I guess a 16” would start at £2999, price point a tier higher than the upgraded version of the actual 15”. Specs could be:
-i7 6-core
-16 GB ram
-256GB SSD
- Vega 16
Then, one year after launch, the 15” lineup will be taken over by the 16” one, save keeping the base 15” at a lower price point for an year to facilitate the transition for customers on a tighter budget.
I truly hope Apple won’t try any courageous moves and just make a good, all rounder machine.
What they must focus on, imho, would be:
- Great build quality, with less glued components prone to fail due to crippled thermals or to stupid choices like short screen connectors who snap after prolonged use.
Also more thickness to help thermals, fans of ultraportable laptops have the Air lineup to look at.
- Great keyboard with scissor mechanism: everyone in the market can engineer low-profile keyboards without compromising usability and reliability ( Surface laptop for example), I don’t see why Apple cannot
- Decent graphic card: this is always been overlooked by Apple, probably for lack of need by most of their customers, and also because the focus was on creating the thinnest, lightest and with best battery life laptop possible, and up to 2014 ( maybe even 2015) the formula was a winning one: MacBooks would simply blow the competition out of the water.
Unfortunately is not the case anymore, what was once Apple magic formula is now everyone’s bread and butter, and if it wasn’t for MacOS, many users would have abandoned Apple laptops by now.
In 2019 there’s no reason why a £2.5k + machine shouldn’t have at least the graphic power of a gtx 1060 or Amd equivalent.
-Better battery life: this was the biggest disappointment with Apple’s modern laptop lineup. I still cannot get used to my MacBook’s battery lasting 5 hours whenever I do anything other than listening to Spotify. And the way the market their laptops power efficiency is sneaky at best: yes it still lasts 10 hours, but with WiFi off, keyboard and screen lights dimmed and no apps open besides iTunes. As soon as you start using the laptop normally, things don’t look quite as good.
Times have changed and Apple need to pull his head out of the sand and look realistically at the market. They’ve done an amazing job with the iPad lineup, keeping the crown despite a strong competition by the likes of Microsoft with the Surface lineup, now I hope they do the same with the MacBook one too.
Price wise, who cares: we’re used to the crazy pricing by now and I sure wouldn’t mind spending £ 3000 on a laptop, as I don’t mind spending £ 1500 on an iPad, but there must be something other than the OS to justify the price.