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This story is part of Amazon Prime Day, CNET’s guide on everything you need to know and how to make sure you get the best deal.

Even before Prime Day officially kicked off, Amazon activated really good deals on a range of Apple products — including all-time low prices for the iPad Mini and 2020 MacBook Air. Now that the main event has started, we expect even more deals to come online against the backdrop of Apple’s own Tuesday event, which is likely to feature the debut of the iPhone 12 and possibly other new products. We’ll be covering both events in detail here at CNET, of course. 

Read more: iPhone 12 launch: How to watch Apple’s Oct. 13 event live

Here’s a quick recap of the best Apple deals already live at Amazon:

• Since Monday morning, the terrific 2020 MacBook Air has been selling for $850; that’s a $150 discount and the lowest price we’ve ever seen for this model
• The iPad Mini, with the same processor and twice as much storage as the $299 10.2-inch iPad, is selling for $336 (save $63)
• The AirPods Pro are selling for $199 (save $50)
• The standard AirPods with the wired charging case are selling for $125 (save $35)
• The Beats Solo Pro is on sale for $180 (save $120)

If last year’s event provides any guidance for what to expect in 2020, we may see the brand-new 10.2-inch iPad dip to $250 (with last year’s model possibly on sale for even less), new all-time low prices for the Apple Watch Series 3 and the now-discontinued Series 5 — and perhaps the first significant discounts on the Apple Watch Series 6 and Apple Watch SE, too. This is all speculation, however. Amazon hasn’t officially announced any specific Apple-related Prime Day deals yet. 

We’ll be keeping a close eye on every Apple product at Amazon but you’ll have other options, too. Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Newegg are all having competing sales, and they often out-discount Amazon when it comes to Apple products. So long as it’s an authorized Apple retailer — and each of those stores is — we’ll be sure to feature them here, too. For us, the best price always wins.

To that end, in the space below, we’ll be keeping track of current prices and how they square up with discounts we’ve seen in the past. For each product, we’ve also included a “strike price” for the entry-level model in that category, which represents our best guess for the price at which you should buy. Savings are shown versus the Apple Store, which effectively always charges list price. Note that there will often be a good deal on one particular model, size or color — and not another. 

Dan Ackerman/CNET

In 2020, Apple upgraded the MacBook Air with an improved keyboard and twice the storage, and restored it to the sacred $1,000 price point. Amazon is currently selling it for $150 off — the all-time low price for this model, and probably the lowest price we’ll see during the Prime Day period. (You’ll see the full sale price at checkout.) Note that we expect new Macs with iPad-style “Apple silicon” chips, possibly before the end of the year. Read our MacBook Air review.

Strike price: $850

Óscar Gutiérrez/CNET

Beats got a lot right with the Solo Pro, its first on-ear headphones to feature active noise cancellation and the first full-size Beats headphones to charge via Lightning. It’s one of the best on-ear wireless headphones we’ve tested. Now on sale for $180 — a $120 discount on the Apple Store price and the all-time low for this product. Read our Beats Solo Pro review.

Strike price: $200

Óscar Gutiérrez/CNET

Introduced in 2019, the Mini has an A12 processor and Pencil support — just like the 2020 10.2-inch iPad, which is currently on sale for $299 — but twice as much storage.

Strike price: $336

Sarah Tew/CNET

Though it was announced less than a month ago, Amazon and other retailers have already discounted the space gray entry-level 10.2-inch iPad, with the sale price swinging between $299 and $319. For a fleeting moment during last year’s holiday season, the now discontinued 2019 version was available for $229, but the Prime Day low was $250. That’s a great price on the best iPad for most people, and the price we’ll be looking for this year, too. Read our Apple iPad 2020 review.

Strike price: $250 for 32GB

Amazon

Currently discounted to match its 2019 Black Friday low price of $169, the GPS-only Series 3, which came out in 2017, remains the least expensive model in Apple’s watch portfolio — and, in light of its age and humble feature set, also the most dubious value. With the Apple Watch Series SE currently selling for $279, it’d be hard to recommend buying the Series 3 even at its current sale price. If Amazon drops the price significantly lower — maybe. Read our Apple Watch Series 3 review.

