New Entry-Level Mac Notebook Expected to Adopt Retina Display, Likely Launch at WWDC in June

[cuwickliffe]

Calling it "Air" anymore isn't in line with current naming patterns at Apple. If you look at the iPad as an example, the iPad Air and Air 2 have long gone. It's now iPad and iPad Pro. It makes sense the MacBook would follow the same naming pattern: MacBook and MacBook Pro. The entry-level one will just be the lowest-spec MacBook. The one with the fewest usable ports will be the MacBook Pro.

 

[lambertjohn]

They should have done this two years ago before they introduced the current MBP lineup with the problematic keyboards. Apple's become the wonkiest company on the planet. No solid direction in my opinion. Buy hey, Tim Cook's still getting his yearly millions $$$!! And isn't that all that matters?

 

[Bacillus]

.....The one with the fewest usable ports will be the MacBook Pro.

As the most versatile in upgradability - with dongles

 

[asiga]

And where in this lineup of either ultralight or (relatively) high performance laptops would a sub-$1000 laptop fit in? There is nothing wrong with the lineup you are suggesting (and maybe an ultralight 14" laptop might allow the 13" & 15" MBP to move up a bit in the performance ladder). But it still doesn't give us the $1000 laptop Apple needs.

A sub-$1000 laptop belongs to 11 inch or 12 inch. What's really missing in the MacBook line today is a very light MB with a decent size of display. The 15inch MBP has a good display size, but it's too heavy. Apple has lost the horizon here, they make too small MacBooks and too large iPhones. What Apple needs in the MB line is an equivalent to the LG gram in size/weight ratio, but with the quality of a MacBook. Ah, and of course, then, if you have a 15inch MBA at 1kg, you can have a heavier 15inch MBP which really deserves to be called "Pro".

 

[DNichter]

Some cleanup on the product line is definitely needed. My hope is that this is just a new "MacBook" at a lower price point and a 13 inch screen. Then you'd have the Pro line at 13 inch and 15 inch. That's really all they need. 13 inch is a sweet spot for many so it makes sense to have a cheaper end and a higher end. Then you just need to go iPhone and iPhone Pro (split screen, pencil support) and rename the mini as "Mac" (A12, no display, size of the Apple TV) and you have a clean lineup. Mac / Mac Pro, MacBook / MacBook Pro, iPad / iPad Pro, iMac / iMac Pro, and iPhone / iPhone Pro.

We may still be some time away, but I'd imagine this is the end goal. Never change the names again haha.

 

[BitsnPieces]

This update comes 5 years too late ... another one of those cases > MacMinis

 

[Falhófnir]

Surely the MacBook Air will be history after this low-cost retina 13" comes out. Maybe the 12" MacBook too. It's just way too confusing having so many different models in the mix.

Don't know, but Kuo suggested a price drop, whereas this is suggesting a retina model to take on the $999 price point. If both rumours come true then it's going to be a bit of a mess in the 13" segment while the 15" segment will remain starved of options for those of us that find 13" too small but need a degree of mobility.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

I really wish Apple would cave and make a iPad/MacBook convertible. The iPad/Smart Keyboard is such weak sauce. Put a MB logic board in the keyboard so when it connects to the iPad it becomes a Mac. Put the smart connector onto every iPad so consumers can buy the combination best for them. Based on current iPad price such a combo would sell between $799 and $1800, depending on iPad selected (including the 12.9").

But at the very least please kill the MBA. There should only be MB and MBP. Right now there is too much overlap between all models and MBA and MB are particularly too similar.

 

[mytdave]

I think it's time to kill off the MacBook Air, and just expand the MacBook line with more options and a broader price range.

 

[pier]

If they keep the old keys instead of using the butterfly keyboard I will probably buy one.

 

[Jimmy James]

The only thing I really want is a Kaby Lake or newer processor in something that isn't uber minimalist and that doesn't cost a small fortune. I don't see that happening at a reduced price point.

 

[tomscott1988]

I actually quite like my 12" macbook but its a flawed product.

It does heat up super quick, launching safari gets it up to 80 deg C but it quickly cools itself. For anything productive its useless really. Being a photographer the display has too many pixels to push for the CPU to handle for lightroom to be even close to smooth, adjustments are super slow and in photoshop just panning around an image at 100% is very choppy indeed.

What annoys me the most is the one port, its quite frankly crap. Its almost impossible to be productive and I dont find it very reliable at all.

