New 12.9-Inch MacBook Could Launch This Year Starting at $599

[MaverickCC]

$499 would be a far better price and would hit the Chromebook market pretty hard. $599 is still up there for a lot of people that are simply looking for a no-frills budget laptop. When is Apple going to learn?

Well they seem to have done ok, so by that standard, never

Apple is all about 'attainable luxury' so they basically never price lowest in the market on purpose and they defend that price differential by making the product differentiable enough to earn it.

 

[srminton]

Dawg, these are NOT gonna be made for people looking to load up LLMs, VMs or do any editing work on.

It’s made for grandma looking to buy a laptop so she can post nonsensical posts on Facebook and see what her grandsons are doing.

lol...or regular people who just want a portable computer for email and typing Word documents on the go, and who don't want to do that on a tablet. but yes, people are missing the point by spec-shaming this on account of potentially having (for example) just 8GB RAM. you don't need more than 8GB RAM for the things that people will use this computer for. if you do need more than 8GB RAM, you will buy a MacBook Air or Pro, but you won't be doing those things on a $599 MacBook.

 

[mysticmanix]

There's literally no way they don't nerf this hard, if it's supposedly to compete with Chromebooks and at that price. 128GB SSD, 8GB RAM, 1 USB-C port, 1 Magsafe port, that's what it's going to be.

 

[dampfnudel]

Hopefully at $599 it comes with 256GB of storage and not 128GB.

 

[Macalicious2011]

Hopefully at $599 it comes with 256GB of storage and not 128GB.

For $599? This is apple. 128GB storage.

Upgrade to 256GB and 16GB RAM for an extra $400. 🤣😕🙃

 

[LeeW]

To be fair, the majority of Mac owners are not power users by any means. This device would work well for most.

 

[Macalicious2011]

To be fair, the majority of Mac owners are not power users by any means. This device would work well for most.

Low price doesn't always equal good value. A used M1 or M2 MBP with 256GB storage and 16GB RAM for $600-700 will be a better product and offer long term value.

In the past, cheap laptops were fine because they were upgradable. However an under powered macbook won't be. As soon as you will want to do video editing, explore on device AI or pass it down to a child to play games on, limits will be hit.

 

[svish]

Not sure whether Apple will launch this one without an event and with M5 MacBook Pros expected only in early 2026 don't see any event happening in October. Of course Apple can have a 10 minute recorded video for the launch like how it happened last year.

Think it will be $699 at least with student discount making it at least $50 less than that. Would love to see some nice colors like on the entry level iPad.

 

[Padaung]

All other base level Macs come with 16Gb memory and 256Gb storage. Have Apple finally accepted that new machines really should come with 16Gb memory, or have they found that Apple intelligence needs the greater memory?

Anyway, if Apple feel that 16Gb & 256Gb are the minimum for other Macs, then one would hope the same logic applies
es to this rumoured machine, even if it is at the more affordable end of the price scale. TBH, I feel 16Gb and 256Gb are the absolute minimum spec any computer should ship with in 2025 and onwards.

Basically, if they spec it at 8Gb and 128Gb then it's going to cost $400 just to match it to a base spec MacBook Air, so by then the only selling point this rumoured machine would have is its lower weight. 8Gb and 128Gb would cripple the machine from the outset and would render sales low.

$599 for a small form factor, very lightweight machine (under 1kg hopefully!), with 12 hours or more of battery life, a screen with 100% sRGB coverage, 16Gb memory, 256Gb SSD and a processor that is pretty much equal to an M1 for CPU and GPU performance and is faster for AI tasks - I would gladly buy that for my daily travel laptop. I'd still even pay for a $200 SSD upgrade to 512Gb.

🤞 this rumour is true and that Apple don't cripple it from the outset with poor specs.

 

[darngooddesign]

For the sake of consistency across the product line, whatever chip goes into this new laptop ought to have Thunderbolt, but no — it wouldn't be a dealbreaker. Just a disappointment.

If Apple uses the A18 Pro it won't have Thunderbolt.

 

[darngooddesign]

For $599? This is apple. 128GB storage.

Upgrade to 256GB and 16GB RAM for an extra $400. 🤣😕🙃

The $650 MacBook Air that Apple currently sells has 256GB, this one will too.

 

[Dirk Pieters]

This thing will have some Apple BS designed into it to hamstring it just enough to grease that upgrade temptation.

No ports would be my guess.

No ports and no possibility to drive an external screen would be a good thing (for me) as it gives this machine a clear purpose.

The hamstring will probably be 256gb of storage and 8gb of ram. That storage limit wouldn’t bother me personally but if that 8gb of ram cripples macOS … that’d be pretty tough to swallow.

 

[AND411]

If Apple uses the A18 Pro it won't have Thunderbolt.

For most buyers of this Mac, the fact that it doesn't have a TB port won't matter.

 

[theluggage]

A used M1 or M2 MBP with 256GB storage and 16GB RAM for $600-700 will be a better product and offer long term value.

Why compare used prices? Getting an older-but-possibly-better model used/refurb/surplus is a money-saving option with pretty much every computer purchase, yet people still buy new computers. Also, a lot of those M2 MBPs will only be 8GB anyway.

Anyway, the A18 Pro is a newer design and faster in single-core tests than the M1 and M2 (which is going to be significant for the sorts of lower-end jobs these will be used for).

As soon as you will want to do video editing, explore on device AI or pass it down to a child to play games on, limits will be hit.

I think you might be surprised by the number of people who never, ever do those things on their computer. And I bet it will be able to play a few games - not that any Mac is s sought-after games machine.

