13-Inch MacBook Air With OLED Display Rumored to Launch in 2024

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

A 15" Air with OLED and ProMotion would be an instant:

Bring back the Touch Bar!

But only as an optional BTO...giving those of us who dislike the touch bar a chance to avoid it.

(H***, I'd pay quite a lot NOT to have it, if it came with a touch bar and NOT having it was the BTO.)

 

[MayaUser]

Take it with a grain of salt since he mention also the 12.9" ipad pro
That will remain with mini-led until micro-led tech

 

[Razorpit]

What about the users that our sensitive to OLED displays?

Tim: "Every year we'll keep improving the technology. Just buy the new version and it will be easier on your eyes." 😉

 

[Freida]

OLED is inferior to LED as long as there is the burn in. Until thats fully resolved, LED will always be better overall.
Especially for computer screen where a lot of things are static all the time. The burn in will be horrible on OLED.

It‘s pretty hard to see Apple introducing superior display tech in the MacBook Air before they add it to the MacBook Pro?

 

[CJM]

100% guesswork this far out. It's an estimate of what he thinks will be in MBAs in 2024.

 

[Wiesławo]

I don't care too much for a small (12-16") OLED, I watch movies on a large OLED TV. I do care about the 12.9" iPad Air, could br a 60Hz LCD, it'll be fine.

 

[genuswelt]

bring active cooling to MacBook Air

 

[Jett0516]

With 256gb.

 

[ignatius345]

Bring back the 12” MacBook!

Unfortunately I think Apple has decided that the ultra-portable "laptop" is the iPad Pro. I hope I'm wrong about this. The 12" Retina MacBook was so close to being great and they now have the right processor to make it happen...

 

[CWallace]

So, according to Young, the Macbook product line's display tech will look something like this in 2024?

• MacBook Air - OLED
• 13-inch MacBook Pro - LED
• 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro - Mini-LED

That makes absolutely no sense. Apple has invested in the Mini-LED technology. Why would they just limit it to 2 SKUs and not roll it out to the rest of the MacBook lineup and instead invest in yet another display technology?

Makes no sense folks! No sense!

The 13" MacBook Pro exists to fill a specific niche for business/enterprise customers so I would generally ignore it as a product and just focus on the MacBook Air and 14/16" MacBook Pro when discussing laptop Macs.

To that end, Apple has a fair bit of experience with OLED displays thanks to the iPhone and Samsung and LG are both starting to push OLED down-market for computer displays (ASUS now has $1000 27" QHD OLED gaming displays with 240Hz refresh rates). As such, OLED might be the cheaper technology compared to Mini-LED and would make since for the "consumer" Macs like the Air.

Mini-LED still has a significant advantage over OLED in terms of peak nits brightness which makes them arguably better at creating and displaying HDR content for "professional" Macs like the 14/16" Pro. Yes, there are blooming issues with whites against darker backgrounds when you push them, but the more backlights you have the better it is at damping said blooming and Apple MiniLED displays have significantly more backlights so adding still more, along with better lighting control algorithms, should help with the blooming.

100% guesswork this far out. It's an estimate of what he thinks will be in MBAs in 2024.

As his expertise is display supply chains (much like Kuo), he is likely seeing 13" OLED displays being readied to enter large-scale production and extrapolating that Apple would be a potential customer.

 

[Beautiful Opinion]

Can we get a 15” MacBook Air and a 16" iPad Pro, please?

I hate how Apple won't do this with their MacBooks. They're forcing us to get a MacBook Pro model if you want a large screen. It's a clever business strategy but the wrong thing to do.

 

[Beatrix Kiddo]

It‘s pretty hard to see Apple introducing superior display tech in the MacBook Air before they add it to the MacBook Pro?

OLED is not superior than Mini-LED

 

[GMShadow]

Guess I’ll need to buy before then - no interest in OLED burn-in on a laptop, which displays static elements much more often than a phone.

 

[CWallace]

I hate how Apple won't do this with their MacBooks. They're forcing us to get a MacBook Pro model if you want a large screen. It's a clever business strategy but the wrong thing to do.

Never say never. Tim seems to feel the more models the better to cover the market so...

 

[nicolas_s]

I guess by that time there will be micro-LED for the high-end devices or if they're still with mini-LED it will be a new version with much more dimming zones.

 

[zorinlynx]

Is OLED a good idea for laptops?

I mean right now my screen is on for hours at a time and has an Apple logo in the top left that never changes. Along with the date and other information in the menu bar.

I'd expect that to get burned in fairly quickly on an OLED display. Don't get me wrong, I love OLED, but it's never been good for static displays that are on for hours a day.

 

[Chazak]

Quite frankly, I don't think most people care.

Having a 15-inch MBAir is much more important to me than an OLED screen on a 13-inch unit.

 

[fakestrawberryflavor]

Sigh. Why does everything need to be OLED. Burn-in is a real thing, and while most TVs are ok since we watch varied content on them, I leave the same 2 windows up on my screen about 90% of the time.

I literally have static displays of things up at all times, 24x7x365. Please don't.

That stuff is gonna burn in.

 

[Edsel]

2024 Rumors, already?

Well, there's a rumor that in 2024 I'll have lost 40#'s, am 40 years younger, and have grown hair on top of balding scalp. On April 1, 2024, Mr. Young & I will announce the veracity of our rumors. ;-)

 

[ToxicBlue]

Oled is not as bright as mini led, that's the only feature where oled is inferior to mini led and with qd-oled we are seeing a lot of improvements in that area.
Contrast, color accuracy, vision angles, panel uniformity are better in oled; burn in in laptops is something we haven seen with decent panels for a long time and something tells me apple will use pretty good panels.

 

[jonnysods]

Unfortunately I think Apple has decided that the ultra-portable "laptop" is the iPad Pro. I hope I'm wrong about this. The 12" Retina MacBook was so close to being great and they now have the right processor to make it happen...

I have the 2017", i7 with 16gb of ram, and I love it. What I would love in it is an M1 just to get that processing power, Touch ID and better battery life. But what a machine, perfect size and weight.

 

[jonnysods]

Or even better, make a 13" version that is as light as that.

I can live with a 13", as long as they get it into the same form factor. No extra weight, and not any bigger than it is now.

 

[Populus]

Do you know if laptop sized OLED screen use PWM for dimming? I ask because PWM sensitive people will have bleeding eyes with a 13” OLED screen flickering…

 

[Digitalguy]

I can live with a 13", as long as they get it into the same form factor. No extra weight, and not any bigger than it is now.

I think 12.5in is more likely without increasing the size, but the same weight is definitley possible. My 13" thinkpad is as light as my 12" MacBook and my 13.3" Samsung notebook 9 from 2017 is even lighter.

 

[Mr. Dee]

These days, I noticed I am keeping my Apple devices longer and still using them even when they are no longer receiving updates. This month, I just upgraded my Early 2015 13 inch MBP from Catalina to Big Sur and it works just as good as my M1 MBP running Monterrey. My Apple Watch S3 is still working just fine and I have no immediate plans to upgrade next year either. As for the iPhone, I am up in the air whether I will upgrade to the 15 Pro Max next year; especially if Apple provides support for iOS 17.

The iPad Pro 12.9 2017 I currently have is just as fast as the day I bought it. For what I do on it, its hard to justify buying a 'newer, nicer' model. Judy Woodruff and MKBHD wouldn't look any different.