Technologies
Best MacBook Deals: Save $100 on M2 MacBook Air, $150 on M2 MacBook Pro and More
Apple’s new M2-based MacBooks are on sale, and bigger discounts are available on the larger MacBook Pro models.
This story is part of Gift Guide, our year-round collection of the best gift ideas.
Apple unveiled MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro models based on its new M2 chip earlier this year. The updated MacBook Air is bigger than the previous model, and a bit faster as well. Along with a bigger 13.6-inch display and M2 processor, however, comes a higher price. Gone is the $999 starting price; the new M2 MacBook Air line starts at $1,199. The updated 13-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 chip starts at the same $1,299 list price as the previous generation.
With holiday shopping season here, we are seeing some big MacBook discounts. While the price breaks aren’t as hefty as we saw for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, they are still sizable — prices have crept up about $50 since last week. Per usual, Amazon has the best prices for most MacBooks, but don’t overlook the sale prices at B&H. You can save $100 on the M2 MacBook Air at Amazon and $150 on the M2 MacBook Pro at B&H right now.
If you’re sad to see the Air’s $999 starting price disappear (we are; sniff), you can get the previous-generation MacBook Air with the M1 chip and 13.3-inch display for $800 at Amazon — a savings of $199. The 14-inch MacBook Pro and its larger 16-inch Pro sibling, both based on Apple’s M1 Pro chip, are the company’s biggest and most powerful MacBooks. You can save $200 on the 14-inch Prop and $300 on the 16-inch Pro.
US pricing for Apple MacBooks
While Amazon and B&H have the best prices at the moment, one benefit to paying full price and buying from Apple is that you can customize the machine and add more RAM or a higher-capacity solid-state drive. The models sold by Amazon and other retailers are fixed configurations.
Want to go the refurbished route? You can find refurbished M1 MacBooks on Apple’s Certified Refurbished Mac page. Refurb inventory changes rapidly so you may not always see an M1 MacBook Air or Pro listed. It’s worth keeping an eye out, however, because you can lock in substantial savings, up to $200. Rick Broida, CNET’s Cheapskate emeritus, is a big fan of refurbs, particularly Apple’s — which are often as good as new.
It’s also worth noting that the Apple Store offers students an educational discount, which can trim hundreds of dollars from the price of a new laptop or tablet.
Keep reading to see the best MacBook laptop deals currently available for Apple’s current and previous-generation MacBooks. We update this list periodically.
*Note that «all-time» means the best price that we’ve seen at an Apple-authorized retailer in the product’s lifetime. Prices change frequently and may differ between color variants.
Best MacBook deals
Technologies
AI Notification Summaries Come Back to iPhone News Apps, but With a Warning
Apple disabled these summaries for most of 2025.
Apple brought AI notification summaries for news and entertainment apps back to Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhones when the company released iOS 26 in September. Apple disabled these summaries in early 2025 after the BBC pointed out in December 2024 that the feature twisted the media organization’s notifications and displayed inaccurate information.
What’s different now about these summaries is that your device’s settings warn you that the summaries might be inaccurate. Your device will also note that you should verify the information in these summaries, and the best way I can think of to do this is to tap into the notification and read the story. This might defeat the purpose of the summaries for some people, but it could also ensure people read past a headline.
Here’s what to know about those AI summaries and the new warning.
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iOS 26 warns about summary inaccuracies
When I updated to iOS 26, I was greeted by some splash screens asking for various permissions. One splash screen was for the AI notification summaries. When you see this screen, you have two options: Choose Notifications to Summarize or Not Now. If you tap Not Now, the splash screen goes away.
If you tap Choose Notifications to Summarize, you’re taken to a new page where you’ll see three categories: News & Entertainment, Communication & Social and All Other Apps. Tapping one of these categories allows notification summaries for apps in that category. Beneath the News & Entertainment category, there’s a warning that gets outlined in red if you tap it.
«Summarization may change the meaning of the original headline,» the warning reads, adding, «Verify information.»
There’s also a warning across the bottom of the screen that reads, «This is a beta feature. Summaries may contain errors.»
After tapping the categories you want, tap Summarize Selected Notifications across the bottom of your screen. If you selected all the categories, this button will read Summarize All Notifications.
