I tracked down the top early October Prime Day MacBook deals: Save up to $500 ahead of the sale

By Mashable | Created at 2026-10-01 10:13:37 | Updated at 2026-10-02 22:20:41 1 day ago

MacBooks got price hikes this year. Prime Big Deal Days should bring us discounts that erase them.

 By 

Haley Henschel

 on October 1, 2026

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a 14-inch macbook pro

Credit: Apple / Mashable composite

Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Learn more about how we select deals.

The best early October Prime Day MacBook deals at a glance:


m5 macbook air in silver


the 16-inch macbook pro

Genuinely good MacBook deals have been harder to come by in the wake of Apple's summer price hikes. But I have a feeling that will change during Prime Big Deal Days, Amazon's 48-hour fall savings event for Prime members on Oct. 6 and 7.

"October Prime Day," as the sale is often called, serves as Amazon's unofficial kickoff for the holiday shopping season. Last year, it brought us $200 discounts on the MacBook Air and savings of up to $400 on select MacBook Pros — the same sorts of deals we later saw on Black Friday 2025. If Amazon replicated those offers next week, we'd be seeing our lowest MacBook prices since Apple's markups took effect.

In the lead-up to Prime Big Deal Days, most MacBooks are already on sale (including the budget MacBook Neo, if only by $10). I wouldn't add most of them to your cart just yet, since they'll probably get bigger discounts once the sale starts. But if you don't want to wait, you can already save hundreds on select models.

Read on for my running list of the best early October Prime Day MacBook deals so far.

The best October Prime Day deal on the MacBook Air (so far)

$1,449 at Amazon
$1,599 Save $150

The latest M5 MacBook Air is a Mashable Choice Award winner and one of our top-reviewed products of the year. In his testing, Mashable tech editor Timothy Beck Werth found the M5 chip to be ridiculously powerful (probably more powerful than the average Air customer really needs, TBH). It also has a fantastic display, a great-sounding speaker system, and a sharp Center Stage webcam.

If you need a new MacBook Air, and you need it now, Amazon's best live deal is going to a 13-inch model with 16GB of RAM and a terabyte of storage. Normally $1,599, it's now on sale for $1,449 (or $150 off). That offer wasn't being matched by any other retailer at the time of writing, FWIW.

More MacBook Air deals

The best October Prime Day deal on the MacBook Pro (so far)

$4,499 at Amazon
$4,999 Save $500

The M5 Max chip is Apple's most powerful laptop CPU to date. It's designed to handle the ultra-demanding workloads of "pro users" like "3D animators, app developers, and AI researchers," according to a company press release.

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Ahead of Prime Big Deal Days, you can save $500 on a beefy 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M5 Max chip, 48GB of RAM, and 2TB of storage. (This is the fanciest MacBook Amazon sells.) It typically retails for $4,999, but you'll pay $4,499 — a 10% savings. That deal isn't being matched anywhere else, either.

As mentioned up top, Amazon's October Prime Day MacBook Pro deals usually max out at $400ish. With that in mind, this is one deal that probably won't improve down the road.

More MacBook Pro deals

MacBook Neo deals

Frequently Asked Questions


Apple's colorful budget MacBook Neo has never been more than $10 off on Amazon. We don't expect it to get any cheaper during Prime Big Deal Days; the best price you're likely to see is $689.

If you're a student, you should buy the MacBook Neo directly through the Apple Store instead. You can save $100 with its education discount.


Prime Big Deal Days officially kicks off on Tuesday, Oct. 6 at 3:01 a.m. ET (12:01 a.m. PT). It will run for 48 hours through 2:59 a.m ET on Wednesday, Oct. 8 (11:59 p.m. PT on Oct. 7).

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Haley Henschel is a Chicago-based Senior Shopping Reporter at Mashable who reviews and finds deals on popular tech, from laptops to gaming consoles and VPNs. She has years of experience covering shopping holidays and can tell you what’s actually worth buying on Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day. Her work has also explored the driving forces behind digital trends within the shopping sphere, from dupes to 12-foot skeletons.

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