Deals: Get the Year's Best Prices on Apple's MacBook Pro at Up to $499 Off

Good discounts for the higher end MacBook Pro models!!

Have you made good use of the 1TB? I'm considering the 512GB model if it drops to $1599 again, but paying an extra $400 for just 1/2 TB more and the slightly faster CPU/GPU seems like a stretch.

I think the short answer is it depends where you are today. Take a look at what's on your drive and assume you will need double in 2-3 years time. If that doubling takes you close to, or above 512GB, then consider the 1TB machine. That is, of course, you plan to keep the machine that long.

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As for me, I keep mine at around 650GB, but there's stuff on there that I don't need day to day, it's just convenient to have. I am a bit of a data hoarder, but a big space hog is a Windows 11 VM (which I need) and a couple of games on it (which I don't). I have all the Logic Pro sounds on the machine and a huge photo library, 200gigs of email and documents since 2000 (I never delete email). (I also have a 40TB NAS that's about half-full, so there's that!!)

I could cope with a less but my last two Macs were forced upgrades because of disk space. The CPU, RAM and overall performance was fine, but I kept running low on storage, and it got annoying having to juggle external drives when I wanted to edit some video (esp. on the 256GB 2015 15" MBP because drives kept disconnecting.)

It ultimately depends on software and MacOS, but I think the M1Pro CPU's are going to have a long life-span, like 3-5 years before they start to feel old, and 5-7 years before they get annoying to use. A year into ownership, and I have a ton of background apps, foreground apps, 3 screens and too many windows, then I open up a Windows 11 VM and then switch to another user account via fast user switching - and it just doesn't slow down. And that's with "just" 16GB RAM. Amazing.

Yup. And now you have had a year's usage of the world's best laptop (IMO) at the time. But now M1 is last year's tech, at least a year behind what Apple will gives us in the next 1-3 months. Anyone buying M1 today is choosing to spend the next 3-6 years a year behind on the tech curve.

Interesting, but M2Pro is likely going to be minor speed bump of 15-20%. Put it this way, I don't think that many M1Pro owners are even close so to the limits of their machines, so despite being a year old this is still a solid purchase for many, vs. $500 extra on M2Pro with power that most don't need.

Killer deal. I bought my 14" 1TB at full retail $2499 when it was released and it was (is) worth every penny. Best laptop I have owned.

Have you made good use of the 1TB? I'm considering the 512GB model if it drops to $1599 again, but paying an extra $400 for just 1/2 TB more and the slightly faster CPU/GPU seems like a stretch.

I disagree with that comment. My commentary is not about existing M1 Pro users upgrading. It is about folks upgrading from their 3-5 year-old existing high end boxes to some new high end box.

1) 15-20% is not minor. Choosing to have 15-20% less power available for the unknowns of the next 3-6 years is a big value-loss to folks upgrading their existing high end $4k computers.

2) Other potentially huge architectural issues may present that are not simply characterized by a simplistic speed bump estimate. WiFi 6E?, Bluetooth 5.3?, HDMI, etc. We will not know until we see an M2 spec announcement.

3) This is tech, where application demands and hardware competence change very quickly and inexorably. Making that every 5 years purchase decison based on last year's computer running last year's app demands is very poor decision making when still we have not seen tech or pricing on the imminent new M2 hardware.

4) M2 boxes have thousands of hours of engineering expertise spent improving over M1. Over the 5 years of usage of a new box the impact of all that engineering expertise will be felt, even if not readily documented.

That said, of course some buyers will optimize financially by buying discounted now-old-tech M1 (like my 2016 purchase in 2017). But IMO doing so without even see M2 is poor decision making.

All good points.

But... it doesn't change the fact that this is a killer deal right now if you need a new MacBook Pro today and can't wait for whenever Apple chooses to release M2. Plus the new M2Pro's won't be discounted for a few months and $500 is quite a savings.

Before the M1, I always got the discounted version before the new one came out, except when a major redesign was expected. I don't think the M2Pro's will be much different to the M1Pro. But... I've been wrong before. Many times in fact!! :)

Interesting, but M2Pro is likely going to be minor speed bump of 15-20%. Put it this way, I don't think that many M1Pro owners are even close so to the limits of their machines, so despite being a year old this is still a solid purchase for many, vs. $500 extra on M2Pro with power that most don't need.

I disagree with that comment. My commentary is not about existing M1 Pro users upgrading. It is about folks upgrading from their 3-5 year-old existing high end boxes to some new high end box.

1) 15-20% is not minor. Choosing to have 15-20% less power available for the unknowns of the next 3-6 years is a big value-loss to folks upgrading their existing high end $4k computers.

2) Other potentially huge architectural issues may present that are not simply characterized by a simplistic speed bump estimate. WiFi 6E?, Bluetooth 5.3?, HDMI, etc. We will not know until we see an M2 spec announcement.

3) This is tech, where application demands and hardware competence change very quickly and inexorably. Making that every 5 years purchase decison based on last year's computer running last year's app demands is very poor decision making when still we have not seen tech or pricing on the imminent new M2 hardware.

4) M2 boxes have thousands of hours of engineering expertise spent improving over M1. Over the 5 years of usage of a new box the impact of all that engineering expertise will be felt, even if not readily documented.

That said, of course some buyers will optimize financially by buying discounted now-old-tech M1 (like my 2016 purchase in 2017). But IMO doing so without even see M2 is poor decision making.