Just last week, Apple updated its MacBook Pro lineup with all-new hardware, but left the majority of its too-old-to-recommend Mac products untouched. Now, the company is dropping the price on upgraded versions of the MacBook Air, iMac, Mac Pro, and Mac mini ever so slightly, but you still shouldn’t buy them.
The pricing tweak comes from a cheaper solid state storage, and effectively drops the price of the years-old, SSD-upgraded Macs by $100 to $200 across the board. It’s small savings, and doesn’t apply to the base models of any of the devices, so it really doesn’t move the needle into “buy” territory.
Apple’s Mac lineup is aging rapidly, as has been the theme throughout 2016. The new MacBook Pro release—complete with a lack of ports and a need for oh-so-many adapters and dongles—is fine, but that only solved one of many problems for those of us who are constantly asked, “Should I buy a Mac?”
Consider the age of the hardware that Apple is currently selling:
- iMac – 386 days
- MacBook Air – 604 days
- Mac mini – 748 days
- Mac Pro – 1,049 days
In an industry where specs and performance increases can be noticeably better six months down the road, these are dismal update cycles at best. So, no, a $100 cheaper SSD upgrade shouldn’t tempt you, lest you be stuck with a years-old computer that should—I emphasize should, because who really knows what Apple is doing—be completely replaced soon enough.
H/T MacRumors