I have a fairly expensive USB-C - USB 3 cable for use with my drives and it drops out all the time its so frustrating. I also have a dongle with 3 USB 3 and USB C pass through power and it also drops connection all the time just randomly.

This isnt really something that I expect from apple and haven't experienced before. Especially at the price point. Its really so bad that I avoid using if I can.

The port really isnt that great for me at all. The thing I like least about the port is that it doesn't supply enough power to run more than one HDD without pass through power, if it had two this problem wouldn't exist. I often want to move data from one drive to another and its just a ball ache especially on the go. Same experience with a dongle with an SD card, you cant plug an SD and a HDD at the same time without the pass through. The same with a memory stick and an SD card.

I travel a lot with the job, its such a pain to move the data to the desktop and then move it to the drive. Surely it wouldn't have been that difficult to add one more port. It wouldn't compete with a macbook pro because its not as powerful and throttles... but its great for viewing images with the screen... and should be good at things like file transfer as its a laptop... its a frustrating experience.

TBH I dont use it for 'work' other than email and browsing and if I am traveling. Its nice to offload images onto, as ipads dont have the same functionality and file system. What I will say is its probably the weakest Apple laptop products ive owned and one of the more expensive portables for power to price.

My 2013 11" Macbook Air had 8gbs ram 512 ssd and the i7 think i paid around £1270 for it. I absolutely loved it but it was stolen. It ran circles round the macbook for productivity think the macbook was about £1100, its not that much more portable but the screen is far better but really as a package the 11" was a far better machine.

I do really appreciate its compact design, it feels like taking it with you adds no penalty at all as its so light. One other problem I have had like all my other mac portables is that the keyboard has etched itself into the display. There seems no way around this unless you put something between the screen when carrying it. I dont find this practical, but all laptops flex, problem with having 0 space between the display and keyboard.

Its happened with every Apple laptop ive had including 2007 17" MBP, 2006 13" Macbook, 2009 15" MBP and 11" MBA.

I still think the basic 13" MBP is poor for its price and size especially when the newer one came out in 2015 with a £3-400 price hike for pretty much no reason at all bar the touch bar. Its crazy they call it a pro it bang average and has no dedicated graphics with 2 ports, honestly whats pro about it? The 13 should be a macbook and macbook should be called the air. At least then there would be some hierarchy to the lineup.

If they had redesigned the macbook air with a retina display with the availability of i7 chips with a cooler as previous I would have been more than happy. Unfortunately they didnt so I bought the macbook as there wasn't another portable choice.

I still think in comparison to the 13" the macbook and macbook air are far more practical for portability. Especially for users that have a powerful desktop and just want portability with the ability to be productive on the go. Just a shame they have taken the practicality of ports away to the Nth degree.

Fingers crossed the update will remedy it.

 

[smulji]

I’m almost entirely sure these rumors are just of a new updated MacBook.

Not a ‘new entry level’ machine that MR are saying for clicks, or a new MacBook Air.
The air is gone, the MacBook will take its place and they’ll bring it in at a cheaper price (about time).

The line will be MacBook and MacBook Pro once again.


*I god dam hope I am right.

"I’m almost entirely sure these rumors are just of a new updated MacBook." => Agreed

"The air is gone, the MacBook will take its place and they’ll bring it in at a cheaper price" => I think the MBA will stick around but at a lower price point ( $799 or $899) just to satsify educational institutes.

 

[Mainsail]

I won't buy any Apple laptop that has this stupid keyboard on it.

I am with you. If Apple doesn’t fix this nightmare keyboard with its faulty butterfly mechanism, I am done buying their laptops.

In the future, it will be desktops (hopefully refreshed Mac Mini) and iPads for me.

 

[TailsToo]

Apple's mobile line is such a mess right now.

I've been waiting to replace my 2011 MBP for years. The current line is either under-featured / under-powered (Air and MacBook) or under-powered and over-priced. They are generations behind in processors, their embrace of USB-C has created dongle issues, and while there are some things that are way ahead of the market (fast SSDs), there are others that they are way behind (screen resolution).

Just had to replace an old laptop for my wife, and while it's clearly not an Apples to Apples comparison, she was able to get a thin (0.55") and light 13" laptop, with an 8th Gen i7 processor, 4k touch screen, discrete graphics, USB-C and legacy ports, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD for $1099. It would cost at least $1500 more to get a MacBook Pro with similar specs.