And if you don’t want these summaries, you can tap Do Not Summarize Notifications. If you allow these summaries and don’t like them, you can easily turn them off. Here’s how.
How to turn off AI notification summaries
1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap Notifications.
3. Tap Summarize Notifications.
4. Tap the Summarize Notifications toggle in the new menu.
You can also follow the above steps to turn AI notification summaries back on. You’ll have to select which categories you want these summaries for again, too.
For more iOS news, here’s what to know about iOS 26.2 and what was included in iOS 26.1. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet for other tips and tricks.
Technologies
Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Jan. 7, #471
Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Jan. 7, No. 471.
Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.
Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a bit tricky. The blue category was a real stumper for me, though I found the purple group easy today for a change. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.
Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic app. Or you can play it for free online.
Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta
Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.
Yellow group hint: On the ice.
Green group hint: Run and jump.
Blue group hint: Baseball bosses.
Purple group hint: Golden State schools.
Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups
Yellow group: NHL teams with singular nicknames
Green group: A bit of track and field equipment.
Blue group: MLB managers.
Purple group: Mascots for University of California schools in the singular.
Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words
What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?
Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.
The yellow words in today’s Connections
The theme is NHL teams with singular nicknames. The four answers are Avalanche, Kraken, Lightning and Mammoth.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is a bit of track and field equipment. The four answers are baton, hurdle, javelin and pole.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is MLB managers. The four answers are Cash, Counsell, Marmol and Vogt.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is mascots for University of California schools, in the singular. The four answers are Banana Slug, Bruin, Gaucho and Golden Bear.
Technologies
Yes, This Swimming RoboTurtle Is Adorable. It Also Has an Important Environmental Mission
Beatbot is best known for making pool-cleaning robots, but it was its swimming robot turtle that won our hearts at CES 2026.
Few things in life have made me feel more privileged and awestruck than the opportunity to swim with sea turtles in their natural environment. The way in which these gentle creatures navigate through their underwater world with their deliberate and careful fin strokes is utterly mesmerizing to watch.
It’s a distinctive style of movement — so much so that when I saw Beatbot’s RoboTurtle swim across a water tank on the show floor at CES 2026, I knew that this wasn’t simply just a pool cleaner robot with turtle features tacked on. This was a studied example of biomimicry in action.
The reason for this is that the company’s engineers went on a two-month expedition to study sea turtles in their natural environment, Beatbot’s Eduardo Campo told me as we watched Turtini (the team’s affectionate nickname for RoboTurtle) splash around in its pool. «We did a lot of motion capture, like the things they use in movies, because we need to develop those joints that it has,» he said.
This isn’t RoboTurtle’s first time at CES — it also appeared in 2025 as a static concept. This is the year, however, it’s found its fins, so to speak. Not only can it swim, but it can also respond to hand gestures: I throw it an OK gesture, and it dances in response. But as cute and limber as it is, RoboTurtle is a robot with an important mission.
RoboTurtle is an environmental research tool, built with input from researchers and NGOs, which can go where humans or other machines cannot for fear of disturbing complex and delicate underwater ecosystems, particularly coral reefs. It can move silently and naturally in a way that won’t scare wildlife, monitoring water quality and fish numbers with its built-in camera.
«One of the groups that we’re working with, they want to study the coral reefs in near Indonesia,» said Campo. «There was a very big incident over there with a boat that came up onto a coral reef and it disrupted the environment, [so] they want the least intrusive robot possible.»
The group wants to deploy RoboTurtle for certain periods every year to monitor the recovery of the coral and monitor the fish population, he added. Beatbot is currently training the built-in AI to give RoboTurtle monitoring and recognition skills.
At CES, I watched RoboTurtle paddle about only on the surface of the pool, but it can also dive down up to five meters. However, it needs to resurface to send data and its GPS signal back to base, much like a real turtle that needs to come to the surface to breathe. This also gives it a chance to recharge via the solar panel on its back.
Even though I was impressed with RoboTurtle’s swimming ability, Campo estimates that the Beatbot team is still a year and a half away from perfecting its technique, with the robot ready for full deployment in between three to five years.
CES 2026 is a show where tech with a real purpose feels scarce, so it sure is refreshing to see a company use its expertise to build something designed with a sustainable future in mind. It might be a while until we see RoboTurtle take to the seas, but I’m glad that I got to witness it at this stage of its journey.
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