Best Buy vs. Amazon: MacBook Air edition

Amazon may offer one of the best holiday deals on the red-hot MacBook Air. But don't count out California retail giant Fry's Electronics before doing the usual comparison with Best Buy.

The 11.6-inch MacBook Air can be had for $959 at Amazon. But Fry's beats that by a few dollars.

Amazon is serving up a pretty good deal on the popular 11.6-inch MacBook Air, offering the MC505LL/A model right now for $959, which Apple lists for $999 (1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo chip, 64GB flash memory drive, and 2GB RAM).  The price can change quickly, as demand for this unit appears to be high.

Fry's Electronics--whose giant warehouse-size stores are located mostly in California and Texas--will beat that price, though. At a Fry's, the MC505LL/A Air model was on sale for $949. Not to be outdone, the MacConnection is selling the same model for $1 less, at $948. Though the online store shows it "on order."

Amazon is also offering the 11.6-inch MacBook Air model MC506LL/A (which ups the flash drive capacity to 128GB from 64GB) for $1,148.99, a discount of $50 off the list price.

So far, Best Buy isn't offering any special deals on the new MacBook Air, though the previous-generation 13.3-inch model (which I own) is available for $1,299 with a 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB Memory, and a 128GB flash memory drive.