Strike price: $129 for 38mm, $169 for 42mm

César Salza/CNET

The priciest, fastest and most feature-packed of the bunch, the Series 6 can measure your blood oxygen level and runs on the new S6 processor. The red and white 40mm models are currently on sale for $15 off —  which is Amazon’s “standard” though intermittent discount on the newest Apple Watch models. Given that the Series 6 is the current top-tier model, and that it came out only last month, it’s quite possible that a $15 discount is the best deal we’ll see in the near term. That noted, the Black Friday period could bring even lower prices. Read our Apple Watch Series 6 review.

Strike price: Any discount of $30 or more

Vanessa Hand Orellana/CNET

The most affordable Apple Watch ever released, the Watch SE boasts a more powerful processor, a Retina display that’s 30% larger than the Series 3 and support for Apple’s new Family Setup plan. Amazon is offering a modest $9 discount on select models including the 44mm GPS model and the 40mm cellular version (note different colors may vary in price). Also note that the Apple Watch Series 3 is currently selling for $169. Read our Apple Watch SE review.

Strike price: Any discount of $30 or more

Josh Miller/CNET

The Apple Watch Series 5, now officially discontinued, has the potential to be one of the stars of Prime Day. As recently as September, Amazon had discounted the 44mm GPS model to $299 — that’s $130 cheaper than the 44mm GPS Series 6. Given the scant differences between them — they both have the always-on display and heart monitor, after all — any Series 5 model that’s $100 less than its Series 6 equivalent is a no-brainer. Read our Apple Watch Series 5 review.

Strike price: $299 for 40mm, $329 for 44mm

Find out a tech expert’s picks for the best Mac laptop for mobile professionals, the best Mac laptop for replacing a desktop, and more.

Matching a computer’s build to its intended use isn’t a perfect science, but thankfully Apple makes it easy to customize various Mac laptop configurations. Whether you usually perform tasks that don’t typically overwhelm a computer’s CPU and graphics capabilities, or even if you do, here are the best configurations years of experience and IT consulting suggest work well as at least a baseline for most users.

Standard 13-inch MacBook Air

Image: Apple

A standard 13-inch MacBook Air, complete with a 1.1Ghz dual-core i3 CPU and Turbo Boost up to 3.2GHz, offers a strong mix of portability and capability. The $999 model’s 256 GB SSD and 8 GB RAM meet the needs of most professionals, thanks in part to Apple’s intelligent architecture that maximizes performance. The laptop’s two Thunderbolt 3 ports leave room (after connecting the power cord) for an external drive or other accessory, while still delivering 13-inch portability, a Retina display, and attractive graphics that more than meet most workers’ needs for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and email.

$999 at Apple

13-inch MacBook Air

Image credit: Apple

Mobile professionals who need more horsepower while traveling will be well served choosing the $1,299 MacBook Air with a 1.1GHz quad-core Intel i5-powered CPU that can reach 3.5Ghz speeds thanks to Turbo Boost. With 512 GB local SSD storage, road warriors will also prove less dependent upon the cloud for files and information while working in the field. With additional power and storage, the upgraded MacBook Air delivers increased performance while retaining portability in a 13-inch, lightweight package that’s still easy to pack when hitting the road, visiting clients, and traveling.

$1,299 at Apple

13-inch MacBook Pro

Image: Apple

The 13-inch MacBook Pro with 2.0GHz CPU, 16 GB RAM, and 512 GB SSD storage will provide the performance, capacity, and expandability (with four Thunderbolt 3 ports) that the majority of business professionals require. While there’s always a chance high-end engineering and video-editing tasks will require additional power, you’re typically no longer talking a laptop at that point but a desktop replacement.

$1,799 at Apple

16-inch MacBook Pro

Image: Apple

Mac professionals needing a true desktop replacement computer that still retains some portability should consider Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pro. The base model boasts a 2.6GH CPU with six cores, an AMD Radeon Pro 5300M graphics card with 4 GB GDDR6 memory, four Thunderbolt 3 ports for expansion, 16 GB RAM, and 512 GB SSD storage. That’s one potent machine up to the rigors of productivity software and cloud application use, video and photo editing, and most other common tasks, while still being reasonably portable.