All other base level Macs come with 16Gb memory and 256Gb storage. Have Apple finally accepted that new machines really should come with 16Gb memory, or have they found that Apple intelligence needs the greater memory?

Well, Apple ought to be able to offer at least 16GB/256GB in a $600 computer - which is still only "cheap" by Apple standards - but I rather expect this will have 8GB RAM, simply because that's what the iPhones with the same processor get & there will be economies of scale in using the same chips. Not celebrating that - just assuming that Tim Cook hasn't been replaced by an alien pod person... It will probably be OK for the market that this is aimed at.

128GB SSD would be pretty dismal but I wouldn't be surprised.

It's never going to make much sense to BTO upgrade the RAM and SSD on this or you'll be in MacBook Air territory.

It would be nice to think that, by introducing A-series processors as a lower-end alternative to M-series, Apple will be able to stop using low base RAM/SSD specs and artificially hight upgrade prices to delineate their low-end models & we'll at least see 512GB base SSDs and cheaper 32GB options on the M-series Macs. Not holding breath.

 

[aknabi]

Fingers crossed for using the MB 12" tooling an using a 12.9" screen with narrower bezels... would become my couch/cafe casual Mac (since my 2015 MB 12 just never quite had enough "umph")

 

[okkibs]

Disaster? I'm literally typing on one now...

That does not change the fact that the butterfly keyboard has a reputation for being prone to problems so much that Apple went from the thinnest and lightest Macbooks back to thicker ones without that keyboard. For example the 13" MBP in 2016 was lighter than the first M1 MBP with 13" was in 2020. The sole reason they undid the weight savings and made these models thicker and heavier was the fact that they no longer had that butterfly keyboard. If Apple didn't have an actual disaster with the amount of defects and warranty replacements they had to issue and the damage this did to their brand Apple would not have reverted this design decision.

 

[aknabi]

I'll take that bet.

Cellular Macs can/will deserve a premium, like Apple does today with iPads. People buying $2K laptops will pay an extra $20/month for a cellular plan, mainly so they can use it for work productivity.

They're not going to waste the effort and chip resources to put cellular in a $599 laptop (specifically aimed at the lowest-end of the laptop market) with will lead to an activation rate of 0.00001%

You take is sounds, but here's a (unlikely) twist... Apple could look at bundling a cellular deal to get some recurring revenue to offset the lower cost... a stretch, yes, but Apple could crunch it in a way that makes sense

 

[visualseed]

Fingers crossed for using the MB 12" tooling an using a 12.9" screen with narrower bezels... would become my couch/cafe casual Mac (since my 2015 MB 12 just never quite had enough "umph")

It needs to be a 12.1 inch screen or they may as well make another 13" MacBook Air.

 

[Biro]

Low price doesn't always equal good value. A used M1 or M2 MBP with 256GB storage and 16GB RAM for $600-700 will be a better product and offer long term value.

In the past, cheap laptops were fine because they were upgradable. However an under powered macbook won't be. As soon as you will want to do video editing, explore on device AI or pass it down to a child to play games on, limits will be hit.

The new device won’t be for everyone and it all depends on what will use it for. For me, who already owns a Mac Studio and MacBook Pro, tbis would be a replacement for a 13-inch iPad. I would do web browsing, some media consumption, email, texting, WiFi calling and light photo editing when on the road. I hope it ends up being a bit thinner than a base MBA. I could deal with 8/128 but would be thrilled with 12/256.

 

[Macalicious2011]

It would be nice to think that, by introducing A-series processors as a lower-end alternative to M-series, Apple will be able to stop using low base RAM/SSD specs and artificially hight upgrade prices to delineate their low-end models & we'll at least see 512GB base SSDs and cheaper 32GB options on the M-series Macs. Not holding breath.

This lower end laptop might do well in India which is a market that Apple is pushing hard in.

RAM is unlikely to get cheaper. It's the main upsell for apple. Offer an attractive starting point, get customers to upgrade for $200-400 but then think actually for just a bit more I might as well get the next product up the ladder.

This is how many justify getting a macbook pro, it's not much more expensive than a macbook with upgraded storage and ram.

 

[darngooddesign]

For most buyers of this Mac, the fact that it doesn't have a TB port won't matter.

I know.

 

[dgdosen]

Do A chips have the ability to drive an external monitor at a different resolution?

 

[Schnort]

The only way they're hitting that cost point is a lesser screen (smaller, lower resolution, lower nits, etc.) than the current MB Air and cheaper construction (plastic vs. metal).

Switching the M4 for an A18 is just a few dollars difference wouldn't remove $300 from the price.

Similarly, the flash costs are minimal and the memory costs pretty low too.

My guess is it'll be something LIKE the lowest end iPad with a clamshell and an Mx processor to keep their MacOS codebase without too many branches.

 

[artifex]

For $599? This is apple. 128GB storage.

Upgrade to 256GB and 16GB RAM for an extra $400. 🤣😕🙃

The same Apple that has an M4 Mini base model with 16/256. Which, by the way, is about $450 on the street. So I'm guessing if this rumor holds true, the laptop might be $550 or less in a year. Would be nice to see one in black as a throwback to the polycarbonate 2006/7 13.3 inch Macbooks.

 

[theluggage]

Switching the M4 for an A18 is just a few dollars difference wouldn't remove $300 from the price.

It's not about the bill of materials - it's about strategic price points. Premium goods like this aren't priced by totting up the manufacturing costs and then adding a modest mark-up!

Apple could probably sell a MacBook for $300 if they didn't mind the sort of wafer-thin profit margins on many PCs - but why would they if they could sell one for $600 and still look like a saving over the full-blown M4 Air?