It might be time for Apple to burn the house down, and rebuild their whole notebook strategy.

 

[lowendlinux]

If this is true and it's an updated Air, who is gonna the 12 inch MacBook for almost double the price?!
They should just cut the ridiculous price of the 12 inch and everyone would be happy...

Those that want a fanless computer

 

[TailsToo]

Apple's mobile line is such a mess right now.

I've been waiting to replace my 2011 MBP for years. The current line is either under-featured / under-powered (Air and MacBook) or under-powered and over-priced. They are generations behind in processors, their embrace of USB-C has created dongle issues, and while there are some things that are way ahead of the market (fast SSDs), there are others that they are way behind (screen resolution).

Just had to replace an old laptop for my wife, and while it's clearly not an Apples to Apples comparison, she was able to get a thin (0.55") and light 13" laptop, with an 8th Gen i7 processor, 4k touch screen, discrete graphics, USB-C and legacy ports, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD for $1099. It would cost at least $1500 more to get a MacBook Pro with similar specs.

It might be time for Apple to burn the house down, and rebuild their whole notebook strategy.

P.S. - Oh yes, and that keyboard - it's terrible. PLEASE if one thing is done, it needs to be to fix that! That other notebook has a much better one, and it's just as thin as Apple's notebooks.

 

[whiteboytrash]

Best Buy were selling off their stock of MacBooks at $200 off for the last three days. They were sold out in NYC. That tells me an update is coming. I’d say by end of March.

 

[PastaPrimav]

Where the hell are the March products?

AirPower? Refreshed 9.7" iPad?

 

[Doomtomb]

Best Buy were selling off their stock of MacBooks at $200 off for the last three days. They were sold out in NYC. That tells me an update is coming. I’d say by end of March.

It might get announced end of March but it won't be ready then. The article suggested LG Display won't start manufacturing the display until April.

 

[jonnyb098]

Confusing product line.

Every lineup they have is confusing except for iPads (ironically). And even that was severely complicated till last year. The iPhone and Mac lineup are particularly weird. Which is why for the first time in almost 10 years I don't feel a need to upgrade my 6S. My mac has been in a closet though since I use my iPad Pro for everything.

 

[bbplayer5]

Still not low enough to compete in education. Apple has no foresight here. If they don't keep pushing MAC in education, kids will grow up not using them.

Apple needs a 500 dollar laptop - or give iPad Pro the ability to use a mouse. Or they just dont care.

 

[kemal]

Just make sure it has but one USB-C port (NOT Thunderbolt 3.) That way customers will have a choice of three 13" laptops they don't want.

 

[Rodney Dangerfield]

Earlier this month, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that Apple is expected to introduce a cheaper MacBook Air sometime during the second quarter of the year, and a few days later a second report backed up Kuo's claims with a claim of a price point starting at $799 or $899.

DigiTimes is now reporting that Apple is planning to launch a new 13.3-inch "entry-level MacBook" late in the second quarter of the year, which suggests an introduction at WWDC in June. While DigiTimes calls the notebook a "MacBook," it is unclear whether it would be part of the MacBook or MacBook Air line, but the entry-level nature of the machine and the MacBook's positioning at a similar 12-inch size suggests this new machine might be part of a refreshed MacBook Air family.

However the new entry-level machine is marketed, DigiTimes says the pricing will be the same as or slightly higher than the current MacBook Air, which starts at $999, and the machine will include a Retina display.The report claims that Apple is targeting shipments of six million units of the new notebook through the end of the year, although DigiTimes analysts believe four million is a more likely figure considering the estimated pricing.

In addition to the new MacBook Air or MacBook, DigiTimes says Apple is also preparing updated entry-level iPad models for release in the second quarter and new iPad Pro models for the second half of the year.

Article Link: New Entry-Level Mac Notebook Expected to Adopt Retina Display, Likely Launch at WWDC in June

PLEASE INCLUDE AT LEAST TWO (2) USB-C PORTS!

 

[rom3o]

I know a lot of people who cannot afford macOS because of the expensive hardware

This is a homemade problem. A few years ago the cheapest desktop Mac was available starting from $499 and when Apple rebranded the 13” MacBook Unibody into the MBP line-up they also reintroduced a new white MacBook starting from $999 to cater to those customers who had complained about the $200 price increase of the unibody MacBook.

Well, those where the days when Apple didn’t try to up-sell the sh*t out of everything but instead offered a product lineup that customers could choose from based on their actual needs.