BGR Names 5 Laptops Undercutting MacBook Air After Apple’s $200 Price Hike
Updated
Updated · Boy Genius Report · Jul 19
BGR Names 5 Laptops Undercutting MacBook Air After Apple’s $200 Price Hike
3 articles · Updated · Boy Genius Report · Jul 19
Summary
Apple’s latest increases pushed the 13-inch MacBook Air to $1,299 and the 15-inch model to $1,499, prompting BGR to identify five new laptops now priced below them.
The price moves stem from AI-boom memory and storage chip costs, which also lifted the MacBook Neo to $699 from $599 and have made 2026 laptop pricing more volatile.
BGR’s picks range from the $1,156 Lenovo Slim 7i Aura Edition and $1,199 Surface Laptop to the $1,350 Asus ZenBook A14, $1,399 Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x Gen 11 and $1,450 HP OmniBook 5.
Several alternatives trade on battery life, ports or memory rather than Apple silicon alone: the Surface is cited at nearly 31 hours of runtime, while the OmniBook 5 offers 32GB RAM and the ZenBook A14 is lighter at 2.4 pounds.
BGR said it excluded laptops that were already cheaper than the Air before Apple’s increase, framing the list as a direct result of the new pricing gap.