Apple’s Build to Order options for the MacBook Air start with a minor processor difference
Apple will never sell a cheap upgrade to anything, but choices the firm has made about the MacBook Air mean even it can’t wring all that much more cash out of buyers.
Apple would never say this publicly, but so often you know it has released a version of a device solely to hit a price point. It wants to be able to say you can get a MacBook Air for under a thousand bucks, for instance, so it makes that more or less true.
Usually less. Usually the configuration you get for the lowest price of any Apple device is at the very best just about adequate, and usually not even that.
Think of how the 10th generation iPad started at 64GB for years — until the latest version bumped that up to 128GB. Or think of how even when Apple would sell you a Mac Pro for tens of thousands of dollars, it still tried to get 700 bucks out of you for some wheels.
The cachet is in hitting a price point, but the money is in making you upgrade at Apple’s ludicrously expensive rates.
It’s not as if the new MacBook Air is a complete exception to this, but the configuration that comes in at $999 is fully usable. And, most unusually, the absolute maximum you can make Apple take from you for a MacBook Air is not as high as you’d expect.
Specifically, if you had absolutely every top of the range update available for the 13-inch MacBook Air — including adding in Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro software — you’d pay $2,698.98. For the 15-inch model, the maximum is $2,898.98.
Take out Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, and the maximum hardware cost is $2,199 for the 13-inch model, and $2,399 for the 15-inch one.
What this all gets you
The reason is that there are few updates you can really make to the new M4 MacBook Air. Presumably that’s because if you could make many more, you’d be stepping onto the MacBook Pro‘s territory.
There are few upgrade options for the MacBook Air
But whatever the reason, the most you can do with the MacBook Air’s GPU is go from an 8-core version to a 10-core version. You practically have to hunt to find that 8-core GPU, though, and every configuration has a 10-core CPU.
Then there is also a ceiling on the RAM upgrade you can make. The base models come with 16GB and can be upgrade to either 24GB or 32GB, but no further.
That’s actually the same as the 14-inch MacBook Pro, but the 16-inch MacBook Pro can go up to 128GB RAM if you need it and if you can stomach the $1,000 extra cost.
Similarly, the 16-inch MacBook Pro can go up to 8TB of internal SSD storage if you’re willing to pay $2,200. That’s as much again as it costs to get a maxed-out 13-inch MacBook Air.
Whereas with that new MacBook Air, in either screen size and any configuration, the most internal storage you can get is 2TB. It’ll set you back $600, but in Apple terms that’s practically a bargain.
No nickle-and-diming you
It’s easy to say that Apple overcharges for its upgrades, so let’s. Apple overcharges for its upgrades compared to any other manufacturer.
But the suspicion that Apple has a spreadsheet that just rounds up the cost of its upgrades to the nearest national debt, is seemingly not true. Because for one thing, all configurations of the MacBook Air offer a choice of power adapter, and there’s no price difference.
It’s solely up to you whether you want a 35W Dual USB-C compact power adapter, or a 70W USB-C one that isn’t so compact. Apple even gives you a guide to which you might want.
Now, the new Mac Studio, that’s different. If you wanted to, you could take the base $1,999 version and take it up to $14,598.98.
You could trim that back by $499.98 and lose Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, though. And you could elect to pay it instalments of a mere $1,216.58 per month for 12 months.
