Deal | Apple MacBook Pro 14 M4 drops to lowest price ever on Amazon

The Apple Macbook Pro has long been the go-to workhorse machine for a variety of professionals, and the 2024 version with the M4 series SoC brought some welcome upgrades to the performance, connectivity and display. Now, the base model with the M4 chip is at its best price yet on Amazon, making it a great deal for anyone who's had their eye on this variant, and possibly even someone previously considering the Macbook Air, which shares the same chip.

First of all, here are Amazon's current prices for the three configurations under this variant:

• 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD: $1299 (19% or $300 off)
• 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD: $1499 (17% or $300 off)
• 24 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD: $1699 (15% or $300 off)

You can read our detailed review of the base MBP 14 M4 model here. The major improvements over the previous generation include a significant performance upgrade (~21% in Geekbench multicore tests and 13% in CrossMark tests for system performance). There is also an additional USB-C port, as well as the ability to add two external displays in addition to the integrated display.

Speaking of the display, you get the same, excellent mini-LED panel with an improved SDR brightness of 1000 nits and adaptive refresh rates up to 120Hz, as the higher M4 Pro and M4 Max models. Its higher-specced siblings naturally come with even better CPU and GPU ratings, but as noted in our review of the M4 Pro model, the biggest difference is seen in 3D performance when gaming, which may have limited relevance in the Mac world.

With the M4 model, you also get one cooling fan instead of two, but that doesn't add significantly to the noise, which is only present under prolonged, heavy workloads. In fact, the chassis remains cooler to touch compared to the M4 Pro. The ports are Thunderbolt 4 instead of Thunderbolt 5, but that is also currently of little consequence in the real world. On the battery front, this M4 version outperforms both the current M4 Pro model and the previous M3 model, offering almost 18 hours of web surfing over WiFi.

Overall, the current deal on the MBP 14 M4 represents excellent value for anyone who doesn't want the absolute maximum performance offered by the Pro and Max chips, but is still looking for an upgraded display, speakers and connectivity options over the Macbook Air M4. The only downside is that you can't add the nano-textured (matte) display option on Amazon; for that you'll have to configure and buy directly from Apple's website.