Apple's Cheap MacBook: What to Expect in 2026

[CATiNTHESTORE]

I’m expecting it to be priced at $699 personally.

Dude this is 2025 and almos2 2026. You will never see those prices again. Be prepared to 1k + all the time.

 

[neo_cs193p]

The only "new" laptop I could see Apple selling for $599 is an M1 Air, refitted with A18Pro.
I would love another version of the 12" MB with a larger display (12.6" perhaps) in the same body, but I don't see it happening under $1k.

 

[SebCohen]

The A18 is already faster than the M1 in single core processing and about the same in multi core. The M1 was built on an old chip process that Apple and TSMC would like to retire. They are likely producing few of them any more.

Apple isn't selling the M1 Air. They do sell some through 3rd party sales chains but that is a lower margin channel. This new MacBook is a way for Apple to reclaim those sales and get a better margin when they do.

Making it a dock for your phone would be a completely different product for which there is no current hardware or software support. They would have to put a lot of effort into that and it would confuse their product lines. The hardware would also probably cost about the same as the chip is not the most expensive part of a computer.

I always knew you were the smarter one of us 😎

That makes sense then. BUT they tried this before with a cheaper MacBook. It didn’t work then, likely won’t now. The Air is seen as the cheap laptop now and the introduction of an A series Air is NOT to make a cheaper laptop, it’s to increase the price of Air AND the PRO.

If anything l Apple should work on getting better deals on storage and memory chips. Because clearly, they s*ck at negotiating those 😎

I was serious about the dock thing. It would be developing something new, which is what Apple actually needs.

 

[flottenheimer]

Witness the return of the unapologetic plastic MacBook.

 

[Plerf]

I spent part of the weekend looking at the old plastic white (and occasionally black) iBooks. Not the colorful ones, the ones that came after.

They really were nice looking machines.

Might be nice to have something different than the same aluminum laptops in the lineup.

 

[joshwithachance]

Dude this is 2025 and almos2 2026. You will never see those prices again. Be prepared to 1k + all the time.

This is going to replace the $599 M1 MacBook Air being sold exclusively through Walmart. But be available everywhere. It will indeed cost somewhere between $599-$799, as an iPad alternative for those who prefer a more traditional laptop experience/form factor. And putting in an A-series chip not only saves them quite a bit of money, but also doesn’t entirely cannibalize the iPad Air lineup with their M-series chips.

Apple is seemingly taking a bit of a loss on this new base MacBook to get would be Windows/Android users into their ecosystem instead.