$2,399 at Apple

Base 13-inch MacBook Pro

Image: Apple

There’s an argument to be made that the base 13-inch MacBook Pro is, pound-for-pound, one of the best laptop computers money will buy. I’ve used such models–or Apple’s period-equivalent–for everything from editing and publishing to technical consulting and project management in the field for almost 20 years. With a 1.4GHz 8th-generation Intel Core i5 CPU with four cores, the laptop is an absolute workhorse. Apple pairs 8 GB RAM and a 256 GB SSD with the build, meaning the machine is more than capable of handling most mobile workers and an impressive array of typically deskbound applications. At $1,299, the base MacBook Pro offers a proven compromise between performance, portability, and price.

$1,299 at Apple

Apple hasn’t said much about its upcoming MacBooks since revealing the switch from Intel CPUs to custom ARM-based processors. We know the transition will take two years and that Apple plans to ship the first MacBook with Apple Silicon later this year, however, the Cupertino giant hasn’t said anything about performance.  

We now have a better idea of some of the upgrades Apple could bring to its laptops thanks to a new leak. Leaker Komiya posted on Twitter that Apple has two ARM-based chips arriving on future MacBook models, one with eight cores and another with 12 cores. They also said Apple will launch a 16-core chip sometime next year. 

8 and 12 core https://t.co/gDlKWF18KVOctober 7, 2020

This aligns with a Bloomberg report claiming the first Mac processors will have eight high-performance cores, codenamed Firestorm, and four energy-efficient cores known as Icestorm. The report also mentions Macs with more than 12 cores in the future, which could be in reference to the rumored 16-core chip.

The current entry-level MacBook Air uses Intel Y-series CPUs with only two cores. When Apple outfits its ultraslim laptop with Apple Silicon, it could double or even quadruple the processing units. 

Topping the stack of Intel’s latest 11th Gen Tiger Lake chips is the Core i7-1185G7 CPU with four cores, eight threads and a max turbo of 4.8GHz. From AMD, Apple’s custom chips will contend against the Ryzen 7 4800U, an eight-core, 16-thread processor with a max boost clock of 4.2GHz. 

Apple has yet to reveal the first laptops running on Apple Silicon, however, prolific Apple leaker and analyst Ming Cho Kuo claims the chips will debut in a 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. 

We could soon find out which laptops will usher in a new era for Apple at the upcoming iPhone 12 “Hi, Speed” event on October 13. 

The MacBook Air is a svelte yet capable laptop that’s truly the total package. In fact, just last week it was named the best laptop of 2020 by CNN Underscored after extensive testing. Better yet? Amazon is taking $50 off the 256GB configuration and $100 off the 512GB configuration. The end result: You end up paying either $949.99 or $1,199 for a well-rounded machine.

Both MacBook Air models are worthwhile investments, but the price difference isn’t only due to a difference in storage. Indeed, there are a lot of similarities between the two; they both have Apple’s new Magic Keyboard that’s a joy to type on, a 13.3-inch Retina display, 8GB of memory (RAM), a Touch ID fingerprint reader built into the home button and two USB-C ports.

However, the cheaper option has a 256GB solid-state drive (SSD) for storage and is powered by a 10th-generation Intel Core i3 processor, while the slightly more expensive one includes double the storage at 512GB and a 10th-generation Intel Core i5 processor.

Having double the space to store important documents, files and photos is always a welcome addition, especially since you can’t upgrade the storage in the MacBook Air on your own. And the faster processor isn’t likely to blow you away when compared to the i3 version, but it does give you more speed and will keep up with daily work tasks and light photo or video editing without any issues.

In our test, the MacBook Air’s battery life was well over 10 hours of constant video playback, which should be more than enough for you to get through a full day of school or work and still have some power left over at the end of the day.

Between the Magic Keyboard, the computer’s lightweight design and its overall performance, the MacBook Air earned top honors at its regular price. So whenever it’s discounted, as we see on Amazon right now, it’s even more attractive. At the time of writing, all three color options of gold, Space Gray and silver are available in both configurations, so shop soon before they start selling out.

