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Think it will be announced only in April 2026. Expecting to see some colors for the new lower priced MacBook. Think the price will be $699 and $599 for education/students.
 
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I think the A19 (non-pro) is more realistic than the A18 that’s the subject of rumors. A binned M4 essentially is an A18 Pro. The A19 would give it a longer shelf life. If the M1 is any indication this is likely to be the “basic” Mac for a few years.
A18 pro only makes sense if they’re launching it now as Apple would be able to continue manufacturing it without needing to make iPhone 16 pros.

Only having 8Gb ram might be an issue though.

A19 pro sounds more realistic if they plan to launch in q2 26 avoiding the Christmas rush this year.

iPhone 17 pro production could be ramping down but they may have plans to use A19 pro in next year’s iPhone 18 like they did for earlier phones like the 13.

The A19 pro SoC having 12gb ram would be a better fit for a macOS machine especially as Apple just bumped up every Mac to 16gb ram as standard.

It doesn’t stop iPad Pro m5 from having 12gb or 16gb ram configurations depending on storage though so there could be a precedent to have an a18 pro or a19 pro with 16gb ram though.

By the same token Apple should consider dropping an a19 pro into the next Apple tv - unless some a18 variant is fine by them.
 
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A18 pro only makes sense if they’re launching it now as Apple would be able to continue manufacturing it without needing to make iPhone 16 pros.
As it happens, suddenly there are A19 Pro chips available from the iPhone Air production line for a new laptop.
 
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It overheated just by being switched on and had a single port.
The 2015 initial 12" model did suffer in performance tests (I could see the writing on the wall and waited for the much improved 2016 model). No reviews have shown any overheating, but it wasn't designed for power users (also why only one port in keeping with thin and light). Mine is on for 8 hours a day, no overheating and gets merely warm. The other possibility is thermal paste was incorrectly applied to the CPU in your case and n=1 overheating resulted.
 
It's a bit strange to have a laptop with iPhone chips and an iPad with Mac chips... also a smaller screen size (11-12”) would be a better choice for a new ultraportable device.

As for the price, since a base MBA cost €1099, this rumored laptop should cost a max €799 with the same RAM/storage, more than that and it's not worth it.
 
It's a bit strange to have a laptop with iPhone chips and an iPad with Mac chips...
Such segmentation is arbitrary and doesn't really matter. All the Apple ARM chips at their base model are designed to run in a very low thermal envelope device.
 
People still use MagSafe? Everyone I've seen, they left the MagSafe cable in the box. Why use MagSafe when USB-C charging is so ubiquitous? It made sense 15 years ago before USB-C, but not today.
At home I use MagSafe because it frees up both USB-C ports. On the road I'll use USB-C.
 
Such segmentation is arbitrary and doesn't really matter. All the Apple ARM chips at their base model are designed to run in a very low thermal envelope device.
Actually a machine not labeled PRO would make it all less arbitrary.

Air and Pro iPads and Laptops get M chips.

The others get A chips. This would make the Base M5 MBP make more sense. Ms are premium chips.

The mini/iMac/studio/macpro line is its own mess that Apple isn’t that keen on focusing on.
 
You know, I’m mostly ok with that. At least that gives me the choice of buying or not. Apple’s greed is what it is.

In the end, the work done on that device will generate invoices worth ten/twentyfold of what the device costs.

That’s a nice way of looking at it.
 
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