It’s a good day to get set-up with an excellent laptop. Best Buy is selling the base model of the M1 MacBook Air for $800, which is $200 off of the original price (these laptops often cost close to a grand or more). This is the best price yet that we’ve spotted for this model of the M1 MacBook Air.

The M1 MacBook has an ARM-based processor (as opposed to an x86 CPU from Intel). In our reviews of these laptops, we’ve found that the new M1 processor delivers killer performance. That excellent performance comes when the laptop is running software built for an ARM-processor.

Legacy programs still work well, but they have to run via a compatibility layer, which doesn’t perform as well as native software in our tests. However, Mac developers are steadily moving towards the new ARM platform, so if your favorite software isn’t ready for the M1 yet it likely will be soon.

The base model M1 MacBook Air features 256GB of onboard storage and 8GB of RAM. The display is 13.3 inches with a 2560-by-1600 pixel resolution. For ports, you get two Thunderbolt/USB 4 Type-C, and a headphone jack.

This is an excellent laptop at a very good price and would make an ideal everyday laptop for yourself or someone on your gift list this year.

[Today’s deal: 256GB M1 MacBook Air for $800 at Best Buy.]

Author: Ian Paul, Contributor

Ian is an independent writer based in Israel who has never met a tech subject he didn’t like. He primarily covers Windows, PC and gaming hardware, video and music streaming services, social networks, and browsers. When he’s not covering the news he’s working on how-to tips for PC users, or tuning his eGPU setup.

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