For more great Apple deals, check out CNN Coupons.

Today’s best deals include Apple’s latest MacBook Air, iPhone XR at $399, and Spigen iPhone cases from $8. Hit the jump for all that and more.

Take nearly $100 off Apple’s latest MacBook Air

Amazon is taking $99 off various MacBook Air models, bringing the 512GB variant down to $1,200. That matches our mentions previously in 2020 and is the best around. Notable features here include a 13-inch Retina display, a refreshed Magic Keyboard, and the 10th generation Intel Core i3 processor along with 512GB of storage or more. It’s a great machine for tackling various tasks, content creation, and more. Learn more in our hands-on review.

iPhone XR is $399 with pre-paid service

Walmart offers Apple’s iPhone XR 64GB on Straight Talk Wireless for $399. As a comparison, this device originally sold for $749 but is listed at $599 these days. This offer is a match of our previous pre-paid mention a few months back, as well as the best non-trade-in deal we’ve seen.

Notable iPhone XR features include a 6.1-inch Liquid Retina display and water-resistance to 1-meter. You’ll find 12 and 7MP cameras here, along with support for FaceID and wireless charging. Check out our previous review coverage for more details on this affordable iPhone.

Rare discounts on Spigen iPhone cases

Amazon is discounting a selection of Spigen iPhone, Android, and iPad cases today from $8. Free shipping is available with a Prime membership or in orders over $25. Headlining is the iPhone XR Liquid Crystal Case for $8. As a comparison, it originally sold for $20 but has trended around $15 lately. With an ultra-thin design and clear casing, this option will show-off your color of choice without adding too much bulk. Additionally, Spigen promises “everyday drop defense with shock-absorbing Air Cushion Technology” will help keep your iPhone XR safe.

SanDisk’s new 1TB Extreme Portable SSD at $170

Amazon is currently offering the all-new SanDisk 1TB Extreme Portable Solid-State Drive for $170. Having dropped from $200, today’s offer marks the very first discount we’ve seen since it was announced 1-week ago, saves you 15%, and marks a new all-time low.

As the latest drive in SanDisk’s stable, you’re looking at up to 1,050MB/s transfer speeds thanks to its USB-C connectivity. The internal NVMe solid-state storage pairs with a rugged case that allows it to withstand up to 2-meter drops while also bringing IP55 water- and dust-resistance into the mix. Its compact size won’t take up too much room in your everyday carry, and a built-in loop makes it so you can clip it to a bag. Everything is backed by a 5-year warranty, as well.

Satechi Trio powers your Apple kit for $100

Satechi via Amazon offers its Trio Wireless Charging Pad for $100. As a comparison, it typically goes for $120 and we most recently saw it drop to $102 as part of Satechi’s Labor Day sale. This is also a new Amazon all-time low that we’ve tracked.

Satechi delivers an all-in-one charging solution sans wires for three devices at a time, up to 7.5W, that’s geared towards Apple users. You’ll be able to power up an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods simultaneously, all with dedicated homes within the charging pad. Aside from its sleek design, this power solution is a winner in our book thanks to its included 24W USB-C PD power adapter. Learn more in our Tested with 9to5Toys review where we gave it high marks.

Best trade-in deals

9to5Mac also keeps tabs on all the best trade-in deals on iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Apple Watch, and more every month. Be sure to check out this month’s best trade-in deals when you decide it’s time to upgrade your device. Or simply head over to our trade-in partner directly if you want to recycle, trade, or sell your used devices for cash and support 9to5Mac along the way!

Subscribe to the 9to5Toys YouTube Channel for all of the latest videos, reviews, and more!

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Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:

Amazon is taking $99.01 off various MacBook Air models, bringing the 512GB variant down to $1,199.99 shipped. That matches our mentions previously in 2020 and is the best around. Notable features here include a 13-inch Retina display, a refreshed Magic Keyboard, and the 10th generation Intel Core i3 processor along with 512GB of storage or more. It’s a great machine for tackling various tasks, content creation, and more. Learn more in our hands-on review.

