Thanks everyone for the inputs! 

Here’s how it went:

Went offline to iPlane and Imagine, with Imagine’s website quote at ₹2.24L (same as Amazon, which was out of stock). They offered to price match, and luckily I had bought yesterday — the price changed on their website today.

Also visited the Apple Store — they quoted ₹2.5L with a ₹20K trade-in for my M1 Air. When I mentioned there were better prices outside, they actually said they also recommend buying wherever you get the best deal since they’re an “experience store” and they don’t have any sales target 

Final Breakdown

Imagine website price match → ₹2,24,000  
After ICICI card discount → ₹2,19,000  
M1 Air exchange → −₹30,000  
Total paid → ₹1,89,000  
GST return (expected) → −₹34,500  
Effective price → ₹1,54,500  
Also grabbed AppleCare+ (3 years) at ₹21,000 with \~₹3,000 expected GST return.  
Net effective with AppleCare → \~₹1,72,500

First Impressions from a developer standpoint 

Super happy with the decision to go with the Pro. Visible difference from day one coming from an M1 Air:  
— iOS archives and Android builds are noticeably faster  
— Multiple emulators running simultaneously with zero throttling  
— Was able to run smaller DeepSeek and Qwen models locally on device

If you’re a mobile developer on the fence, this thing is an absolute beast. 🔥

[DEAL] - Got MacBook Pro M5 Pro 24GB / 1TB effectively under ₹1.6L — better than the Amazon deal posted earlier!