Luckily, right now is absolutely the very best time to buy a mac. The new base M4 Mac Mini launched at $599 which every computer expert admits is a price point actually impossible for a windows computer to come close to matching like for like (where they get you is the upgrade pricing is absurd but they also just upped the base RAM to 16GB because of AI so the base model is a fantastic machine for 90+% of people’s needs). If you can borrow some kind of vague academic affiliation from someone, you’re also eligible for the educational discount which drops another $100 off the price.
At the same time, this has driven down the price of used M1 Macs and the M1 was such a good chip that it’s likely to be one of the most future-proof Apple chips ever released.
And when I mean right now, I mean literally right now, squeaking in before the tariffs come into play and Apple adjusts their pricing. The window for buying a new machine is closing by the minute.