Be sure to make the most of today’s deal and pick up a USB-C hub, which will be great for connecting legacy devices to your new MacBook Air. We recommend this model from Anker that delivers extra I/O for $26. This is a great way to transfer data between older hard drives or create a permanent docking station with accessories you’ve not yet upgraded to USB-C.

Jump over to our Apple guide for additional deals on Macs, first-party accessories, and more.

Apple 13-inch MacBook Air features:

• Stunning 13.3-inch Retina display with True Tone technology
• Backlit Magic Keyboard and Touch ID
• Tenth-generation Intel Core i3 processor
• Intel Iris Plus Graphics
• Fast SSD storage
• 8GB of memory
• Stereo speakers with wider stereo sound
• Two Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports
• Up to 11 hours of battery life
• Force Touch trackpad

Subscribe to the 9to5Toys YouTube Channel for all of the latest videos, reviews, and more!

The TwelveSouth SuitCase is a twill-covered shell case for MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, and is designed as a do-it-all cover for your laptop.

SuitCase for MacBook from Twelve South

SuitCase for MacBook from Twelve South

Any other year and the back-to-school laptop shopping would be long since over. But in 2020, school reopenings are already causing chaos as cities and states reverse course and send students home for full-time remote learning. That means changing circumstances and new school tech needs for many students. 

While many remote-learning school tasks can be accomplished with a simple Chromebook or cheap Windows laptop, those systems, especially budget-priced ones, can be hard to find right now. A bigger investment, but a good long-term one, is a full-featured MacBook. With its well-regarded MacOS and nearly bulletproof build, it’s still the first choice for many students in high school and college — especially with some decent student discounts usually available from Apple, at least for college students and faculty. 

Even better, the holiday shopping season is right around the corner, and you may find additional deals on the rescheduled Amazon Prime Day (Oct. 13), as well as from other retailers holding their own Prime-Day-like events. We’ll report on new deals in real-time as we find them.

Read more: Best laptops under $500 that are in stock now

MacBooks are among the most universally useful laptops you can buy, but it’s not always easy to pick the best MacBook for your needs. MacBook laptops range from $999 to $3,000 or more, even though they look and feel similar. I get a lot of reader questions about how to decide, especially when you’re torn between, for example, a slightly upgraded MacBook Air and a similarly priced 13-inch MacBook Pro. 

Now playing: Watch this: MacBook Air vs. 13-inch MacBook Pro vs. 16-inch MacBook…

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All current MacBooks finally have the improved Magic Keyboard: It started with the 16-inch MacBook Pro last autumn, but Apple has since added the Magic Keyboard to all of its current MacBook Pro model options, including the 2020 Air and new MacBook Pro 13-inch models. The result is a far more comfortable and reliable keyboard than the “butterfly” design that many MacBooks had been burdened with since 2015. Yes, it took Apple half a decade to backtrack on this issue, but the good news is that Mac laptop keyboards are finally good again. 

Apple is still offering a good back-to-school deal on MacBooks: Normally, the Apple Store is (ironically) not the best place to buy an Apple laptop (really, almost any Apple product) because sales are all but nonexistent. The big exception to the rule is Apple’s education sales, which usually include MacBook deals. For 2020, that can mean $100 off a MacBook Air and a free pair of AirPods, plus a 20% discount on the AppleCare Plus extended warranty (which I have mixed feelings about). 

If you need something bigger and don’t mind it being less than portable: Apple now has an updated version of the 27-inch iMac. Yes, it’s a big all-in-one desktop, so not portable, but if you’re locked away at home, that’s less of a concern. The big screen and high-end component options make it a powerhouse, but my favorite new feature is the upgraded 1080p webcam, which is better than any Mac camera, save for the similar one on the iMac Pro. Read more about the new 2020 27-inch iMac here.

All Macs will be transitioning to non-Intel chips over the next two years: It was the big news at Apple’s WWDC show in June. All Macs will be getting new Apple-designed Arm chips, replacing the Intel CPUs they’ve had for years… eventually. At least one Apple silicon product should arrive by the end of 2020, but Intel will be a part of the mix for at least the next couple of years. 

