Apple's MacBook Pro lineup is on sale, but only because the price just went up.
During Amazon's two-day Prime Big Deal Days event (Oct. 6-7), retailers are knocking money off nearly every MacBook Pro configuration. The entry-level M5 MacBook Pro, which Apple prices at $1,999, is down to $1,869 on Amazon, about $130 off. The 14-inch M5 Pro model drops from $2,499 to $2,345, a $154 discount per Amazon's own listing. Move up to the heavier-duty configurations and the savings grow: several 14-inch and 16-inch M5 Pro and M5 Max builds, priced as high as $4,999, are discounted by $300 to $500, with the deepest cuts on the 48GB-RAM, 2TB-storage Max models.
Apple raised MacBook Pro prices this cycle, partly blamed on rising RAM costs, pushing the base model to $1,999 for the first time. These Amazon and Best Buy markdowns don't come from Apple. They're retailers using a seasonal sales event to claw back some of that increase for shoppers willing to wait. That's a familiar pattern: Apple rarely discounts its own hardware, so third-party retailers have become the de facto mechanism for any price relief on new Macs.
Even with $500 off, a maxed-out MacBook Pro still costs more than a decent used car. And knocking 5 to 10 percent off list price during a manufactured shopping holiday is not Apple admitting its RAM math was off. It is retailers doing what they always do every October.