Right now, Microsoft is offering people a credit of up to $650 towards the purchase of a Surface Pro 3.
The catch? You have to trade in a MacBook Air in order to get the credit. Oh, and don’t even think about giving them one that’s busted. It has to be in working condition.
Once we learned of this offer from Microsoft, we couldn’t help but wonder whether anyone would actually take them up on this offer. After all, even the cheapest MacBook Air you can get today costs significantly more than the maximum value of this credit. Right now at Apple.com, the entry-level 11-inch Air costs $899. That’s $249 more than the full credit you could get from Microsoft.
Plus, only “select” MacBook Air models are eligible for the trade in, but Microsoft doesn’t specify which versions are and aren’t eligible. Also, considering that Microsoft language mentions that consumers could get “up to” $650, this leads us to believe that you would have to trade a 2013 or 2014 model in order to get the maximum trade in value. At the end of the day, part of what determines how good of an offer this is depends on how much you could get for an older MacBook Air, and how the amount of credit that Microsoft doles out breaks down as you move up the ladder from older MacBook Airs to newer ones.
The base model Surface Pro 3 costs $799, packs an Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The next step up is the $999 version, which bumps the CPU to a Core i5, keeps the RAM constant at 4GB, and doubles the storage. For $1,299, you still get a Core i5-powered Surface Pro 3, but the RAM jumps to 8GB and storage shoots up to 256GB.
From there, the price goes up to $1,549, which nets you an Intel Core i7 processor, but keeps the RAM and storage at $1,299 levels. And then there’s the mack daddy model: an Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of memory, and a 512GB hard drive for $1,949.
With all of that in mind, would you consider trading your MacBook Air in for up to $650 towards the purchase of a Surface Pro 3?
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Google DeepMind's AI world model Genie 4 can now build interactive worlds that you can explore and reshape as they run. It also generates ambient sounds, music, and dialogue that respond to your actions.
The new world model builds on Genie 3 with improved realism, more natural human movement, and better simulations of real-world physics. It could eventually help with everything from game development to training robots.
Apple has an incredible talent for making me admire its products while simultaneously questioning what on earth it's thinking with the pricing. This isn't even something as bizarre as a monitor stand, but the audacity for starting a new laptop lineup from $2,000 doesn't surprise me.
The newly announced 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 is just the latest to showcase this. The funny thing is, I already know that it's going to be a reliable workstation. You get a powerful new 2nm M6 processor, a gorgeous Liquid Retina XDR display, and up to 24 hours of battery life. We were impressed by the M5 MacBook Air, so the high-end M6 powered MacBook Pro definitely won't let us down.