So, should you buy a new MacBook now or wait for an Apple silicon version, coming sometime over the next two years? There are potential pluses and minuses to switching to an Arm-based MacBook. Battery life could improve, Macs apps will align more closely with iPad and iPhone apps, and some specialized software, like photo-editing giant Photoshop, could be rewritten to take maximum advantage of the new platform. But, as we’ve seen with other Arm-powered laptops, compatibility with other apps can be a problem, as can raw performance. 

Read more: Best back-to-school gear under $250

Regardless, if you need a new MacBook now, then you’re stuck with the current Intel choices in the MacBook lineup, which have all been excellent in our recent hands-on experience. The key question for current back-to-school shoppers is how to make sure you’re not buying too little MacBook — or too much. 

For a few years, it got a little confusing. You could choose a 12-inch MacBook, a 13-inch MacBook Air, a 13-inch MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar, a 13-inch Pro with a Touch Bar or a 15-inch Pro. And years before that, you had both white and black versions of the 13-inch polycarbonate MacBook and even 11- and 13-inch versions of the Air. 

Now it’s back to basics for Apple. There’s the 13-inch MacBook Air and both 13- and 16-inch MacBook Pro models. That’s it. Yes, this cuts out some potential just-right-for-you options, but it also makes it much easier to figure out which camp you fall into, especially since these three models are different enough that you’ll naturally gravitate toward one over the others.

Read more: Best Mac VPN in 2020 

Dan Ackerman/CNET

For many years, this was everyone’s favorite laptop: reasonably inexpensive. Thin and light. Built like a tank. It could last for years and take lots of falls and bumps. For any college student or coffee shop creative type, $999 would get you sorted. 

Then time passed the Air by. Its low-res display and the thick bezel around the screen fell behind even average Windows laptops. The components were rarely updated. Fortunately, the Air got a huge refresh a couple of years ago, and now looks and feels very much like a MacBook Pro. 

Most importantly, it’s back down to that magic $999 starting price, though there’s a catch. That’s for an Intel Core i3 processor, so you’re going to want to spend an extra $100 and get the Core i5 version. That’s really my only real knock against the new Air, that there’s a secret $100 Core i5 tax. Even the $999 version starts with a 256GB SSD, which is welcome. 

There are three main things you’re missing by going with the Air over the Pro. Your CPU options aren’t as robust; you only get two USB-C ports, not four; and there’s no Touch Bar, which to most people isn’t really a big deal. 

If you’re a college student, a would-be entrepreneur, a writer or just looking for an all-around laptop on the high end of casual, it’s tough to go wrong with the MacBook Air. It’ll rightly be the default starting point for a lot of people. Read our Apple MacBook Air 2020 review.

Dan Ackerman/CNET

The most recently updated MacBook is the 13-inch Pro. The 2020 version plays catch-up in a lot of ways, adding 10th-gen Intel CPU options, but only in the more expensive configurations. It also doubles the storage of the 2019 version and adds the new Magic Keyboard, making it the final MacBook to get the new keyboard design. 

All Pros now have the Apple Touch Bar, which isn’t as useful as Apple would have you believe but not as useless as everyone else thinks. I use it all the time for screen brightness, volume control and a few other contextual buttons, like when using the calculator app. 

Since they’re close in price, you might be tempted to get the less expensive Air over the Pro — after all, they look and feel similar and share a lot of the same features. And for many people, that’s the right call. But if you’re working with more power-hungry apps such as Photoshop or Premiere, keep in mind that the Air uses lower-power Y-series Intel chips, while the Pro uses more mainstream U-series chips. 

For web surfing, social media and movie streaming, you’re not going to notice the difference. For CPU-intensive tasks, you will. It’s especially noticeable because the Pro’s larger body is better designed for the heat generated by heavier workloads, so it’s less likely to throttle down. 

My other caveat about the 13-inch Pro is that you need to step up to a more expensive configuration to get the newer 10th-gen CPUs and to get the four USB-C ports instead of two. Read more.

Here’s a closer look at two $1,299 MacBook configurations: 

Sarah Tew/CNET

Laptops are often about cramming as much as possible into the thinnest, lightest, smallest package possible. But sometimes bigger is better. People still lament the late, great 17-inch MacBook Pro, which was discontinued back in 2012. 

