Apple’s cheapest MacBook offering today is priced at USD 999, the MacBook Air, but they are aiming to launch an even more affordable laptop soon.
Cheaper MacBook with A18 Pro chip!
According to Ming-Chi Kuo’s post on X (formerly Twitter), Apple will start mass production of the new cheaper MacBook in late 2025 or early 2026. The current MacBook lineup runs on Apple’s M-series processors, but they are expected to use the latest Apple A18 Pro chipset in their upcoming laptop.
To recall, the Apple iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max are powered by the A18 Pro chip. Imagine experiencing that performance on a laptop. Although this chipset is very capable, we don’t have any experience or idea how it will perform when running on macOS and a larger chassis.
On Geekbench 6, the Apple A18 Pro chipset got around an 8,791 multi-core score and a 3,558 single-core score. Those scores are close to what the M1 MacBook Air got: 8,810 multi-core score and 2,407 single-core score.
I personally still use an M1 MacBook Air, and it is still enough for my needs. Maybe I will create a separate article about whether it is still worth buying this year. Stay tuned!
Going back, Kuo said the upcoming cheaper MacBook will arrive in silver, blue, pink, and yellow colorways. It will also feature a 13-inch display, hopefully of good quality, and it won’t have thick bezels like the M1 MacBook Air.
While it is claimed to be cheaper, we are still not sure if it is cheap enough to be affordable for the masses, or what the trade-offs or differences will be compared to a regular MacBook Air with an Apple M-series chipset.
For now, we’ll just have to wait since there’s still no official information from Apple.