Yep. Luckily, attitude against those finding the base M4 mini acceptable can be recycled for those who like the new MacBook. 🤣
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple's Cheap MacBook: What to Expect in 2026
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Look at a photo of the 12-inch MacBook again. If the bezels were shrunk, they keyboard and trackpad would have to shrink, negatively affecting user experience.
This is just like the iPhone mini. Why are there so few 12-inch PC notebooks on the market today? It’s not because PC makers haven’t figured out how to shrink bezels or put in a decent chip. It’s because the user experience is poor.
PC makers are like Android. There’s so much competition and they’ve tried so many different form factors.
There’s a reason there’s virtually no 12-inch models and everyone has settled on 13- and 14-inch.
When people say ‘shrink the bezels’ I read it as ‘keep the chassis the same size, but use the bezel space for more screen, so you can have a 13”-ish screen in the same form factor’
The problem becomes cost. Shrinking the bezels means an expensive display. Basically fancy work in moving the display driver. For low cost MacBook, this is very unlikely.
We don’t know it’s a MacBook, just a laptop….
Apple may not want to risk its MacOS codebase on a mobile chip when iPadOS will run on it fine, has been rejigged to be a better desktop windowed experience and would be fine competition for all the Chromebooks they’re competing with at that level.
Don’t want the extra display space to left and right you can black it out with a setting
Because many PC makers did 12-inch for a number of years back around 2013-2017. They were all replaced by 13- or 14-inch models.
Lenovo ThinkPad X240-X280
Dell Latitude E7240-7290
This isn’t a guessing game because we already knew what happened. There’s a minimum display area, keyboard and touchpad size for effective multitasking.
This is a bizarre take. The chip is more than capable of running MacOS, full stop.
This rumoured product, if launched, would constitute an interesting, but minor, shift in direction for Apple’s laptop business, equivalent to the Mac mini launch in 2005. However, putting iPadOS into a traditional laptop would be an enormous sea-change in Apple’s approach to mobile computing, and would directly contradict many, many recent public statements. It would also contradict logic. No idea how you got to this concept.
Personally, I would love to use this for a travel laptop, because my MBP 14” is too hefty, and my iPad/keyboard combo just isn’t good enough as a replacement computer. And there are a huge number of people for whom Apple laptops have always been too expensive. Massive market potential. If it runs MacOS. Otherwise, what would the point be?
How is this still even a debate?
The code name J700 was found in macOS Tahoe. The identifier is Mac17,1.
How is it a “risk” when this chip outperforms M1?
Did you even read my post?
I said shrink the bezels, not shrink the whole thing to make the bezels smaller....
I read it, but your proposal was completely unrealistic. It would mean this low-cost MacBook would have bezels thinner than MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. In fact, the bezels would have to be significantly thinner than even iPad Pro.
Apple’s out of M1’s, and the $599 Mac is selling “well enough” through WalMart. They’ll just put the newer phone chip in there and call it a day.
There’s no way in hell Apple is going to bring out a brand new MacBook at the same exact price as the 11” iPad Air.
I am here to admit my complete mistake re: my earlier post about price competing. I had clearly forgotten about the examples pointed out to me in subsequent replies to my post.
I stand corrected.
I stand corrected.
So what? Make them as thin as 10 tech advances and budget allows. If that end ups with 12.5" or a 13" in a slightly bigger case so be it.
Or hell just leave at as it was, since screensize simple wasn't the issue in the 1st place.
Or maybe go really cheap, make it plastic fantastic (remember the iPhone5c).....
We are all farting against the wind here since Apple will do what Apple wants to do no matter how stupid or smart we think that move might be.
I still think the new lower-cost MacBook will have a modified A18 Pro SoC with 16 gigabytes of RAM due to the requirements for MacOS 26.x versions. And will have up to 256 GB of local storage. It may dispense with the MagSafe port and rely instead on two USB 3.2 2x2 20-gigabit ports that support up to 100 watt charging speed under Power Delivery 3.0 specs.
So many of the ideas in this thread are totally at odds with "Apple's Cheap Macbook" and "Apple is aiming to better compete with cheap Chromebooks and Windows PCs."
I think too many are mapping their "12" MacBook for executives/power users" fantasies onto this rumor.
I think too many are mapping their "12" MacBook for executives/power users" fantasies onto this rumor.
Flop like iWatch eh? Even though its the #1 selling smart watch in the world.. Shame that position #0 is just out of reach then.. iGoggles sure, won't do well at 3k price point.....
I just see parallels to the iPad lineup.
Below the iPadAir you have:
- regular cheap and kinda crappy plain iPad -> putting an A1? chip into an M1MBA case and call it a day
- iPadMini -> something similar to the 12" MB with mediocre specs, but still looking modern
Last edited:
It’s a branding thing. Does Apple want a sub £1k computer running MacOS? The majority of Mac users will still be light computing needs, not heavy workloads. Why would anyone pay for a MacBook Air when they could get a computer that is ostensibly just as good for nearly half the price? Apple needs a way to artificially ‘bork’ it so it doesn’t steal away sales of higher priced machines. IPadOS would do the job without impacting the user experience of a £600 laptop.
If there’s a keyboard permanently attached it 100% will run macOS and be a MacBook. iPad is designed for touch-first devices with keyboards optional, macOS is designed for keyboard and mouse input. There’s nothing special about making macOS run on the A chip, it’s not that different from the M chip, it’s just a letter in the name, it doesn’t actually mean anything in this instance. If the chips were named A18 Pro and A18X (instead of M4) but the chip was still identical, literally only a different name, this thought wouldn’t even cross your mind. You’re basing your entire wrong theory on what letter Apple uses in their branding as if that’s important.
How many MBP does Apple sell when a MBA would be could enough?
How many iPadPro does Apple sell when a iPadAir or even plain iPad would have been good enough?
So no that won't stop the MBC(heap).
That's what I'm saying. The Air MSRP will stay the same, but with no/less discounts at third parties like Amazon etc.
If you want/need something cheaper you need to accept the lower performance etc of the A-class chip and whatever else they decide to save on in the new base MacBook.
There is quite a difference in performance of the M branded chips vs the A branded. Even a many years old M chip will often beat the latest A chips in many performance metrics.
They have more cores, better GPUs, more cache etc etc.
It's like the difference between a desktop chip and a laptop chip.
The downside is they cost more and require more power, which is why you don't see them in the iPhone.