Apple finally resurrected it, in a sense, with the new 16-inch MacBook Pro, at the same time killing the longstanding 15-inch version. It’s huge, at least compared with the 13-inch MacBooks, but still more portable than most of the 15-inch Windows laptops I’ve seen.

The main selling point is, of course, all that screen real estate, which is what you need if you’re a designer or even a number cruncher and need to keep a lot of things in front of you.

Like the old 15-inch Pro, the 16-inch MacBook is ridiculously expensive, starting at $2,399 and going up from there. But if that’s your all-day, every-day, work-from-home screen, it could be worth it. 

The other big selling point of the 16-inch Pro is that it includes discrete graphics, with a couple of AMD Radeon options. No, Macs are still not gaming machines, but if you’re editing 4K video or doing 3D modeling, having a GPU is important. The other Macs include Intel Iris graphics, which is at least a step up from standard off-the-shelf laptop graphics. Read our Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) review.

Which MacBook should I buy?

My TL;DR advice is as follows.

• If you need a MacBook for everyday schoolwork, web surfing, movies and light creativity, go with the MacBook Air. Specifically the $1,099 Core i5 version. For most people, this is a good default starting point. 
• Need some more CPU muscle, or extra USB-C ports, or for some reason you really love the Touch Bar? Go with the 13-inch MacBook Pro, but keep in mind that 10th-gen CPUs and the extra USB-C ports are only in the higher-priced versions. 
• The 16-inch MacBook Pro is basically a desktop replacement. If you’re thinking of getting an iMac but want to carry it around sometimes, or if you definitely need a discrete GPU, then splurge on the 16-inch MacBook Pro. It’s painfully expensive, but it’s a real joy to use, and frankly it’s tough to go back to a 13-inch screen after using the 16-inch for a while.

When I deployed the 2020 MacBook Air to the teachers at my school earlier this year, it became immediately apparent that everything was better on this computer versus our previous ones except for one thing: the camera. For whatever reason, the 2020 MacBook Air webcam is considerably worse than the webcam on our old ones from 2017. Because our teachers were doing so much with virtual learning, I got several complaints, and I wanted a cheap option for teachers to upgrade their camera. We settled on the Papalook PA552, and it’s a great low-cost option for a webcam upgrade.

The Papalook camera comes with two mounting options: it can be placed on top of the screen or it can be mounted on the included tripod. The teachers that are using it really like the option to use the tripod as it allows them to have more granular control on the height at which they are recording without having to worry about putting their laptop on a stack of books, etc

Hardware-wise, it includes a 30FPS 1980p camera and dual microphones with DSP noise filtering tech. While the MacBook Air microphone is passable, the microphone in the camera is a nice upgrade. When we first started testing it, I had no idea a microphone was included, which was an excellent addition. It also consists of a ring light, which is activated by pressing your finger on the camera’s ring. There are three different levels of light, and it adds a lot to the camera experience. Especially in low-light situations, the ring light can make all the difference.

While I was initially disappointed that the camera used USB-A, I quickly realized that’s a benefit. The MacBook Air only includes two USB-C ports, and it’s costly to purchase hubs that add additional USB-C ports as well. On the other hand, it’s cheap to add an adaptor that takes a single USB-C port and turns it into HDMI, ethernet, and multiple USB-A ports. By using USB A connectivity, the Papalook camera can be plugged into an adaptor, and then we can use the same adaptor to plug up a TV over HDMI or additional USB accessories. We can then use the other USB-C port for charging.

As you can see from the image above, the quality between the built-in MacBook Air camera between the Papalook camera is noticeable. While the Logitech StreamCam (see our review) is the gold standard of external webcams thanks to its quality and software, the Papalook camera is a great low-cost option. There’s no software to install, and it’s an immediate upgrade over the built-in Macbook Air webcam.

Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:

Apple Authorized Reseller B&H Photo has issued two deals on Apple’s 2019 13-inch MacBook Air, with a $550 discount on the upgraded system itself — and an additional $50 off the laptop bundled with AppleCare.

Blowout MacBook Air deals

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Even more Apple deals