s $100 price bump over the previous M4 version at certain retailers.
- The 15-inch M4 MacBook Air showed up at $1,099, suggesting older stock is clearing out too.
Apple’s latest MacBooks are already seeing markdowns, with Amazon and other U.S. retailers shaving prices just weeks after launch. The 13-inch M5 MacBook Air has dipped to $949, and the 14-inch MacBook Pro with 1TB storage is now $1,580. Notably, these models only debuted in March.
These markdowns effectively erase the $100 price hike Apple slapped on the new 13-inch Air compared to last year’s M4 model, which started at $999, for at least some stores. Sellers are ramping up spring promos, but according to Gartner, the PC market’s lift owes more to inventory build than actual demand.
Apple’s strategy with its March update was to pack more features into entry-level models instead of slashing prices. The 13-inch M5 Air arrived at $1,099 with 512GB, while the 15-inch variant starts at $1,299. The 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro launched at $1,699, now with 1TB. Hardware boss John Ternus pointed out the Air’s “double the starting storage” at rollout, and Apple slotted the $599 MacBook Neo beneath the Air. Apple
Amazon was still offering the 13-inch MacBook Air with 16GB RAM and 1TB storage for $1,149 on Friday, MacRumors reported, with the 15-inch 512GB variant also sitting at $1,149—both deals $150 under sticker. Earlier in the week, 9to5Toys flagged Amazon’s price cuts across the M5 Air line, with the 13-inch 16GB/512GB configuration starting at $949.
AppleInsider flagged Thursday that Amazon has the silver 14-inch M5 MacBook Pro—16GB memory, 1TB storage—at $1,580, undercutting Apple’s own $1,699 list. The same config in space black showed up at $1,599 on both Amazon and B&H, according to the site.
Older MacBook Air models are in play, too. On Thursday, Gizmodo pointed to a $1,099 deal over at Amazon for the 15-inch M4 MacBook Air—just a $200 gap beneath the starting tag for Apple’s new 15-inch M5 Air.
Positive takes on the new Air keep coming in. The Guardian, for instance, called the M5 Air 10% to 20% quicker than the M4, with battery life topping 17 hours in typical office use. The paper still puts it in the premium laptop category, though the less expensive MacBook Neo muddies the value argument.
Nerves still linger across the broader market. Apple sits behind Lenovo, HP, and Dell in worldwide PC shipments, but posted a 12.7% jump in the first quarter—Gartner’s numbers put that as the fastest growth rate among major brands, driven by demand for MacBook Neo. Gartner research principal Rishi Padhi called the reported 4% shipment growth for the quarter “artificially inflated,” pointing to stockpiling ahead of anticipated second-quarter price increases for DRAM and NAND flash, key components in laptops. Gartner
But this round of discounts might not stick around for long. According to 9to5Toys, a few 2026 MacBook Pro offers have already vanished. MacRumors, as of Friday, dropped its tracking of the record-low price on the 512GB 13-inch M5 Air.
Shoppers have seen it directly: the new Air has slipped below $1,000 at times this week, thanks to retailer markdowns, squeezing the price difference between discounted M4 models and the just-launched M5 line.
