Don’t worry about the MacBook Air shortages — these official Apple refurbished deals are a better buy anyway

Beat the RAM crisis

by · TechRadar

News By Alex Blake Published 3 August 2026

(Image credit: Apple)

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  • The MacBook Air is suffering major shortages due to the memory crisis
  • There are other ways to get a MacBook Air, though
  • One of the best is to get a refurbished model from Apple

You’d think that increasing its product prices would make it a little easier to pick up an Apple device, what with other customers staying away, but you might be wrong on that one. As per Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, it looks like the MacBook Air is proving to be extremely difficult to find — even with a $200 price increase.

Gurman states that Apple’s most popular Mac is experiencing “unprecedented” delays due to the ongoing memory crisis, with Apple retail employees telling Gurman that the company “is struggling to keep the laptop in stock and that shipments of new units are more constrained than they can ever recall.”

But there’s no need to worry if you’re in the market for a MacBook Air, as there’s one trick that can save you cash and help you get your hands on an Apple laptop despite the shortages. That’s by employing a tried-and-true method: buying refurbished.

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Indeed, one of the best ways to do this is through Apple’s own refurbished store. Purchasing a Mac this way gets you a device that has had any faulty or defective parts replaced by genuine Apple alternatives. The product is cleaned, polished, and sent to you in a brand-new box with the same accessories you’d get with a fresh device.

I bought my M1 Pro MacBook Pro this way, and it was virtually indistinguishable from a new Mac while saving me hundreds of dollars. I’d absolutely go down this road again.

A better way to buy

(Image credit: Future)

Looking at Apple’s refurbished Mac store in the US, there are currently some choice deals to be had. For example, you can get a 13-inch MacBook Air with an M5 chip, 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage for $1,099, which knocks $200 off the new, more expensive price.

Or you can get a 15-inch MacBook Air with that same combination of M5 chip, 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage for $1,269. That’s $230 off what you’ll pay for a new version of the same Mac.

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